You shouldn't have come out of closed beta for now.

[Backuplight]

The preachy posts on “what beta used to mean” never fail to amuse me. There is no hard and fast rule as to what “open beta” must entail, and we’re in an age where even indie developers can reach their audience like never before. Yes, this has come with the trend of early access alphas and open betas, and yes, some of them crashed and burned. That doesn’t suddenly invalidate the right of other developers to use an extended period of open beta to work on their game while having it available to those that want to try it out.

[TeeKayM]

Do I think it shouldn’t have come out of Closed Beta? No, not at all.

Closed Beta had so little players that I could recognize names I played with a few days ago. Open Beta brought it so many new faces which was a big plus as the developers could get more feedback, both from new and existing players.

As for cheaters…

People complain about cheaters like Dirty Bomb is the only game that is infested with cheaters. See CoD, that’s a AAA game and it has a truckload of cheaters (On the PC and Xbox). Every game will have cheaters, whatever the devs do. It’s just inevitable.

Matter of fact I can bet you £20 that 90% of the idiots who whine on the forums about cheaters didn’t take the time to make a report - yet they still complain.

Surely the game has its flaws with dumb bugs and pretty linear progression system and all that, but that’s what Open Beta is for. I can almost guarantee that the game wouldn’t have made it this far if it wasn’t for Open Beta.

[Trendy_Ideology]

The preachy posts on “what beta used to mean” never fail to amuse me. There is no hard and fast rule as to what “open beta” must entail, and we’re in an age where even indie developers can reach their audience like never before. Yes, this has come with the trend of early access alphas and open betas, and yes, some of them crashed and burned. That doesn’t suddenly invalidate the right of other developers to use an extended period of open beta to work on their game while having it available to those that want to try it out.

There’s nothing preachy about explaining to people who are apparently very dense that if everything about this “open beta” resembles a launch, then, effectively, it was a launch.

Like, call it whatever you want. But the media, average player, reviewers, streamers, critics, etc, already made a judgement about a game sometime between when the open beta first launched and months down the line when it continued to be in open beta with no sign of official launch in sight.

When you start releasing major patches and updates to a game that mirror the normal patch cycle of a fully released game, have a customer service team, are selling goods and services, and look, act, and feel like a fully released product, don’t be surprised when people are like “Yea, sure, buddy, “open beta” whatever you say, winky face.”

I’m not trying to “enforce” any “rules” about what is or is not an “open beta”.

I’m just explaining to you that if the “open beta” is clearly a launch… if it acts like a duck, looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, well, it might just fucking be a duck.

So don’t be surprised when people treat it like a duck and look at the sign hanging over the duck that says “not a duck” as a farce, thinly veiled misdirection, etc.

What I think is hilarious is the rhetoric of apologists like yourself needing to mischaracterize someone else’s comments as being “preachy” and note how “funny/hilarious/sad/whatever” you personally found them to be because you’re clearly so much more enlightened on the subject. Developers can go do whatever the fuck they want, brosef. No one’s trying to STOP them from doing XYZ, I’m just pointing out that hanging a sign above a duck that says “not a duck” looks really fucking stupid, and no one believes your bullshit when you do it.

If you want to support the developer’s right to insist their game is “beta” even though anyone with eyes can clearly see there’s nothing beta about it, you go right ahead. I fully support your personal empowerment in that regard.

[Amerika]

[quote=“Amerika;69452”][quote=“Trendy Ideology;69431”]Beta means nothing. When your product is released for public consumption, that was its launch, that was its release.

It’s funny how many people hold this view yet as if it’s a black and white situation. I don’t think I’ll ever understand this type of mentality.[/quote]

What’s funny about it?

Beta used to mean something.

Games used to be Closed Beta with very few invites. Closed Beta with more invites. Closed Beta with people being able to invite some friends, and then they’d have a launch date planned or even announced, and then they’d do an Open Beta leading up to the planned launch.

Now people just put their games in “Open Beta” in fucking perpetuity and just LEAVE them there.

Your game has already been reviewed by all the youtubers. Your game has already been reviewed in all the mainstream magazines, review sites, etc. It’s already on MetaCritic. It’s already got feedback and judgements being made based on the current iteration of the game as-is.

If you’re having trouble understanding why it’s a horrible idea to misappropriate the concept of an Open Beta and turn it into this lame duck excuse for why XYZ still isn’t working days weeks or months later, you should read up on what a traditional software cycle is, because that’s what all games/software/etc used to follow until people started doing this early access/open beta nonsense for years at a time.

Software release life cycle

You can disagree with a company’s choice to put up a game for sale or have a cash shop while it’s still in development. That’s fine and it’s your opinion. But what you think you know about software development and what is reality are two different things. Reading my previous post explains some of this.

I work in software R&D for a living. There has always been many different systems and mentalities that companies use to get their software out. Development and testing methodologies along with releases have changed over the years. We are currently developing an HTML5/javascript powered “client” that can be used across a broad swath of devices that might end up replacing our traditional c++ windows only client and it’s been interesting as web tech simply isn’t there yet. Customers are already using it but it’s still being developed. They know that and accept it. We would technically be in an “open beta” with our software…so is this just an excuse for bugs? Our competitors do the same thing. This is not only a valid form of releasing/updating software but it’s widely accepted in many industries. The companies using our product can and do provide feedback for exactly what they want to see and how badly they want it which dictates what features we prioritize or bugs we fix immediately. Sound familiar?

The way software is delivered has constantly changed over the years. Especially for games that are now way more connected to the developers due to connectivity of PC’s and the consoles and broadband expansion in the last decade. Companies used to develop a game and then dump it. If it had issues we all lived with it and hoped that a patch, if you were on PC, would come out months later. Now companies can get a game out and then keep developing it.

There are many different strategies that companies can and do take for many different reasons (again, some of those I cited above). You can disagree with it but betas/demos in the past were mostly useless and when a game was released you pretty much had to live with it. You’d maybe get a patch or two to fix a few things. Now the community can help guide a game through development. However, the cost is when you develop software sometimes bugs are created or there is a regression. Something as simple as not committing a fix you made to all branches which can cause something to be fixed in a current branch that is released but be broke in a future branch is common…because we’re humans (and there is very little automated testing in game development to my knowledge). We, as players, will have to deal with that. But we also get way more input than we used to,.

So you can sit here and judge all you want but it’s not a black and white situation. There are tons of reasons why software is developed in this manner and there are quite a few positives. But it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. It’s a complicated issue and it changes based on company, people and product being released. So you can have your opinion…I just don’t agree with it and my opinion is colored by real world experience and understanding of the processes involved and decisions that have to be made.

In the end I’d much rather have input on a game being developed and deal with the few bugs than just hope something gets plopped out and they hope we like it. That has a tendency to not work out at times. See Brink.

[Trendy_Ideology]

This is semantic gibberish.

The issue is with people throwing up “beta” as a shield against criticism and feedback, or a company hiding behind the beta label instead of owning up to mistakes/issues and fixing them.

I’m not sure if you guys realize this but SD/Nexon isn’t hiding behind their beta label, it’s the apologists like yourself that are trying to do it for them. They don’t need you to white-knight on their behalf, they’re clearly listening to the feedback and fixing stuff as it comes along.

It’s called continuous lifecycle improvement. Look it up, as I fear you’re mistaking the idea of an open beta with the idea of continuous lifecycle improvement, and I’d expect someone in R&D for software to know better.

Here’s the proof in the pudding for you.

Does your company and your competitors actually call their products “beta”?

And if so, can you back that up with any proof or documentation? Links to advertisements? Because you’re asserting that the product you’re providing to customers is effectively an open beta, so if it’s open, and beta, and being advertised as such, then there’s customer facing websites and documentation I should be able to access, right?

[Sorotia]

Evolve died very quickly because they tried to piecemeal out a $60 title that was MP only and separated people in regards to who could play with who based on the characters/maps they owned. They tried to fix that later by allowing everyone access to the same maps and other stuff but it was way too late. So that was a completely different issue for Evolve.

I thought Evolve sounded like a interesting game…good thing I never bought it if it’s is/was doing so bad!

[Leonine]

If they hadn’t come out of closed beta then they wouldn’t be making money right now. Now that they are making money they don’t even need to keep to a regular schedule or, well, fix things - there is comparably little incentive now to bring the game up to the standards of quality control you want.

That might sound horribly cynical but it is partially the consumer’s fault, myself included; I’ve spent a fair amount, bought a bundle and quite a few mercs, under the assumption that the game would receive regular continued support.

Splash Damage were already a small team and now it seems that their attention is divided, as by necessity people must have been moved on to Gears of War. Dirty Bomb support seems to have suffered as a result, demonstrated by new mercs now being pushed back to monthly releases at best. It took this long for a somewhat working anti-cheat system to be put in place, something that, really, should have been in the game long before the store was opened up.

I honestly thought Dirty Bomb had great potential and had a shot at maintaining a healthy population, and I wrongly, perhaps foolishly assumed that content would continue to come out at the same pace in the future.

Unfortunately this is now the way of doing business - people like myself will stupidly pay for and spend money on unfinished products, and there is no longer any pressure on Splash Damage to develop and improve Dirty Bomb in a regular and timely manner.

I honestly find it baffling that people would compare this game to Evolve favourably. Evolve was too expensive but you unlocked all available non-cosmetic content for that price. The only day-one DLC was worthless cosmetic weapon skins. Unlocking a similarly satisfactory amount of content in Dirty Bomb is far more expensive. Evolve had a horrible price tag but Dirty Bomb does not compare favourably regardless purely from a monetisation standpoint.

Again, I realise this is a horribly cynical and bitter post, but I don’t think I’m necessarily being unfair. Despite now receiving a source of income for the game, support for the game has not only failed to improve but has actually slowed down and become far less reliable and regular than what it initially was at the start of open beta. I find that confusing and frustrating and that does influence my opinion of Splash Damage.

I don’t wish to give the wrong impression; as a gamer I really enjoy Dirty Bomb. I think the core gameplay is great and has a lot of potential. From a technical/development and business side of things, however, I have lost faith in Dirty Bomb becoming what I thought it might be. As a gamer, I love Dirty Bomb. As a paying customer, however, I have become bitter, and I know I’m not the only one. That’s not good

[Amerika]

[quote=“Trendy Ideology;69959”]This is semantic gibberish.

The issue is with people throwing up “beta” as a shield against criticism and feedback, or a company hiding behind the beta label instead of owning up to mistakes/issues and fixing them.

I’m not sure if you guys realize this but SD/Nexon isn’t hiding behind their beta label, it’s the apologists like yourself that are trying to do it for them. They don’t need you to white-knight on their behalf, they’re clearly listening to the feedback and fixing stuff as it comes along.

It’s called continuous lifecycle improvement. Look it up, as I fear you’re mistaking the idea of an open beta with the idea of continuous lifecycle improvement, and I’d expect someone in R&D for software to know better.

Here’s the proof in the pudding for you.

Does your company and your competitors actually call their products “beta”?

And if so, can you back that up with any proof or documentation? Links to advertisements? Because you’re asserting that the product you’re providing to customers is effectively an open beta, so if it’s open, and beta, and being advertised as such, then there’s customer facing websites and documentation I should be able to access, right? [/quote]

You suffer from a world view where you treat your opinion as a fact and dismiss actual facts and other lines of logic. Yes, we actually do call them betas or fast track releases.

Citing out of date wiki articles that does not even begin to cover the extremely varied way software is released and just how agile development is these days doesn’t help your argument.

You have an opinion of how software should be released. I have another. I cited actual real world examples of my logic in regards to the developers, current acceptable practices in the industry based on personal experience, the logic behind why software is developed that way now in regards to connectivity with your audience and some of the economics involved. You have cited out of date and out of touch wiki articles and have dismissed all of the reasons that I brought to the table without addressing any of them.

Since you are so gungho about telling people to look things up you might want to look up what the word semantic means. Also, attacking people by labeling them as a “white knight” makes your already weak argument just that much worse.

Please stick to what was said and respond to that as opposed to making assumptions and accusations and telling people to look things up.

[Backuplight]

[quote=“Trendy Ideology;69943”](Wall of Text)[/quote]If you want an actual discussion, maybe drop the condescending tone and the insults as to how “dense” the people you’re replying to are. Whatever points you made that I might actually have agreed with get lost in the rest of the drivel. You just come across like yet another run of the mill internet troll.

[Derpfestor]

[Daergar1]

Regardless of what anyone wants to call their product, the moment it’s open for public consumption it gets judged as it stands right then, not what it will, or might, be down the line.

“Early access” and “open beta” (as it works today) equates to launched. In respect to PR and game flaws, I’m not sure how this can be a good long-term situation unless you get every prominent youtuber and gaming site to repeatedly cover and report on your game?

Now, personally, I reckon that DB’s gameplay was ready to be tried and judged when it left “closed beta”. The utter lack of a working anti-cheat (and reporting and so on) didn’t do it any favors though, nor the lack of several other features that should have been in place prior to “launch” .

I’ve spent some money without it being required, I’ve had some fun, so no harm and no foul. The longevity and “e-sport” and all that jazz, however; does anyone actually think that will happen?

[binderr]

[left][quote=“Daergar;70091”]Regardless of what anyone wants to call their product, the moment it’s open for public consumption it gets judged as it stands right then, not what it will, or might, be down the line.

“Early access” and “open beta” (as it works today) equates to launched. In respect to PR and game flaws, I’m not sure how this can be a good long-term situation unless you get every prominent youtuber and gaming site to repeatedly cover and report on your game?

Now, personally, I reckon that DB’s gameplay was ready to be tried and judged when it left “closed beta”. The utter lack of a working anti-cheat (and reporting and so on) didn’t do it any favors though, nor the lack of several other features that should have been in place prior to “launch” .

I’ve spent some money without it being required, I’ve had some fun, so no harm and no foul. The longevity and “e-sport” and all that jazz, however; does anyone actually think that will happen?[/quote]

My question is… When is this game will be out of beta, when all bugs/error have been quelled ?? maybe 2016?[/left]

[Backuplight]

[quote=“Daergar;70091”]Now, personally, I reckon that DB’s gameplay was ready to be tried and judged when it left “closed beta”. The utter lack of a working anti-cheat (and reporting and so on) didn’t do it any favors though, nor the lack of several other features that should have been in place prior to “launch” .[/quote]I guess the reason they didn’t just full launch is we’re missing content - pretty tiny amount of maps for a game to say it’s “fully released”, and only one game mode (Objective is just… half a stopwatch, I can’t consider it a full game mode).

So called soft-launches (open betas) are kinda weird, I can’t imagine there being any oomph left, so to speak, when the game decides to say it’s leaving beta and fully releasing.

[Amerika]

[quote=“jokingBinder;70097”][left][quote=“Daergar;70091”]Regardless of what anyone wants to call their product, the moment it’s open for public consumption it gets judged as it stands right then, not what it will, or might, be down the line.

“Early access” and “open beta” (as it works today) equates to launched. In respect to PR and game flaws, I’m not sure how this can be a good long-term situation unless you get every prominent youtuber and gaming site to repeatedly cover and report on your game?

Now, personally, I reckon that DB’s gameplay was ready to be tried and judged when it left “closed beta”. The utter lack of a working anti-cheat (and reporting and so on) didn’t do it any favors though, nor the lack of several other features that should have been in place prior to “launch” .

I’ve spent some money without it being required, I’ve had some fun, so no harm and no foul. The longevity and “e-sport” and all that jazz, however; does anyone actually think that will happen?[/quote]

My question is… When is this game will be out of beta, when all bugs/error have been quelled ?? maybe 2016?[/left][/quote]

It’s definitely possible. Think about it. They have mercs who have been developed but not released yet. They have some things they know they need to get working in the game that aren’t working yet (like private servers and demo recording and a few other things come to mind). They can release those mercs that have already been developed while releasing features the community needs. By the the end of all of this everything should be working quite nicely and then SD can simply add on to stuff as they feel it’s needed to keep income going into the game but won’t require a ton of dev time. At that point DB will, hopefully, be pretty good overall. That is definitely a glass is half full outlook but that’s just the type of guy I am.

[Daergar1]

[quote=“Amerika;70135”][quote=“jokingBinder;70097”][left][quote=“Daergar;70091”]Regardless of what anyone wants to call their product, the moment it’s open for public consumption it gets judged as it stands right then, not what it will, or might, be down the line.

“Early access” and “open beta” (as it works today) equates to launched. In respect to PR and game flaws, I’m not sure how this can be a good long-term situation unless you get every prominent youtuber and gaming site to repeatedly cover and report on your game?

Now, personally, I reckon that DB’s gameplay was ready to be tried and judged when it left “closed beta”. The utter lack of a working anti-cheat (and reporting and so on) didn’t do it any favors though, nor the lack of several other features that should have been in place prior to “launch” .

I’ve spent some money without it being required, I’ve had some fun, so no harm and no foul. The longevity and “e-sport” and all that jazz, however; does anyone actually think that will happen?[/quote]

My question is… When is this game will be out of beta, when all bugs/error have been quelled ?? maybe 2016?[/left][/quote]

It’s definitely possible. Think about it. They have mercs who have been developed but not released yet. They have some things they know they need to get working in the game that aren’t working yet (like private servers and demo recording and a few other things come to mind). They can release those mercs that have already been developed while releasing features the community needs. By the the end of all of this everything should be working quite nicely and then SD can simply add on to stuff as they feel it’s needed to keep income going into the game but won’t require a ton of dev time. At that point DB will, hopefully, be pretty good overall. That is definitely a glass is half full outlook but that’s just the type of guy I am.[/quote]

Indeed. Except unless the game is along the lines of the next great coming, people will have moved on and the game falls deeper under the radar.

I don’t have any data (I’m sure it exists) to back this up except hearsay, but things like appearing on steam’s front page is a massive boon to any game. Being featured on sites and by prominent let’s play people must surely have an impact.

I mean, where else are you grabbing players from, the gaming section at the local super-market like it was the 00s? I understand that Gamestop is still a thing in the US, though surely not for PC? Not bought a physical copy of anything in the last five years or so.

The game gets reviewed as it is at the time of public access, and when a game gets slapped with a (misconceived) p2w stamp, “rampant cheating”- and “unbalanced classes”-stickers, I cannot think they magically disappear from the consumers’ minds half a year down the line when the game is out of beta and “released”?

Look at Loadout (closest thing to DB recently that I can think of). Look at any recent Insert Random Mmos Here. Out-of-touch balancing and incompetent monetization (Archeage comes to mind) that ruin excellent ideas.

I’m pretty sure it won’t matter how shiny DB will be in three or six months, simply because by then it won’t matter for any number of reasons. Hardly a unique fate for a game, just a shame because the actual game is pretty good, just pushed out to the public too early.

It’s not even milking the consumer since for a f2p game it’s staggering how much it lacks monetization (even I could whip up some shiny face-masks in Paint and sell those to the eager masses).

I am sure I lost the point somewhere.