As said above, I spent 320$, to be honest not having heard of the game other than I knew who was in the alpha. That alone sold it for me. I figure I need the competitive edge ASAP, and time is money. Also stated above, no one can let you know anything about what is going on, so your questions sound more like a challenge for them just to give you an access code :).
Need some convincing!
Stumperd
(Stumperd)
#22
Freekje, I had the EXACT same feeling you have now, 2 days ago. But I just bought the package, because I want to make sure the game becomes something I like.
Now I have played the game for 2 days and I did not regret my decision for 1 second. It is truely worth the 120$.
And the devs really listen to the beta testers.
Dthy
(Dthy)
#24
Just chill, occupy your time with other games for the while. My guess (mine, not SD’s) would be an open beta would be around Q4 of this year.
INF3RN0
(INF3RN0)
#27
Alpha testing usually involves refining the meta-game and mechanics, including a fairly large amount of flexibility in changes. Beta testing is where your mainly finding bugs, stress testing, and slightly tweaking things. Alpha is a fairly time consuming and technical process when your trying to release a high quality product. Do you just want to play now and then complain about all the things that are unfinished or wait for something truly amazing? The game is still in Alpha because they don’t just want a bunch of people who are only there to “play the game, get disappointed, and cry about it not being finished” because that entirely defeats the purpose of an Alpha. Alpha testing is really an involuntary job of sorts that requires constant communication and technical analysis over restrictive testing phases. Some people have bought into Alpha just to play, but for$120+ in support SD can afford to have those kinds of testers; plus there’s already plenty of very good testers anyway. Just wait until it’s ready and don’t be so selfish…
acQu
(acQu)
#28
Alpha testing usually involves refining the meta-game and mechanics, including a fairly large amount of flexibility in changes. Beta testing is where your mainly finding bugs, stress testing, and slightly tweaking things.
It is actually the other way round, or should be like that. Alpha is where you find bugs, get the game as stable and smooth as possible, deal with performance issues and try to get the basic game on feet. At beta, and even beyond release you start tweaking the meta game, as is even now constantly done by e.g. Blizzard and SC2. Basically every patch they make defines a new meta game, with the basic meta game probably implmented in beta, and of course thought about and roughly implemented in alpha.
And the alpha work in this regard is the actual timeconsuming and hard work: to get the game smooth, bugfree and have a good basic performance.
acQu
(acQu)
#29
Alpha testing usually involves refining the meta-game and mechanics, including a fairly large amount of flexibility in changes. Beta testing is where your mainly finding bugs, stress testing, and slightly tweaking things.
It is actually the other way round, or should be like that. Alpha is where you find bugs, get the game as stable and smooth as possible, deal with performance issues and try to get the basic game on feet. At beta, and even beyond release you start tweaking the meta game, as is even now constantly done by e.g. Blizzard and SC2. Basically every patch they make defines a new meta game, with the basic meta game probably implmented in beta, and of course thought about and roughly implemented in alpha. Tuning the meta game is already way too fine-granular, it is way too much fine-tuning to be done to such an extend in alpha.
And the alpha work in this regard is the actual timeconsuming and hard work: to get the game smooth, bugfree and have a good basic performance.
Antharax
(Antharax)
#30
Well, at least I’ll have Dark Souls to keep me company. Make the game rock for us!
Mustang
(Mustang)
#31
I think generally you have to introduce the features before you try and bug fix them. 
Theophany
(Theophany)
#32
I dropped the $120 on DB for the simple reason that I felt like I owed SD something for the thousands of hours of entertainment ET gave me over the years and the awesome people I met playing it. In my mind, DB hasn’t cost me a penny.
But then I’m kinda retarded.
Ruben0s
(Ruben0s)
#33
I dropped the $120 on DB for the simple reason that I felt like I owed SD something for the thousands of hours of entertainment ET gave me over the years and the awesome people I met playing it. In my mind, DB hasn’t cost me a penny.
But then I’m kinda retarded.[/QUOTE]
Same here. And funny thing is that I found out 5 minutes later that they already had invited me to the closed alpha before the open alpha started. But my hotmail is such a mess that I totally missed locki his e-mail. But I don’t really care about the 120$. If they would have had a donate button on their site I would have done the same.
SockDog
(SockDog)
#34
They don’t have a donate button but there is a gift button if anyone wants to contribute more and also make someone else happy. Double Karma. 
acQu
(acQu)
#35
It is more a matter of prioritizing the features. Fine tuning of weapon mechanics is important, but that early in the alpha i would put higher priority to stuff like performance, business model and basic concept. These things simply are main priority. But then again, people seem to do things different and it is not so much of a matter as long as the end result is good. Maybe it fits the working style better if you have completly balanced weapon mechanics first and then you are satisfied, but for me that would cause chaos in my head…was always a fan of solid performance and clean ground first.