Originally posted by Stradden

Funcom Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen speaks to MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood about the Fileplanet Open Beta. In this interview, Tharaldsen addresses a number of the rumors that have circulated since the Open Beta announcement.

Ever since their open beta was announced, Norwegian development company Funcom has come under fire from fans of their upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan, and the criticism has had very little to do with the content of their game.

The complaints stem from a decision to partner with IGN’s Fileplanet for distribution of keys to their beta. In order for players to qualify for an AoC beta key, they have to be the proud owners of a premium membership at Fileplanet (which costs $5 per month for a year). While many has applauded a beta through Fileplanet, is has  also led players to feel as though they are paying to participate in a beta and that Funcom has done this in an attempt to a) draw in extra funds for the game and b) to disguise some kind of failing in the game itself.

Read more here.

After I read that ” He went on to tell us that download speed was a consideration in the decision. After all, the client itself is a hefty 13Gb in size I skim read the rest ...... yup I was right  they wanted to make some money off of the beta.

Originally posted by Ananais

I think that what this really comes down to is a miscommunication.  I agree that this largely comes down to player expectation of what an Open Beta means colliding with tremendous excitment for the launch of this game.  I know that my girlfriend and I are so stoked on Conan that we can hardly wait to play it.  Knowing that other people are playing it right now in closed beta and that other people will be playing it soon in open beta kills us.  The 17th seems like an eternity away.  But what Funcom owes us is not the opportunity to play now, but the opportunity to get their game right at launch, in whatever form that takes.

The product we paid for, or will be paying for, doesn't come out for another 2.5 weeks.  Just because we preordered, just because we want to play now, just because we feel like we'd make good testers, doesn't mean that we deserve to be playing the game in some form of beta right now.  And that goes for any of us.  They already have a group testing mid and end-game content called closed beta that they're hosting 100% internally.  As a result open beta through Fileplanet going farther than early levels would start being redundant.  The game needs to test their launch capabilities, which means maintaining a massive number of Tortage instances being created as people make and remake characters that they plan to take up to high levels.  The download has to be the full client because building and testing something they won't be using for launch doesn't do them a bit of good in catching and fixing potential bugs.

As for having to pay for the beta, well, yeah, it's frustrating.  Like I said, I want to play now too!  But while it would be easy to call foul play on Funcom for using a term that has historically not required payment in many of our experiences, it actually does make sense.  Having Fileplanet host the download means that Funcom's customer service and network staff can focus on in-game problems rather than dowload problems specific to the open-beta.  For Funcom, the difference comes down to whether they get 50,000 testers and don't have to worry about managing the distribution, or getting 50,000 testers and having to dedicate a team to focus on in-house distribution, a team that would otherwise be working on improving the game.  From the perspective of a company trying to make the best product they can make by the 17th, it's a no-brainer.

For those of you who would truly be willing to give up on AoC altogether simply because, like the majority of us who will have to bide or time with other activities until the 17th or the 20th, we didn't get selected to play 13 levels of a pre-release, unfinished, version of the game, you might want to take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to deflate your egos a bit.  Funcom is a business, and they've done what they felt made the most business sense to create a product that people will want to play and involved as many potential players as they felt was necessary in the process.  Hosting the beta through FilePlanet is not about you, it's not an attack on you, it's not disrespecting you, your wants, or your needs.  This is about Age of Conan and what is right for Funcom to make it a good game by launch.  I would love to see more people show the ability to be grown-up enough to accept that.

I am a fileplanet subscriber and have been for a long time. It allowed me to get various demo/files/etc much faster than other sites and so on. AoC Beta Key is simply a perk as are the other beta invites I have gotten just for being part of fileplanet. I have found it to be worth the subscription. *Shrug* I personally believe the company has every right to distribute 50k keys however they please. Course they could always just let everyone in, and servers crash, game is laggy.... and then everyone runs away whining about how bad the game is. The point here is they want stress testing on a controlled level.

xXSeraphielX

I'll play because there is nothing else out right now that is worth a damn and LoTRO is getting boring. Also I had a lot of fun at the PvP weekend and want some more. Sorry for those of you who don't want to play a 60 dollar game anymore. If its totally horrible I lose around 75 dollars for the game and first month. I make more than that in a couple days and I am a student  lol!

Originally posted by KoSPr0

Originally posted by jimmyman99

 

Originally posted by yugo

i just cant get it into my big thick skull why people keep complaining about they "have" to pay for the beta.

You are not paying for the Beta your paying for a faster way to download patches,games,stuff thingy ect.

it just happens that inclued into all this there is a chance that you might be lucky enough to also enter the beta of certains games, In this case AOC.

if it is so bad to pay for that service then...dont? noone is forcing anyone to pay for the beta, your buying a service that inclued the chance of beta testing games, not AOC specific.

Also the gaming studios are not required to make an open beta, it is just an "easy" and simple way to quickly get 10.000+ people to stress test your network, just be happy that they do give us a chance of helping them and for us a chance to get a sneakpeak at a game.

so in the end: Quit whining about paying for a beta because your not, and quit whining about this not being an open beta because they are not required to give us one.

Its just a little bit too convenient. yes, technically FC isn't charging for beta. Somebody else does. And that somebody would just make a donation into FC development fund.

 

If FC really wanted to distribute their client and really did want to get the BEST help to test their product, they would hire those who CARED about AoC - fans, active posters, guilds, people who actually WILL play and test, and not someone who paid for FP premium account, who never heard about AOC but who got a key to join in and who may never actually get passed the login screen or even download it (13 gigs anyone?)

Its just unfair to the fans. Its sneaky and hypocritical and greedy. That about sums it up how I feel about all these shenanigans. Some may call this "whining", I call this "WTF, some trying to trick us and lie to us. We are not idiots."

  If they really cared about the beta, they wouldn't take advice from a bunch of upset F2P open beta kiddies.

Its not about advice, its about testing. OB is for testing unfinished/unpolished product. Its a paid (usually) process, paid TO the testers... except in a gaming world, where OBs seem to turn around and testers pay to the developers to test their games.... WTF??? Its like going to a clinic to be a blood donor and pay for it. Or getting your nuts hit with a baseball bat and.. paying for it!

Originally posted by nikoliath

Holy crap, I haven't seen like this for a long time. Some of you really need to just sit back and reflect upon how childish you are behaving

 

How is this such a big deal? I was all set to sit back and wait for release/pre-order day and let those who choose to subscribe to FP carry on. As it turns out I was lucky enough to win the comp.

I dont see much going on here. I see mature arguments and counter-arguments. I am actually very pleasantly surprised at the low number of flames or childish behavior about FC and their OB decision.

Originally posted by Gnazon

The way I see it the reason for 13 level cap for open beta trial is geography: You are not able to leave Tortage, so you do (or at least should) not need the content that comes after Tortage. So basically what we are getting is the pvp weekend client with full Tortage and no autolevel-to-20-script. (Whether or not there is more content in the client is a whole other thing.) A client like that will let Funcom stress test a zone without having to worry about people spreading too thin. First part of destiny quest should give one a good taste for the AoC story and character development, after all this is beta and not free trial.

As for the whole Fileplanet angle... it is silly. If you do not have Fileplanet subscription and do not wish to pay for one do not take part in open beta. How hard can that be? Yes it could have been handled differently, but it is Funcom's game and they are allowed to handle the beta as they see fit. Again, learn live with it.

Ok, imagine you are an avid fan of a football club. You go to their plays, you even attend their trainings. They notice you. You help them by getting coffee, drinks, moving furniture... small stuff. They know you by name now, and they promise you to give you all season ticket (theres only one ticket available).

Now, how would you feel if you would see some hotshot rich boy who just happend to have a grand in his wallet paying for their uniforms and grabbing that ticket you dreamed about? Unless of course the coach told you if you were to give 1500$, then the ticked would still be yours. Would you just shrug off and go home? Or would you rather be pissed? Sure, they didnt do anything wrong. They needed uniforms. And technically, you arent being FORCED to pay for it. Its your choice. How would you feel?

The only bad thing about the Fileplanet beta I can agree on is the horrible way Fileplanet chose to distribute the keys. Forcing people to either run their faulty comrade program or camp the signup page is just too much and I have expected much better from them. So my disappointment (even though I did get my key) is fully on Fileplanet side.

Ok for all the people saying why  didn't Funcom just host the file themself its only 50k people, they say they are ready for 600k to patch on launch day.... Currently the patch will be 400mb. the full client is 13gigs

13 gigs divided by 400mb comes out to like 32.5.... 32.5x50000= 1625000

For all those who don't see what i am getting at here... 50k people downloading a 13 gig file is like 1.6 million people at launch day... it would be a mess on there servers with the addition of people they have in beta downloading the patches and trying to actually play the game.  They sent the file out to a server farm that could handle the load, that server farm decided to charge for its useage... that isn't really funcom doing that, its fileplanet.

I understand alot of folks wana play the game, but tell me how is the fileplanets beta at 5 dollars different then preordering a game and canceling it cuz you didn't like it? Costs you money either way.... Gaming companys do not HAVE to have an open beta they do it cuz its a nice look for the public... Do not try to say things like "they owe it to us" or "this is crap we shouldn't have to pay to play a beta" cuz honestly.... would you guys just prefer there was no public beta at all?

Do you guys HONESTLY believe that Funcom are making money off the Beta?   It's the standard Fileplanet subscription fee .... not a fee to play the AoC Beta?

You lot need to get some perspective and stop being such a bunch of cheap arsed parasites who just want to play a game for FREE for a month.

Originally posted by todeswulf

I feel for the guy, his team is busting there humps and the lard ass idiots that live in their Mom's basement and could not get a job beyond Pizza Hut actually are given the credibility to question them.  

That's why I would never dream of game design as a career.  Enterprise software designers work less hours make more money, and when they are called into question, it is from a professional...not some mouth breathing fry cook with no life.

Said it many times. Love games hate most gamers.

 

LOL, love the cut of yer jib. Nice retort to the negatrons.

However, they "the consumers" have the power to make or break a game. They may live in their mamma's basement but they are hardcore slayas when it comes to felling mmo giants. David and Goliath man, (lard ass) Davids and Goliath man.

Regards

Melmoth

Originally posted by PowderBurnt

Not a single question as to why tech testers were passed over when they already have the client installed. The entire "interview" was softball.

This.

Originally posted by spector75

Ok for all the people saying why  didn't Funcom just host the file themself its only 50k people, they say they are ready for 600k to patch on launch day.... Currently the patch will be 400mb. the full client is 13gigs

13 gigs divided by 400mb comes out to like 32.5.... 32.5x50000= 1625000

For all those who don't see what i am getting at here... 50k people downloading a 13 gig file is like 1.6 million people at launch day... it would be a mess on there servers with the addition of people they have in beta downloading the patches and trying to actually play the game.  They sent the file out to a server farm that could handle the load, that server farm decided to charge for its useage... that isn't really funcom doing that, its fileplanet.

 

I understand alot of folks wana play the game, but tell me how is the fileplanets beta at 5 dollars different then preordering a game and canceling it cuz you didn't like it? Costs you money either way.... Gaming companys do not HAVE to have an open beta they do it cuz its a nice look for the public... Do not try to say things like "they owe it to us" or "this is crap we shouldn't have to pay to play a beta" cuz honestly.... would you guys just prefer there was no public beta at all?

While you're math is right, it still doesn't explain why they didn't torrent out the beta client.

In fact, seeding out the torrent from the login servers / game servers is great way to stress test the bandwidth of a server.

Oh, and it takes like 10 minutes to set up. If that's too hard for FunCom, I'm worried about what would happen with a real technical problem. :P

to be honest i get the feeling these deals with file planet will be the way of the future when it comes to open betas . personally i cant see the point in paying a years sub just to get to play the game a few weeks earlier than everyone else . if think the more important issue if they go down this route is to offer a weeks free trial on release to everyone . if they dont do this accusations that they have something to hide will be levelled at them . already these forums are full of people doubting thier pc will actually play the game .a badly handled release can effect a games popularity .

the strange thing is we all know these simple facts but sometimes the people who market mmos are totally clueless to them .

I personally would not play any game that was only available from Fileplanet.

1.  Fileplanet requires that you register.  Giving your personal information to a third party for a one off download is asking a lot.

2.  AFTER obtaining your personal information, you then find out you cannot download without paying a fee for a service you may not use again.

3.  In addition, when I recently tried to download an old MMO, I found out after further investigation that the game was actually no longer available for download even though the MMO official site said it was available from Fileplanet.  Luckily, I had not paid the $5.

"" if think the more important issue if they go down this route is to offer a weeks free trial on release to everyone . if they dont do this accusations that they have something to hide will be levelled at them . ""

Haha can't believe people are whining about a open beta, be glad that they even have one. This new generation of MMO players should just stick to their xbox or counter-strike and quit ruining MMOs with your whiny attitudes.

This is not a trial, this is not a privilege, it's a beta. If anyone feels like canceling their pre-order because of this go ahead, just one brat less playing the game.

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by nikoliath

Holy crap, I haven't seen like this for a long time. Some of you really need to just sit back and reflect upon how childish you are behaving

 

How is this such a big deal? I was all set to sit back and wait for release/pre-order day and let those who choose to subscribe to FP carry on. As it turns out I was lucky enough to win the comp.

I dont see much going on here. I see mature arguments and counter-arguments. I am actually very pleasantly surprised at the low number of flames or childish behavior about FC and their OB decision.

Sorry mate, I see it differently, I see page after page with posts from spoilt crybabies who are canceling pre-orders, not buying this game and prophocising the downfall of AoC simply because they wont get to PLAY it for free.

As you rightly pointed out earlier open beta is for testing, testing how your network will handle large amounts of traffic and to see if there are any nasty bugs as a result of a higher population than closed sessions. Open beta is not, as some people seem to think, a consumer right nor is it a genuine oppertunity to play the game for free to decide if you like it or not. Granted some games have used a genuinely open beta as a way of generating a consumer base before launch, Funcom haven't, big deal!

People complaining about being "mis-sold" this because of the unannounced lvl 13 cap need a reality check or to seek psychiatric help.

It is in my opinion that Funcom made a smart move here by sub letting their client distribution to Fileplanet. I do not subscribe to the service myself, but have used it before and in this case had the fortune to win a VIP account, the system works flawlessly. It seems only reasonable that Fileplanet should get something in return, which they did in the form of the exclusive rights to the keys for this "open beta".

Originally posted by googajoob7

...snip... if think the more important issue if they go down this route is to offer a weeks free trial on release to everyone .

the strange thing is we all know these simple facts but sometimes the people who market mmos are totally clueless to them .

as are  some of the people that play them by the looks of your reasoning

Can't people just be honest here? Just own up to the fact that you are throwing "hissy fits" because you wont get to play it early.

edited typo.

Bah...Kids !!!! Grow up..Nothing in life is free

YOU ARE NOT FUNCOM, it's their choice, it's their multi million dollar project, and they can do as they please with it..

Besides, fileplanet betas has been like this before, you will have to be a subscriber..It may or may not be bad choice from Funcom, but it's their choice, simple...

When did you last try GTA IV for free ? The whole game ?

Or Crysis or Bioshock or Oblivion ???

You didn't you bought them anyway...

So, what's the diffrence ?

There is no diffrence at all..

Well, AoC is a MMO, but in the purchase you will get ONE MONTH FREE playtime, One month is more than most people even play the above games..One Month should be enough time for you as a customer to deiceide if the game is good or bad....

See, you buy all sorts of games without getting a FREE LOOK at the entire gameworld or how the game may or may not run on your computers..

And it's NOT that AoC cost's more than the above games, it costs as much as them..

It's not that you are signing a contract with the devil when you purchase AoC, you will not be bound with that game forever...

And, If you pre order, it's up to YOU..And if you cancel for these reasons you are just very unmature and childish..Or you are on a tight leech with your parents money....

This is just SOOOO Stupid, Grow Up Kids

What I find funny is fileplanet has done this many times before for many different games and you have to be a subscriber to get the keys. I have been a subscriber for 5 years so this was nothing new to me.

I downloaded this client at speeds of up to 850kb a sec. I was a tech tester and took longer to download that client. It was larger though.

I see nothing wrong in what they have done to distribute the client for "open beta" which by the way they said all along they would never have a open beta. So  I do believe they just worded it wrong causing the kids to cry and the bashing to start.

Good luck see you all in final as I already preordered just from what I saw in 3 hours of the tech test.

Well done on completely dodging the are you being paid by FP for them to host it?

That is all this ever was about making money of a beta.