Beta Experiences

[Natdaprat]

Hey guys. I'm just curious to know peoples beta experience.

I've been in a few Betas recently.

I was in Lord of the Rings Online beta, which wasn't bad. I had fun and the end beta event was the highlight. There was an invasion at Trestlebridge (right name?) and everyone defended.

I was also in Age of Conan beta. It was a small beta actually, and the NDA was quite tight. I got in through that lame "write a letter to a god saying why you should be in" thing. I was one of the 200 that got into closed beta. I'm telling you, that was the worst beta EVER. The game actually got worse as it progressed to release. Everything was bugged, it was almost as bad as Vanguard. They spent more time advertising than they did actually making their product good.

Another was WAR, which wasn't a terrible game. Not much to tell of that one though.

-

How about everyone else?

*Flame shield up*

[kordoyn]

For me Beta is always shitty, because I actually write out bug reports etc, instead of just playing and complaining about it, although it's fun to compare games at the beginning of beta and the end, usually easy to tell how successful a title will be.

[[LoD] EE]

NDA means we cannot disclose who is in BETA and What is going on in it. Dont ask the question again or one of the MODS will give you a Salty Dog.

:D

I was in the WoW Beta and CoH, Its an experience alright..

[Natdaprat]

I think NDAs are lifted after Beta though, right? I can't be told to be silent for the rest of my life over a terrible Beta where people contantly whined that their game that they're testing for free is down.

[Gloomrender]

I was in WOW Beta too. Man was that a lag fest. And even after release it would take for fucking ever just to log on the servers.

[Indah]

beta'd from UO to AoC and all in between. Some are good, some are terrible. I hope I get a chance to beta df and help this game become great.

[Tzacharu]

Never been in a beta unfortunately. Unless you count RuneScape 2's beta. Wasn't really a beta for a new game, just updated graphics and some added elements.

For me it was a pretty good experience. I had no idea what a beta was back then, so to me it was just playing the game. Though I remember quite a few bugs that got fixed.

[Nevi M'Or]

Just forget about the NDA and beta testers. What is the big deal. Just leave it alone. The game will be out shortly and you can all see for yourselves what it is like. You are like children sneaking a peak at Christmas presents in November. Can't you just wait one more month. It won't kill you to do so.

[freeze_SD]

the most fun beta was SWG

it was more like a pre-alpha though ^^

[slugy]

beta'd from UO to AoC and all in between. Some are good, some are terrible. I hope I get a chance to beta df and help this game become great.

/vom.

[Hecubis]

I was in the F&F Alpha for WoW.

That game was actually pretty decent before they turned into a rat-race for gear.

[Gloomrender]

I was in the F&F Alpha for WoW.

That game was actually pretty decent before they turned into a rat-race for gear.

Ya, once upon a time WOW was supposed to be a game true to Warcraft with skill based pvp...they got everyone intrigued with this promise and then immediately broke it and turned it into EQ with a Warcraft theme.

[Salaman]

Planetside beta was probably my favorite. I wish I kept the CDs they mailed to me since nobody sends them anymore (or maybe they do, I haven't been chosen for any major closed betas ever since WoW came out and blew up the MMO player base by around 50x)

[Paganini]

I got bored with both LOTRO and WAR betas quickly but the D2 beta was pretty ballin

[Suitepee]

Am I the only one who thinks this is a not-so-subtle thread to get someone stupid enough to tell us about Darkfall beta?

[Razli]

Tabula Rasa Beta. (Or however you spell it)

And Matrix Online Beta.

[Mo0rbid]

I've beta tested(closed betas):

Age of Conan
Warhammer Online
Tabula Rasa
7 moons
Runes of Magic
Burning Crusade
Wrath of the Lich King

[Galadourn]

never in a beta; DF is actually the first game that has me significantly intrigued to want to beta-test it instead of wait for the official launch

[belthize]

Been in quite a few betas dating back nearly 20 years. Several betas
of Merc/Circle/Diku Muds. Some of those were interesting since I had
access to the actual code, find bug, submit patch.

I missed UO and EQ betas, life got in the way. Most betas seem
to play out the same, EQ2 WoW, DaOC, Vanguard etc ... unstable clients,
unstable servers. Try and submit bugs but no clue whether they're
noticed ... fall into 'play game' mode get frustrated, submit bugs. Attend
some random last day of Beta event.

Some betas I left early ... get in and realize, "Oh this game f'ing
sucks, not what I expected".

You can tell pretty well from beta just how successful the game is
likely to be by the nature of bugs, quantity of bugs, success rate in
closing bugs. Some games like WoW had a butt load of bugs and stability
issues but they seemed to get progressively better. Some games
like Vanguard had a similar number/quality of bugs but each time they
fixed one others cropped up. From that you could tell they had fairly
poor dev tools and were pretty much winging it.

Server stability problems are fine, they're usually overflows, easy'ish
to track fix. Server performance problems are a very big deal. They
can be underlying DB, network stack issues and may almost impossible
to fix without rewriting large chunks from scratch. This inevitably means
throwing out some feature the player base is rabidly in favor of.

I actually enjoy the Beta process, trying to find the edge case problems
the devs missed and reporting them is somewhat of a game itself. Folks
who treat beta as a free shot at playing a game usually get pissed off
since, predictably, the game's not very fun at that point.

Belthize

[alfaroverall]

Beyond Protocol beta wasn't too bad, but the fact that everyone was all scrunched together for testing purposes (while the final build has a geography system that would create new planets as new people joined) was pretty unpleasant. The bugs and crashes were actually not that bad after the first week or so, though.

Haven't been in any other betas.
I was in the F&F Alpha for WoW.

That game was actually pretty decent before they turned into a rat-race for gear.
Kind of random, but: what was the highest instance that was in at launch? MC? Or was that not even in?

[Dolmar]

Guildwarz beta was not to bad WoW beta waz um ... good enuff that i did buy the game just cause it was the new biggest thing .. then quit shortly there after.Age Of conan beta waz omfg horrible but i still got the game ..

[Temet nosce]

I've been in betas for enough games not to bother recalling them all, but strangely my favorite testing period for a game was actually the alpha of Mythos. Which was a complete blast, the devs encouraged players to test things out by doing whatever they wanted. One guy put together hacks for people to test, I spent some time doing end of the game instances at level 10, found a bunch of incredibly fun and funny exploits...

Honestly that game was best in alpha.

[Unknownhost]

beta tested UO t2a expansion (which never worked right as my account was never properly flagged for entry), Battlefield 1942 was a really fun beta, so much fun i didnt but the game til somthing like 10 years after it had been out since i had already had my fill of it during the long beta.

has been a couple others but i wasnt taken with those games and didnt bother to contribute really, more logged in (or attempted to) a few times then didnt bother anymore.

[freeze_SD]

better question:

what beta CDs/DVDs do you have?

random download betas are for sissies...

[Signus]

The main beta I can remember wasn't really a beta. I was in the LotRO alpha because I had talked to the devs in person several times. I had a blast at first, because I had been waiting for the game for almost 6 years at that point. But as soon as the novelty of being in Middle earth wore off, I was greatly dissapointed. The game was originally Middle Earth Online, and a sandbox, but got changed at the last minute to a linear WoW clone, so they changed the name to reflect this.

That being said, it was the most stable beta I've ever been in. Almost every stage went off without a hitch, the ALPHA was more stable than most games I've played. Without a doubt the most flawless beta since DAoC for me.

[takenyouth]

Just forget about the NDA and beta testers. What is the big deal. Just leave it alone. The game will be out shortly and you can all see for yourselves what it is like. You are like children sneaking a peak at Christmas presents in November. Can't you just wait one more month. It won't kill you to do so.

did you read his post?

i beta'd for Vanguard, i followed that game since it was first announced, it was a shame to see it go like that. The game was pretty fun in beta, but a fucking lag fest.

[Maas]

Discussion is for past beta experiences.


No discussion of games which are currently under NDA.


Violators will be violated.

[Byggin]

I was in closed beta for Roma Victor for over a year, most painful 10 or so hours a week ever. I wanted that game to succeed badly.

[Temet nosce]

Violators will be violated.

In the tradition of the internet... Pics or it didn't happen. Actually, just make a video if you manage it. I'm sure since you're a mod you can somehow accidentally overlook the ToS long enough to let us watch.

[kbotwell]

I was in LOTRO beta not best but very addictive gameplay and i love the story and scenes,i was also in a little WAR action it was okay... love public quests!

[Ankh]

Asheron's Call open beta, my first taste of an MMO. Man, that game used to be so amazing.

[Panzero]

Warrock Open/Closed Beta. Damn, that was a fun game. Probably spent over 200 hours playing that. Only got in a few bug reports, it was a very well made game.

I remember there was a bug in one of the more popular maps where you could defuse through the wall. Out of a community wide principle noone reported it. Actually carried on until release, when the newfags /wrist over it.

[Lictor]

So you guys think, that this bragging will get you chosen for DFO closed beta, or what?

[Suitepee]

Archlord closed/open beta. Game got really grindy early on (I quit at level 2x) but was generally possessing decent controls and crappy PvP. Had lame bugs too,and the moon elves were nothing more than sluts. Seriously.

Fiesta Online closed/open beta. GM's surprisingly active in this F2P,and still are to this day. The game isn't bad but nothing special either tbh.

Face of Mankind open beta. Only got good when I joined the white coat Guardians,who actually RP'd. Everything else was like trying to play a FPS deathmatch with no weapons and half the morons running around with smg's.

[Mo0rbid]

editred for content

[Mo0rbid]

better question:

what beta CDs/DVDs do you have?

random download betas are for sissies...

who does that anymore? oh, none

[Dhig]

Beta tester in SWG, WoW and Warhammer.
My friend also got a beta in Warhammer and I just hated that he wouldnt report bugs. He were just in it to play.

My first time as beta tester in SWG was tough but fun.
They restarted the game way too fast for me to test out anything.
I mean, I worked, got home, beta tested 3-4 hours and then to bed.
In those 3-4 I could play for perhaps 1.5-2 hours at most and send in reports and waiting for servers to come online again.

Beta tester in WoW was just easy. The game was not hard to test out. Everything you did was questing, instancing and improving your proffessions.
And if anything didnt work out you filled in a bug report. Very easy.

Warhammer was also easy. Imo they fucked it up by having a answering system were you just filled out a form.
It was a bitch to report anything else but in that form.
Mythic pretty much fucked up their own beta.

I think beta players should be those with more time to play and fill out bug reports.
I just hate people that beta tests just for the purpose of playing the game before others. They are destroying the game instead of helping.

[Lethn]

Chronicles of Spellborn had to be the most fucking annoying beta experience ever for me and I don't care if I'm breaking NDA my accounts pretty much inactive, they made the mistake of making it so you can't change the filters on custom tabs after I ended up deleting the default chat tab they used so I was ending up getting spammed to death with combat and emote spam. Of course I reported it like I should but frankly they should have made sure it was working to begin with before they went and put that chat screen up.

I was in SWG beta for awhile because my brother didn't want to play it but nothing else really significant.