SammichEater wrote:
If your intention is to play the game for free before everyone else, then I really don't feel sorry for you. That is not what betas are for.
Actually.... yes it is.
I do *alot* of betas... and yes, I'm actually a serious tester sort.... but even so, I still say.... yes, that IS part of the point.
The idea of being able to play something for free early on draws alot of players into the betas, and it leads to a better situation for most developers. It means it's easy to FIND players for the beta, and those that get INTO the beta, and have this mentality, tend to talk about the game all over the place, as well as show videos of it everywhere, and so on.... basically free advertising for the devs.
And, this gives the devs the chance to monitor all sorts of playstyles, for balancing purposes (as plenty of games track that sorta thing automatically, depending on the game). Full-on "testers" arent going to be playing the same way as those that are just there to simply play the game, and this means that the two groups will produce different info for balance issues. It's important that BOTH types of groups be monitored.
And really? It's just fun. I'm a very impatient person, so I tend to leap at the chance to play something NOW, instead of later.
The thing that people never seem to realize about betas, though, if they've never done them before: They're buggy. Buggy as all hell. EXTREMELY buggy. Prepare for crashes. Lots of crashes. And screwball problems.
You cant whine if a beta game crashes, yet many will do so anyway.
07 Sep 2011, 7:45 pm
