The development team abandoned the early open alpha and beta testing which they had used for the Guild Wars game. ArenaNet considered that player expectations for open beta tests of MMORPG had changed, and the beta was no longer used to test the game but to trial a nearly finished game prior to purchase. _{[Development]}

I say the era of Beta Testing is over, long live the new era of Beta Marketing.  The rage is due to the fact, that some people feel that there is no avenue for feedback or improvement.  That time has past.  Once the pre-ordering has begun, so has the viral marketing.  Those involved in the Open Marketing Events get to see the finished product in possibly a "gimped" or geared down mode to simulate "testing".

Anet is not new to the table here.  They have done this before.  GW2 has been in development from 2007.  For that reason and others I don't compare it to Tera, but to SWTOR.  Because they are Anet, and GW2 has GW as its foundation I expect the most "Flawless" release in history.  Anet is one of the few companies that can not say, "We have never done this before."  They have been doing this on a daily basis since 2006.

Stop calling these Marketing Events, beta tests.

Originally posted by TwystedWiz

And, I'm sorry Anet, but give you my credit card information to "test" your cash shop?  Say what?  I sure hope the security of your transaction engine is well beyond the "test" stage!  Had to say NO, but thanks.  What obligation do they have to secure your data during a "test" phase???

 

 

 

I actually agree 100%.....bad idea all around. I managed to "safely" get around it by grabbing a pre-paid cad at walmart with like 5 bucks on it. No way in hell I was gonna give them access to my actual credit card in a BETA, though.

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Didn't play, but from the livestreams I saw, I would say these 2 are some big issues. Guessing the overflow will get fixed,but are they planning on keeping the PvP thing like that? Is it intentional? Or is a group join not implemented yet?

 

There will be multiple types of "Structured PvP" in GW2 on release. "Hot-Join" or "Instant-PvP" was the only one available in the Beta, and it specifically does not support queuing and fighting in Premades. It is designed for PUG play and will even support auto-balancing teams.

There will also be "Tournament" modes and the ability to set up "Private Servers" where you can participate in Premades, set up your own map rotations (and possibly even some of the victory conditions), Team Size, etc.

So yes, there will be several ways you can participate in Structured PvP in a premade group. Instant PvP however isn't one of them.

i have only played from sunday at noon...

there was a big issue with middle eastren people ip, it seems, the issue was that the game has 2 DBs. one in Na and the other in Europe. 

people that didnt beling to that ip range were being kicked right after the login with a code 21.

it took them about 40 hours give or take to solve the issue.

and with all that being said, it was still the best beta i was in.

so much to see and to do. like a new world was opened for me.

and once i was able to log in, everything want so smooth... like butter. 

and when that world got shut down again, i felt like "when the hell can i play again?!!!"

great game for great minds, created by great people. 

Didn't have time to test on friday, but when logging in on saturday after noon (EU time) I had no problems. Once during saturday was kicked out and managed to log in immediately, no problems there. Most of sunday went in WvWvW and have to say even when there were over 100 people in near vicinity (60-70 of us and 30-50 of enemies) had no lag or very near so.

I understand that many people had problems, but that doesn't mean everyone had them.

Good beta test ArenaNet and thanks

When I bought the game the GW2 wesite says guartanteed access to all beta event weekends

and I did not get access ( atleast late until Sunday evening) .The error they had nothing to do with the actual game or lag or computer setups. It just so happped for many of us our accounts got region locked .

Now they did not update us honetsly at any given point of time, expect that " we are working on it"

The solution they gave was temporary one We could log in finally on Sunday evening but we did not have any specific server .

It was like we were bounced off from server to server each time we logged and thats why we could not play WvWvW.

People were understandly angry and frustated ( including myself) becoz we were glued to the computer from Friday without knowing any time frame as to what was going and was any solution on hand.

Had they communicated prpoperly even if it mean "Guys dont think you will get to play this beta weekend" It would have been sad but atleast we wouldnt have wasted our weekends logging every 10 seconds

Cant blame the players we waited for this game for 6 years and our 1st beta chance.While the American comrades were blissfully playing we in EU and middle east were staring at our screen which lead to uncessary jealousy and rage.

I will state what I said on GW2 forum " People are angrly and venting angry because they care and they expect"

I wouldnt care a damn if it was beta of some other game like TERA or secret world and it would have not worked.

Also this specific problem was account related and not game related.

and thread opener no login issues were not fixed they did temporary patch work so that atleast we could get some few hours to play. -

Originally posted by BigHatLogan

People can post whatever they want, but raging about a beta just makes posters look like pathetic nerds. 

 

 Really? Because far as I'm concerned the ones raging about them look a hell of a lot worse. Least they're actually referring to the game and not how other people should respond, react or enjoy said game.

I myself (and thousands others) could finally log just the last day :(

Pleaded Anet for extention of beta...but no luck.

Regardles , one day, i had much fun :)

yeah there wasnt much server lag for me..even in full blown WvW AOE massacre i didnt lag i was actually happy with how smooth it went..

i5

1.5tb

8gig

6450 grapgics lol.

turbo boost.

all went pretty smooth.. maybe next beta ill lag rage quit but this one went well.

Only real issue I had over the weekend was with the world transfer, but I was aware that it was a queue.

Aside from that the only other issue was dealing with the fact that it was only a weekend and couldn't play any longer.

Was loving my guardian.

So this long text can be shortened to:

There are login issues and lag, but this is beta.

Fine, and I agree. But I heard a lot different complains about content, combat asf. I feel that needs to discussed much more. I am sure lag and login issues will be adressed by ANet. It is the content of the game which needs debates much more than the technical formalities.

The lack of a regional or global chat channel and the combat concept are IMVPO far more pressing issues to discuss.

The game sure requires a good queue engine as for me all the problems with loging in appeared during the busy hours only... I am really sure that the problem is when you try to log in - you connect to your main server (instead of the server list) and if the server is overcrowded - you get the error message (operation failed) instead of being put in a queue.

I am sure this will be solved easily by devs, though it's a bit strange they didn't care to implement those things during closed beta... It seems like they didn't care about login interface at all... like there is no option to  log off to the character selection screen instead of totally loggin off the account... I logged off during busy hours just to try another class and was unable to get back... lol... the nastiest possible trap for altoholics.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

This is what happens when you offer beta access via prepurchase or preorder. Nothing new here and I have no sympathy for companies being taken to task over it. Matter of fact I'm rather sick of people always laying the blame at the feet of the players and giving these companies a free pass. It's getting really old. You reap what you fucking sow. They want to market beta and use it to increase sales? This is what happens when some pay for the product and can't play or have serious issues. Beta or no.

Let 'em rage. They paid for the product. Like I'm supposed to have sympathy for Anet when they essentially had the majority pay to get access to their beta. Give me a break.

Absolutely agree, and it's not just ANet, but any developer that does this.  ANet in particular though, at this point, get no sympathy from me because they had a million people apply for a beta test but chose rather to use that as a hype tool ("Hey look we have a million fans!") and then sold beta keys under the innocent pretense of "pre-purchase".  How many of those million got into this last beta, 5, 10, 100?

It wasn't a beta weekend, it was a paid preview.  Beta doesn't mean what it used to no matter how much you bold, underline, or use it in a title.

I enjoyed the beta very much and have absolutely no regrets of prepurchasing and would gladly do it again..

There again i am a veteran tester and knew things would not always work liquid smooth and this is why they have a beta and i am glad to help out while getting to play my favorite game!

I bought the game and got beta.. I didn't buy beta. I knew I was going to buy it before they offered beta.

Nobody had to buy the game to play beta. You could wait around on the beta sign up list from months ago and hope to get in. Some people with closed beta accounts got into the beta and didn't purchase the game...

Or you could have gotten a PAX beta code.  Why aren't people saying "I was forced to pay for PAX to get a beta key!!" ?

Several friends of mine used PAX beta codes and didn't purchase the game.. got into beta just fine.. so the argument that you could only get in by buying the game is flawed and inaccurate.

Wow, those login problems last two hours the most, are you really creating an article about that?

Will you write a book about the beta review then?

Focus, please, the game was pretty nice, specially the pvp! GJ Anet!

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

This is what happens when you offer beta access via prepurchase or preorder. Nothing new here and I have no sympathy for companies being taken to task over it. Matter of fact I'm rather sick of people always laying the blame at the feet of the players and giving these companies a free pass. It's getting really old. You reap what you fucking sow. They want to market beta and use it to increase sales? This is what happens when some pay for the product and can't play or have serious issues. Beta or no.

Let 'em rage. They paid for the product. Like I'm supposed to have sympathy for Anet when they essentially had the majority pay to get access to their beta. Give me a break.

 

This is a load of horsecrap. With all due respect.

If you buy a game because it gives you beta access you also buy the probablity it does not work from the word go and possibility that it does not work at all. Because when you buy something beta that is what it is.

And beta, for the computer-illiterate means; buggy, not ready, test-mode, help us make the game better mode. Beta is not early access mode where you get the finished product earlier then others.

Gamers seem to overlook this fact way to freagging easly.