Over on the TOR forums, there’s a thread about beta testing TOR and it poses the question of whether people REALLY want to beta test the game. The responses have been quite interesting.
My own take is that I’ve tended to beta test most MMOs I’ve ever been interested in — usually being lucky enough to get into closed beta testing relatively early. The most legendary of this was the fabled “beta one” of Star Wars Galaxies where they let 100 external testers onto the server and around 20 of that number were from my then-guild, The Crescent Order, which I had been building up as it’s recruiting officer for some time prior. That was actually quite a funny situation to find ourselves in.
But, having said that, I’ve noticed something in recent MMOs in particular: the beta experience has really dulled my enthusiasm for the actual release or, at least, for the first 10, 20, 30 levels; whatever the beta testing was concentrated on. There are only so many times you want to roll a character and play your way through the “noob zone” of most games and I think it was during the opening day of LotRO, I remember thinking, “Oh wow, do I REALLY have to do this **** again?” Once I got past the beta level cut-off, of course, I felt a lot better about the game. But the point remains: the beta testing HAD affected me. I was really bored playing that same content for the hundredth time.
So when it comes to TOR… who knows? There’s part of me that is now highly conscious that beta testing can ruin the early part (at the very least), of the live game experience… but there’s another part of me — the guild leader — who feels like I should be in there, understanding the game, so that I can help all my guildmates when they step in, whether they are PvE, PvP or even RP inclined.
What about you? How do you feel about beta testing?
With TOR, I think Beta might very well be the only opportunity I may have of seeing class content other than that of my intended class. I would specifically NOT play my intended class in Beta to avoid the predicament you described.
If you KNOW what you want to play when the game launches, then Beta would be ideal. You can see the Republic side, swing a glowstick, do all the things you will not do later, all while helping de-bug and stabilize the game.
I see the risk of overexposure to the game, and LP’s remedy makes a lot of sense.
I think beta would allow me to get a lot of trial&error out of the way with dummy characters, allowing me to start with a ‘real’ character straight away upon release.
I always wanted to be in a BETA for a game..i’ve never been lucky enough.
I was thinking though, after reading this, that hmm maybe i don’t want to test this one. Then i thought, ‘hey wait a minute..i know nothing about this game, interviews don’t help, and we hardly get any ‘new’ updates’. SO with that i decided i want to get into beta, not because i really want to play, but because i want to know how good this game is, if it is right for me, and if its truly a mmo not just a singleplayer game that i have to pay monthly for.
Personally I hold the opposite of LP’s opinion. I would play my own class multiple times up to level cap in Beta, know what talent build I wanted, whether or not I enjoyed the class, what options for factions (Mandalorian that is…) there are for the class, so that when the game goes live I can beat it to max level and start endgame content ASAP.
I do not have a vast amount of beta experience but in the past I have used it as an educational experience, which is what I will do for this game as well. I never cared about spoilers and I would rather know the best method to play my class beforehand. I would use other alt-classes for casual story enjoyment.
I want/plan to beta-test SWTOR. I’m not concerned with overexposure to the initial portions of the game with “testing”. If the game is what its expectations (and MORE!) are to be, then by all means I want to “test-drive” and break stuff!
If I’m going to invest hundreds–maybe even thousands–of hours to a game, I want to make sure I have no regrets after my 1st credit card charge.
Honestly, I do try to approach beta-testing as objectively as possible by seeking out things that can be exploitable (trade windows between players, et al), are broken, glitchy, has memory-leaks, unbalanced, and doing things that the developers themselves are asking for specifically. I’m there to wreck it–in any way possible THEN to report it with a concise and non-judgmental way. It would be an honor to test SWTOR because really the game IS the next “BIG-thing”.
Over the years I have beta testing so many things, and done some crazy stuff. I have beta testing many 3Dgames, I have patience and the ability to do so because I have time on my hands and the leadership to do so, I am a 13 year old kid who has been beta testing for steam and its games for a long time, and I wouldn’t mind beta testing this game even though I cant. I really would like to. I have played both Star wars knights of the old republic(1,2) and I would say, they made my top 5 games of all time. Not only that I intend to grow up to be a person who deals with computers, I was thinking a game designer(ID camp woo?)or maybe someone who works on graphics cards, like Ati which holds the fastest GPU on the market at the moment, the Ati Radeon HD 5970 toxic series, not only is it cool but its a double GPU that blows competition away, I think its a duel 5870. I’m saving up for a 1060$ computer which I will transfer my data to, (Steam, LuaEdit2010, GameBooster, Smart Defrag, Etc.) where I hope to use it for a long time, as it will have a Crossfired 5770×2 (Ati Radeon 5770) and its perfect for gaming, and its got space for me to create Lua files in which I am still learning.
I have beta’ed so many MMO’s to date its firghtening, and unlike many people who test to PLAY, I instead PLAY to test.
For me improving the game, finding the bugs is important prior to release, because lets face it especially on the PC, the release quality of most games MMO’s or otherwise is usually fairly shocking.
Should I be fortunate enough to get in the beta for SW:TOR (and I did apply day one, they put the app up before it crashed due to too many folks hitting it at once). I would fully intend to spend that time trying to see as much put right as possible.
I absolutely agree that it can be monotonous playing live content you have played many times during beta.. fortunately being a complete Alt-o-holic this has never been a huge issue for me. However with SW:TOr I don’t forsee it being a problem for anyone because unlike every other MMO out there EVERY class will have its own quests, so the amount of repetition will but cut down considerably.
II would if I got in on the test and dependant upon how they plan on running beta most likely choose a class I wouldn’t intend to play when its live, so that I could find the issues, and play the game but without spoiling the story surprise of the classes I want to play on release.
Beta’d a few games, Beta 2 for uo for which I became a GM not the lower level consolor but a GM. that was fun also beta eq, that was hard on the eyes it was in VGA…16 colors ick… I try to get into beta for games I am intersted in hopes to make it a better game. NOT to play early or free although a side affect is that you know what to do and where to go for the 1st few levels. But my reasons are altrusitic, I do it to benifit all. Hell if I lived in seatle I’d be part of microsofts beta but I don’t:(. I provided spec’s for two machines to bioware and am hopeful but I wont hold my breath. hehe I rememebr that days of peopel having 6 acoutns in swg and 2 systems that was messed. Back to my point things have changes in the 20 + years of computer games and testing, mostly closed now rarely invite only let alone open beta2 usually it is Beta 4 or not even real beta testing just benchmarking of a final product. It seems people of today have lost the poitn to beta testing, it is 1st and foremost to help improvethe game not to just be a free ride.
my 3 cents.
almost forgot the NDA that peopel are complainng about..the NDA for UO is STILL in effect I kid you not they had a 99 year nda that they never lifted…rolf.
The NDa that Origin used was FAR FAR mroe strict that the nda you get from bioware. It seems peopel think its a right to talk about stuff they beta’d.. it isn’t a right it is a privlege the company extends to a tester..
btw u need an edit button:P