You guys want to know why so many players like open beta?

• because it is free
• We signed up to play, not pay
• We are players, not payers

Hopefully they'll do what Rift did and offer the beta to people who pre-order. Amazon doesn't give people grief for canceling pre-orders like retailers do so it's a nice and easy free trial even if they don't want it to be.

Originally posted by Kothoses

Originally posted by ichimarunico

No open beta... hmm... servers aren't going to be functional for the first week of launch.

 

Let me just prick that bubble for you mate, Open betas are NOT about stress testing hardware or anything like that "open betas" are a marketing tool designed to drum up extra day one sales.

 

Stress testing hardware can be done with one server and configuration and a selection of the 1.5 million people that are signed up for closed beta opt in ;) so a open beta is not needed what so ever for this game.

Still most mmo company use open beta to stress test hardware and game W.O.T did stress test in close beta and in open beta so say that open beta is just marketing tool designed to drum up extra day one sales not really true now.

And now if bioware dont want to use open beta it is there choose but i wont SWTOR in 1st few month anyway for it will shit load bug that need to be work out which the can fix if the use open beta for if you have more people in the game then just 1.5 million the chance is alot bigger to found all small and big bug for beta tester in close beta do tend to play one way while people in open beta do tend test thing in other way.

They said they would most likely be doing this 2.5 - 3 years ago.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

WoW really ? A closed beta until release which means NDA still in effect until the last few days. What ya hiding guys ?

they are hiding the uncanny resemblence that the game has to world of warcraft lol.  think about it!! if you play the beta for free and dont like it!!! your not going to subscribe are you lol.. so that must mean all that stuff about dissapointment has got them worried.  they maximum income from day one, i wouldnt have an open beta either.

Ok then i will have to wait until they offer a trial. OR if the reviews of the players are ultra positive then i will buy it.

-edit-

By the way a developer had a theory about how many days you let people try your game before releasing related to game quality. Anyone remembers the exact phrase? 0 days is not looking good for SWTOR.

I definetly want to play a beta of a MMO i am considering playing. Simple reason i wanna see if it fits my style. I dont need 2 weeks or month of open beta - honestly 1-2 days would be completly fine with me. For me the open beta is for:

- seeing myself how the game runs on my plattform

- seeing how the combat system / skill system plays - regarding my own likes or dislikes

- getting a look at the first quests to see if the general atmosphere is something i would enjoy for a longer time

yes  i can still be decived by this mini trial as i dont know about endgame content and such things. TRUE. Thats my personal risk. An open beta just lowers this risk for me to a level where i cosider buying the product.

Originally posted by gaou

http://e3.gamespot.com/live-cam-tour/?cam=1&tag=masthead%3Be32011%3Bvideo%3Blive-cam-1

At about 41:45 Daniel Erickson says they might not do an open beta, just a large closed beta

YAY, can't stand all these OB's.

I'd rather see a much more focused and proffessional attitude towards a beta, rather than the hordes of players who just want to play the game early, with no intention of testing.

As if any of you complaining about this were ever going to buy the game in the first place. If you're REALLY sincere about the whole "I don't buy until I've tried" (which again I seriously doubt based on the negative post history towards this game by most of the complainers here) then just wait until the free demo comes out. What difference does it make if you get to try it for nothing before release or six months later? Just asking....

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Originally posted by ktanner3
As if any of you complaining about this were ever going to buy the game in the first place. If you're REALLY sincere about the whole "I don't buy until I've tried" (which again I seriously doubt based on the negative post history towards this game by most of the complainers here) then just wait until the free demo comes out. What difference does it make if you get to try it for nothing before release or six months later? Just asking....

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lul +1

I was hoping from the start there would be no open beta. In a game where story is so important if there were an open beta there would be spoilers galore on the web. Open betas no longer serve any real purpose and I think not having one for TOR is a good decision. I already feel like there's too much info about the game floating around. Too much info can lessen that new game experience. I'm sure they'll invite enough people to the closed beta to stress test their servers.

Another thing I find annoying is how they always show off the intro cinematics early for games. Like I watched that video expecting another one of those hype cinematics but then I read the title and realised "intro" and it's like..... fuck. They ruin it and need to leave it as a suprise for the game.

Originally posted by ktanner3

As if any of you complaining about this were ever going to buy the game in the first place. If you're REALLY sincere about the whole "I don't buy until I've tried" (which again I seriously doubt based on the negative post history towards this game by most of the complainers here) then just wait until the free demo comes out. What difference does it make if you get to try it for nothing before release or six months later? Just asking....

I've been looking forward to this game more than any other in the past several years... but I will NOT buy it before I can try it out. 

Of course I don't want to wait 6 months for a free demo, how could that possibly NOT make a difference?  If I have to wait, I'll wait, but I've already waited years for this game, but I'm not about to give them 50 bucks just so I can give it a try and see if it's worth playing or not.

Originally posted by Wolfshead

Still most mmo company use open beta to stress test hardware and game W.O.T did stress test in close beta and in open beta so say that open beta is just marketing tool designed to drum up extra day one sales not really true now.

And now if bioware dont want to use open beta it is there choose but i wont SWTOR in 1st few month anyway for it will shit load bug that need to be work out which the can fix if the use open beta for if you have more people in the game then just 1.5 million the chance is alot bigger to found all small and big bug for beta tester in close beta do tend to play one way while people in open beta do tend test thing in other way.

 More players in does not mean better data.  If that was the case then all of the research the world has relied on has been wrong.  Sampling is a proven method for performing research and testing.  More does not mean better.  In the past having a true open beta made sense when there were less than 500k worldwide mmo players.  Nowadays there are millions who can readily access that beta and it makes no sense to spend so much money to operate servers just so people can play for only a few days.

Server farms are not cheap and history has shown that alot of people show up for the free ride and fail to pay.

Cheers!

that is actually not quite right. There is still no real test or sampling for server stress. Meaning unless you let the customer loose and let them use a server infrastructure you have no clue how much load it can handle really handle. Problems such as Stack errors or overflows often only surface when pushed to the limits. Only a real player crowd can simulate actual load on your game server.

Originally posted by madeux

I've been looking forward to this game more than any other in the past several years... but I will NOT buy it before I can try it out. 

Of course I don't want to wait 6 months for a free demo, how could that possibly NOT make a difference?  If I have to wait, I'll wait, but I've already waited years for this game, but I'm not about to give them 50 bucks just so I can give it a try and see if it's worth playing or not.

  Yea  /agreed, I just have to play F2P AOC, Firefall, Hellgate and FE till they come out with the free trial.