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Reader Comments (21)

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:27PM Captaindrek1 said

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O.o
Man, I just stopped spendin too much time on the computer!

Well if this is what God wants I can't really complain can I?

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:28PM Drakkenfyre said

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"Beta test weekends"

That's not how you do a beta test. I don't get it why companies keep treating betas more and more like early previews. You want people to help you find bugs, bugs that cannot be replicated in-house with a couple hundred players. You don't hold "beta test weekends". You need more than server load testing and some light bug hunting. You need to toss open the gates, let people break shit, hope they give you a good report, and fix it.

Every time a developer does this "early demo" bullshit, the end product turns out with a ton of bugs they could have caught.

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:40PM Viiral said

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@Drakkenfyre You do know the game has been in beta for over a year.

The "open" beta only needs a weekend cause they have tested the game to death already.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:41PM (Unverified) said

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@Drakkenfyre You have to realize they've had closed beta going on behind doors for months now, though no one is able to talk about it due to NDA. I think their product is finally getting to the point where they want to stress test their servers for load testing.

I can guarantee that they've had tons of testing going on. Just no one's heard about it.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:50PM Drakkenfyre said

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@Viiral

Yes, I know the game's been in closed beta. It needs more than that. You think a single weekend is enuf? You apparantly haven't seen many betas.

Even if they have, say, 10,000 in the closed beta now, that's still nothing like 30,000, or 40,000.

This is Bioware's first MMO. Despite all their games prior to this, they are still going to have a rough time of this launch, no matter how much they prepare. But doing "beta weekends" isn't going to do themselves any favors. Sometimes you need fresh people doing ridiculous stuff to find bugs that the previous testers didn't. Especially after many iterations, the current beta testers may no longer be doing completely random stuff to find new bugs that a new player might.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:55PM (Unverified) said

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@Drakkenfyre Like I mentioned before (even though I'm showing up as Unverified for some reason?), this is most likely a load test to see how their servers handle everything. It's not really a bug finding test.

There is such thing as having too many testers in a test. You end up with more noise to useful information ratio, instead of good information. Yes, things will come up when 50k people hit the servers at once, but for more of precise systems and feedback that they're looking for, having small numbers is a lot better/easier to parse through.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 6:03PM ORTHROK said

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@Drakkenfyre All they mostly care about is this point is that the server can stay up, and so forcing people to play during a specific time period actually is ideal for them. That's what you're testing.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 6:04PM SpeeGold said

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@Drakkenfyre
To add to what everyone else is saying about the game already being thoroughly tested:
Why do you think they have early access as a limited-availability pre-order bonus? Besides guaranteeing them some money early, it also allows them to do some last minute testing (think about how many games get patches after the first few days of being released to the masses). Additionally, they can increase the load of players gradually rather than bombard their servers.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 10:18PM Mr Tastix said

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Personally, I agree with Drakkenfyre. They're not releasing this as a "beta", they're releasing it as a publicity stunt, which in itself is fairly stupid since actual beta tests garner just as much publicity (possibly more due to being able to play for longer).

All developers worth their salt will do extensive in-house and "private" (aka: closed) alpha and beta testing, this we know, but that pales in comparison to a public sector of testing. No amount of in-house testing can amount to the bugs found when thousands of everyday players find more bugs than your team of ~100.

Sure, you'll find even more bugs in post-release but the idea of betas was originally to make your game have less bugs after release, not to inconvenience your users with bugfixes wherein half of which could've been solved months before.
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Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 7:30AM ShivanSwordsman said

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@Drakkenfyre

Anyone remember Global Agenda? Plenty of in-house testing. Same for Hellgate London! However, both games only got a week or two of beta testing, or didn't even work on the beta feedback, they shoved the game out then started creating content to charge for. Both games are horribly optimized, and one even got lost to a korean company.

Basically, if they don't find, squash the bugs, and listen to their community, this game is going to go roll over and stagnate, like most games do. A $150 dud that a bunch of idiots paid out the nose for, only for it to fall flat on it's face with it's first step out the door. No amount of fanboyism can save a terrible game, so stow the markdowns and fanboy flaming and hold your devs accountable if you want your game to succeed.
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:34PM teknobeavr said

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you can also preorder at gamestop or amazon . and get in too . i got my code at gs today...

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:38PM Tradio said

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wait...the game was suppose to release on September...

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:41PM Viiral said

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@Tradio no... 2nd half of 2011. so any time between now and December 31st
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Posted: Jul 21st 2011 5:55PM gangcar said

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That guy is way too skinny.

We really need to address the problem amongst young men who have gone over to the darkside. It's clear that even though they have gained incredible powers, the Empire is promoting an unachievable body image.

And that goatee makes you look like you just stepped out of a 311 concert in 1999.

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 8:58PM fdisk said

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When companies hold out on showing off their games to the masses until they get your pre-order money it usually means they are not confident on the quality of their product.

Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 3:46AM ShivanSwordsman said

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@fdisk

This is kind of why demos used to be an industry standard, before these crappy companies started forcing everyone to take a $60 leap of faith. I thought we were past the stone age of gaming, when you bought $50 catridges with no idea if they were any good.
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Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 2:00PM JGGiant915 said

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@fdisk

I agree completely. It's usually the games that release their demos a few days before launch that end up being really good, while the ones that wait until a few weeks after *coughDukeNukemcough* are the one's that are expecting the hype to make money. However, most retail stores do allow you to cancel your pre-order if you decide you don't want the game. I don't know if the same can be said about Origin since I've never done a digital pre-order, but if you're not sure you want the game, throw down 5 bucks at Gamestop or Best Buy, play the beta weekend, and if it ends up being crap, get your money back.

@hereafter

Yeah, I didn't get my code from Gamestop at first either, but they called me around noon yesterday to let me know the codes were in.
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Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 5:28PM JGGiant915 said

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@JGGiant915

now I've found out that the beta weekend won't be included with the "early access" for pre-orders. Here's hoping though.
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Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 4:28AM hereafter said

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"Then again, that information probably isn't very relevant to you, seeing as how you're so disinterested."

I know right, I'm way too good for this game. There's no way I would would get up at 3am to pre-order that Collector's Edition from Gamestop, then cancel it and get it from Amazon because Gamestop wouldn't send the freakin' pre-order code, then spend all day reading about it and/or daydreaming about release... I mean that would be crazy.

Posted: Jul 22nd 2011 4:29AM hereafter said

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>.>
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Posted: Aug 6th 2011 12:13PM Xenolord said

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Why do so many people whine and moan about "beta weekends"? Yes, they are publicity stunts. What's so wrong about a company trying to build hype for what they hope to be their flagship of the future? They also get the added benefit of stress testing the hell out of this thing so that when it (finally) drops we're not all ranting about bioware being unprepared for mass server overload. Besides, at this point in TOR's development the majority of the bugs should be sorted out through exstensive closed beta testing.

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