Hey folks!
Been busy while trying to collect some quality ideas out of this head of mine, so that I can share them with you. I’ll tell you, it’s a mess up there. It’s like visiting my grandma’s attic, there’s all kinds of junk everywhere and visibility is down to zero due to dust and only one small window.
“No don’t touch that sh*t, I think it’s my grandpa’s booby trap to keep us kids out from the attic.”
I’ve decided to give myself and my blog a chance. I’ve started taking this tiny notebook and even tinier pen with me when I go out with my dog or do some shopping. It’s already full with random ramblings about various game related thoughts, some written in Finnish, some in English and some even in a language I can’t yet understand. Too bad someone already managed to sabotage my work and drew a small, rather girly looking cow over some of my most crucial thoughts.
So, I wanted to talk more about this Alpha- and Beta testing amongst games, which has turned out to be quite popular recently. No matter what you do or where you go, there are flashy banners everywhere looking for slaves. “Welcome to our online dictionary, want to participate in our beta?” WHAT?!
I don’t know whether it’s a marketing gimmick or the honest thought of just getting more help in delivering us the much debated “Polished Gem” – but the ideology is starting to spread outside the gaming community.
As soon as a company publicly announces they’ve been secretly working on this new epic MMORPG game, they open the website, forums and possibly Alpha-, at least Beta signups. Is the Beta signups a new trick to count how many of us are possibly interested in this new game? I suspect something like this is going on – and why not. It surely motivates more when you know someone’s actually interested in what you do.
What sometimes amazes me, is how some companies put out their beta keys on a golden pedestal, like it’s something really rare and unique. The once quite easy and working solution to fill up the Beta ranks was to check out the user’s DXdiag-file and his computer’s stats. If he has something else than hamsters under the hood, throw his name in the hat. If not, then it’s by-bye. Then pick X-amount of names out of the hat and your done. That’s how I remember it once was. Right now I’m seeing all kinds of silly competitions running on few sites – I even once participated in one of these things for a rather well known, upcoming MMORPG.
(Heck, I’m an anxious Alpha- and Beta tester. It’s one my top ranked hobbies. See how THIS particular game has solved some of the issues that infested the earlier games, give them ideas how to fine tune things working smoothly from a gamer’s perspective and so on. Participate in Beta and do it the RIGHT way. That’s the moment when most of the MMORPGs have a lovely community. Everyone’s trying to kill the bugs and racing around the map, finding glitches etc. We are all one family. – Then the illusion breaks, it’s the launch day and the kids who can barely type their name swarm in… )
Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to humiliate myself in public or anything like that for the competition, but I won a spot for testing! I’d get my key in email, once I printed out this affidavit, fill it with all my personal information, take it to a notary so that he can confirm the information valid, pay him 40EUR from that, then send the letter to US and wait for a week or so. “Oh man, I can’t remember if they asked for a urine sample too. It just seems like a lot of stuff to do when I’ve already promised to work them for free.” Because that’s what it is right? I show them that I’ve got an adequate computer to tackle the game requirements and then I’ll work for them. Of course I’m not getting paid and they hours are pretty free – you don’t even have to do anything if you change your mind for some reason. I’m glad I was able to “just” scan my driver’s license instead of the notary rumble, when I told them how much it would suck to win something, then pay for it.
Along with bug-hunting and fixing the game mechanics, we Beta testers provide much real and valuable data to tweak the engine. The game designer – or The Monkey (if you will) gets tons of detailed information from our most common computer setups, some high- and low end setups and some that even threaten the laws of physics. It’s a good way to collect valid data from the real end users, not something you’d do with stock computers in a controlled environment.
I guess the problem today is, that major companies are swarmed with Beta signups and they can make us do some weird stunts in order to get the key. People are so thrilled to get a sneak-peak out of the game and “review” it like a final product.
Meanwhile the smaller companies can only afford in some flashy, epileptic seizures causing web-animations, yet another “The most popular online MMORPG” –sentence here and there, perhaps spam a little and even beg someone to steer in their website and download the Beta-client. Once the victim is reeled in, we give him the option to “Sign up now, only 25$ a month and we even let you download this 10Gb client faster than 35kb/s!”.
Damn Monkeys and their tricks.
This one looks kinda cunning, stay away from him.
Cheers!
-Mortemia-
For sure betas are marketing tools for certain companies. SOE shows again and again they are not above this. The recent Free Realms 'closed beta' examplifies this. If you were paying attention you got one key FOR SURE, if you were really paying attention you got a few keys on your hands.
I mean they were throwing them to the wind, to the small surprise of a few gaming sites who thought they were getting a special deal. Not so much when thousands and thousands of keys were handed by SOE on twitter the whole weekend. Now with the announcement that the game launches tomorrow, it's clear were were in open beta. :/ So why not call it that? Carrot trick? Is there no distinction between beta phases now?
I love how you write somewhat cheeky and humorous. :P
Mon Apr 27 2009 7:28PMHah, thanks for popping in Cynthe!
I know what you mean, even the word "exclusive" has lost some of it's weight, when there's dozens of places to get you "exclusive" Beta key, in-game item or whatever you were after.
I'ts all about getting someone interested enought to use YOUR webservices and click your adds.
Tue Apr 28 2009 2:00PMWell after either participating or reading about most MMO's launched to date I'm not really sure that the whole Alpha, Beta, Open Beta thing works how it's intended. I would go so far to suggest that if you want a polished game you really need to wait until a MMO is at least 12 months old before you start playing it because thats how long it seems to take most companies to get around to getting 75% of the originally planned for launch content in and actually working properly more or less kinda.
Why this happens I dunno. Maybe it's because the people who usually get into these things are fans of the game concept or IP and overlook certain things. Maybe the sample size is just to small to get a good picture of what people are likely to try to do in order to get an advantage. Maybe it's a combination of those and alot of other things that has lead to just about every MMO being launched into a seething pit of bugs and instabilities that dissapoint so many so often.
damn monkeys
Fri May 01 2009 12:55AMFor some reason it's almost like an unwritten rule to push out an unfinished game. In most cases the reason is definitely the need of money - or timing issue, trying to fill a gap in MMO market or trying to deliver when the game is on top of it's hype-level.
I just think that in the same time, some companies take a huge risk OR totally neglect the possibility of being swarmed with negative reviews and reputation from trying to feed the 75% done game for consumers, for the full price.
It's risky when so many people quit after the first free month when they get a feeling the game wasn't what it was supposed to be. And in most cases people don't come back once they've made the decicion to leave - even if the game might eventually be patched to it's full operational state.
It's like thinking:
"Let's cross our fingers and hope our game offers more positive than negative feelings - then we have two extra months to finish our game."
Only it doesn't always work like that from consumer's perspective.
Here's to you, 100% done games!
Fri May 01 2009 3:37AMWell I always find it funny when people say this game has to launch by this date weather it's ready or not to beat this other game then 1 month down the road these very same people complain about how unfinished the game is. AoC forums were full of people telling funcom to get the game out before WAR. WAR forums were full of people telling Mythic to get the game out before WotLK. Both dev houses did and look at the results neither came close to meeting expectations. If they especially Mythic had stuck to the mantra it will be done when it's done they constantly pumped out when announcing a delay WAR may very well still be in development but the subscription retention would be alot higher when it finally got released.
In some ways the way Darkfall is being released is pretty smart. They don't have a finished game but the people playing it now are generally the people who would play anything that had sandbox/full loot FFA PvP in the discription somewhere thus the number of people who quit over the bugs poor implimentation are quickly replaced by more willing to pay for Beta with many many more waiting to get the chance to play because interest continues to be high and available spots continue to be extremely resticted. It remains to be seen if Adventurine can continue this tightrope act before something else reaches out and grabs the potential audiance away. But with the way things seem to work in the MMO industry anything else is going to be just as full of bugs and exploits and all the other issues that Darkfall has so it is quite possible Darkfall will be around for quite a while making money and frustrating the doomsayers.
Fri May 01 2009 10:04AMMMORPG.com writes:
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