Quakewars going to beta... fake or true

(mortis) #21

My feeling is that there will not be an open beta at any point. We may get an MP test / demo when release is imminent, but I have a feeling that the delay is not a game engine issue at all.

Squirrels have been whispering about a few other issues, but most of the talk I have heard has been game balance related. I’m sure there is plenty more that needs work; game levels, game editor, netcode, HUDs, web admin, etc etc

Making a game is like building a car. Even if you have the engine finished and it runs sweetly, you still can’t drive until you have wheels, seats, steering wheels, etc. I’d rather wait for a Ferrari Testarossa tomorrow than have a 1979 Ford Pinto today.

(Fab) #22

They are a commercial company and thus their goal is to make money - its to be expected… even if their tactics are a little suspect. Lets hope Activision (im asuming they are in charge of this stuff) dont help them in their persuit of world domination. The Beta testers should be chosen by an unbiased party and based on merit, not by people with ulterior motives.

(datoo) #23

Hell no, Pinto 4 lyfe!

(TotalQW|Ace101) #24

deleted by me

(madness) #25

most of the members there don’t write anything or don’t even visit it…they just registered cause it was requiered to participate in one of those competition u had or smth…
so if you pick someone, and he doesn’t reply or anything…you pick a new guy, right ?

(Tapirus bairdii) #26

Sound’s like perfect recipe for a closed beta to me, and exactly something one of the founders of ID Software, executive producers on the game, would get involved with at personal level!

(SCDS_reyalP) #27

I hope there is an mptest with enough time for people really play it (I interpreted wils dev diary to hint toward that, but maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.)

I know there is a school of thought that says public betas are pretty much a waste. The signal to noise ratio of bug reports is very bad, and you end up wasting time that would otherwise be spent just making the product better. There is also the argument that a buggy beta can turn people off the game, and even if the final game is good, lessen the “wow” factor when it is released.

Those arguments have some merit, but for a complex MP FPS like et:qw, there is a huge downside. Balance issues require often only show up with a lot of play time. When everyone is running around like a newb, you can’t tell if a trick that is dominating is really out of balance, or the other team simply hasn’t found the counter. That means you need time for players to really get comfortable with the game. If that were the only problem, you could still do it with a closed beta, but…

Balance problems also tend to be a result of thinking outside the box, which really handicaps closed betas. When you play a game, you pick up habits from the people around you. If you only play in one small group, you are far less likely to come up with completely unexpected tactics, because you learn from those who have been on the team and doing the same things since day 1. This is a particular problem for developers, because they think they know how the game is ‘supposed’ to be played.

It is a well established fact that players will always come up with completely unexpected ways of using the game mechanics. Some of them will be fun and add to the game, while others will hurt gameplay.

Finally, open betas get the product tested in a far wider variety of systems than any QA lab can. Given how much of the tech in et:qw is new, this seems like a good thing.

(TotalQW|Ace101) #28

deleted by me

(Wils) #29

Winner for what?

(kamikazee) #30

Please don’t tell me that Bongoboy’s airpowered coffee-maker is involved in this as well…

(Wils) #31

No, but I just bought a milk foamer which I could throw in as a bonus prize, if there’s interest.

(Zarkow) #32

I really don’t think Splashdamage would ever want to have beta-testers that won it from a site as a chance to play it early.

I’m currently a beta-tester for another mp-game (no, not Bf2142) and unless one really takes it as a job (part-time if needed) then you aren’t going to be of much value to the company. People that just apply to get a chance to brag about playing the game isn’t needed - ever.

(Fab) #33

How can you claim that its unbiased when you have to be a member? :disgust:

(Nail) #34

Well, this is how I read this thread:

(SCDS_reyalP) #35

That depends a bit on the stage of testing. For example, for load testing what you really need is active players on the server. In the testing for et 2.60 we stuggled to get 64 players on a server, even with a number of volunteers and people from ATVI qa.

A lot of companies have gone the route of trying to tie beta testing into their marketing campaign, or someone elses promotions. e.g. fileplanet provides the downloads, in return for having the beta be ‘exclusive’ to paying memembers. I always that that paying to test a product was a pretty poor deal, but it is certainly gaining popularity among marketiods.

(TotalQW|Ace101) #36

deleted by me…now i know why they deleted my other thread…

(Svanire) #37

I hope there is an mptest with enough time for people really play it (I interpreted wils dev diary to hint toward that, but maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.)

I know there is a school of thought that says public betas are pretty much a waste. The signal to noise ratio of bug reports is very bad, and you end up wasting time that would otherwise be spent just making the product better. There is also the argument that a buggy beta can turn people off the game, and even if the final game is good, lessen the “wow” factor when it is released.

Those arguments have some merit, but for a complex MP FPS like et:qw, there is a huge downside. Balance issues require often only show up with a lot of play time. When everyone is running around like a newb, you can’t tell if a trick that is dominating is really out of balance, or the other team simply hasn’t found the counter. That means you need time for players to really get comfortable with the game. If that were the only problem, you could still do it with a closed beta, but…

Balance problems also tend to be a result of thinking outside the box, which really handicaps closed betas. When you play a game, you pick up habits from the people around you. If you only play in one small group, you are far less likely to come up with completely unexpected tactics, because you learn from those who have been on the team and doing the same things since day 1. This is a particular problem for developers, because they think they know how the game is ‘supposed’ to be played.

It is a well established fact that players will always come up with completely unexpected ways of using the game mechanics. Some of them will be fun and add to the game, while others will hurt gameplay.

Finally, open betas get the product tested in a far wider variety of systems than any QA lab can. Given how much of the tech in et:qw is new, this seems like a good thing.[/quote]

I agree.

More so, games (esspecially mmo’s) have done beta’s in the past only to have the self important community riot out of control and try to undermine everything. You might say it won’t happen but people will if the beta they receive isn’t upto there standards( dont argue on this one, you can scream all you want it’s a beta but people are ****** stupid). It’s important to realise the pen pushers don’t want anything other than your money, its the cold truth so why tell the devs to release a beta to the public that could potential lose them sales?

(jah) #38

orly?

announcing that they’re going to host the “(un)confirmed beta” to bring hungry ET:QW fans over to their site while advertising some GSP/hosting company… that’s just soooo cheessyyyyyyy… if they’d be really working some agreement with activision, shouldn’t it be confidential? imho.

leave the world domination for :tapir: 's pls.

J

(DG) #39

I hope there is an mptest with enough time for people really play it (I interpreted wils dev diary to hint toward that, but maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.)

I know there is a school of thought that says public betas are pretty much a waste. The signal to noise ratio of bug reports is very bad, and you end up wasting time that would otherwise be spent just making the product better. There is also the argument that a buggy beta can turn people off the game, and even if the final game is good, lessen the “wow” factor when it is released.

Those arguments have some merit, but for a complex MP FPS like et:qw, there is a huge downside. Balance issues require often only show up with a lot of play time. When everyone is running around like a newb, you can’t tell if a trick that is dominating is really out of balance, or the other team simply hasn’t found the counter. That means you need time for players to really get comfortable with the game. If that were the only problem, you could still do it with a closed beta, but…

Balance problems also tend to be a result of thinking outside the box, which really handicaps closed betas. When you play a game, you pick up habits from the people around you. If you only play in one small group, you are far less likely to come up with completely unexpected tactics, because you learn from those who have been on the team and doing the same things since day 1. This is a particular problem for developers, because they think they know how the game is ‘supposed’ to be played.

It is a well established fact that players will always come up with completely unexpected ways of using the game mechanics. Some of them will be fun and add to the game, while others will hurt gameplay.

Finally, open betas get the product tested in a far wider variety of systems than any QA lab can. Given how much of the tech in et:qw is new, this seems like a good thing.[/quote]
I’m not really convinced by the school of thought that beta’s are a waste either, espeically if you keep your employed/contracted playtesters on for at least part of the period (say, a few weeks at the beginning and again towards the end).

Even if you totally ignore the players the employees will have a much wider experience ‘in the wild’. If you combine a general forum for players to bounce things off each other with a formal bugreport submission page, a lot of the noise would be filtered out - certainly in the beta’s I’ve participated in anything I’ve found got discussed in the forum and the actual bugreport was a summary of conclusions from that. Sure, I’d bet you still get more crap than a county of farmers can make use of, but it’d be reduced, and the quality of the good stuff would be better.

I vaguely recall it as a common theme in the games that I’ve been involved in testing in, the devs have later stated their mistake with the beta was not giving it enough time.