Frontier, if you need more beta testers then make beta free

[LeoBartlet]

Marketing emails

Frontier is well within its rights to send out such emails and you are well within your rights to unsubscribe to them.

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

Would you work for free? or even more, would you do someone else job for free? Or even more, would you pay to do someone else job? You don't seem to understand the point of beta testing. And before you even try; no, I am not in the least interested in trying the beta, but I am interested something closer to a bug free game.

You know what? If the "work" involved relaxing at home in my dressing gown, cracking open a few beers, playing a god damn computer game for fun and then noting any bugs I'd spotted and raising them (not that I'm ever first, never spotted an original bug yet), then yes I'd pay a whole 5 pounds. Crazy eh?

But many people would rather froth at the mouth like some indignant Daily Mail reader. "How dare some business try to charge for things I want to be free and even worse, advertise the fact in a marketing letter! I know my rights!!" And because they know it's ridiculous then try to redefine capitalism. *sigh*

 

[Verenti]

The people who want to Beta test are doing so.

The ads are to inform people it is available, as it was asked for repeatedly. Don't want to see them, unsubscribe.

If the only service the newsletter provided was to tell us about beta opportunities, you would have a point. As it provides a much wider service, it seems entirely unreasonable to suggest that if people do not wish to receive advertisements when they opted into a newsletter designed to keep them up to date on the game's ongoing development (which, mind you, for many of us this means we are getting updates on a service we paid for a year in advance).

 

[SeaFireliv]

You know what? If the "work" involved relaxing at home in my dressing gown, cracking open a few beers, playing a god damn computer game for fun and then noting any bugs I'd spotted and raising them (not that I'm ever first, never spotted an original bug yet), then yes I'd pay a whole 5 pounds. Crazy eh?

No you wouldn`t. Be honest. You`d soon be complaining. That £5 is costing you a couple of extra beers.

 

[NW3]

Enough with all this fake optimism already, they are in dire need of players for the beta, that's it.

These last few days the matchmaking was horribly slow and I could not find crew even if I sit there and wait for 20 minutes, if I want to join somebody I have trouble even finding bounty hunting mc (The most populated activity). Strangely, the first few days waiting time for people to join my ship was less than 10 seconds and there were multiple people looking for crew in all the activity lobbies.

People tried it and dropped it.
It's not about testers and people who report problems to the forum, there's enough of it already, it's the sheer number that's needed.

Maybe, but I'm not so sure. Perhaps people got tired of testing MC and moved on to do/test other stuff. Personally, I have no interest in MC, so I haven't tested it. I've tested Holo-Me, the improved SRV scanner, the Dolphin, and a few other things and dutifully reported the few issues I found.

I think there's only a single beta server, so I don't think FD wants hordes of players in beta. As it is, it's sometimes pretty slow to respond.

I'm fine with a small charge for beta, but I can understand how it might upset a few people. If you don't want to pay for beta, don't, but please don't whine about it endlessly.

Plenty of suckers who will pay someone for the "privilege" of working for them sans pay.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, as am I. I look at the betas as a way to try out new features, especially when I'd prefer to do it risk free (like neutron star boosting) or test fly ships that otherwise require serious grinding to acquire.

I feel that I get my money's worth, so I'm fine with the current situation. The rest of y'all benefit too, since many/most of the beta testers report bugs, which means there will be less issues when the patch does go live. (Notice that I did not say it would be bug-free; that's unrealistic for any large program.)

 

[OfftheRails]

Frontier is well within its rights to send out such emails and you are well within your rights to unsubscribe to them.

and Martian is well within his(?) rights to post on the forum about it and the rest of us are well within our rights to rip her(?) to shreds over it

 

[DukeIronHand]

Whew.
People around here must have dull lives.

 

[Martian Successor]

FD has switched formats of their newsletters/mail program some time ago. They didnt send stuff, now they do. They inform you of streams, betas etc. That doesnt mean they are desperate for you to watch the stream, it means they tell you there is a stream. When they mail you you can buy something, it doesnt mean they are desperate for you to buy it. It means they are a business and would like to tell you you can buy something. If you dont, thats fine too.

Not every change is a reason to become paranoid. You dont want to pay for beta? Dont. You do? Also good. Who cares.

- - - Updated - - -



Oh oh oh, me me me, can I answer? Please?

Its because people are willing to pay. And FD is a business. They like to sell stuff to people who like to buy their stuff, so they get money. They spend that money on stuff, and what is left is called profit. The technical term is 'capitalism'.

There is no 'justification' in any way. If people want to spend money on something, people will offer it for money. Dont matter if its water, prostitution, ED beta or crack.

- - - Updated - - -



Yes, your assumption that a company send you an e-mail about a product hoping you would spend money on the product of the company is correct. Well done.

And I object to early beta access being marketed as a product because that seems like taking the pee, but that's just my opinion. At least you're one of the few who understood that my beef was with the salesman at the door style email rather than a free/paid beta debate so bonus points for you

Look the other way and don't buy their tasteless beta access, that'll so them for sure! LMAO

I don't and it seems like it's working since FD are getting desperate to get more people participating.

Marketing emails

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e8/b5/f9/e8b5f97c7eb7bf104cbfa2040a0b7f3e.jpg

Frontier is well within its rights to send out such emails and you are well within your rights to unsubscribe to them.

I'm well within my rights to comment on their marketing tactics. Seriously, what don't people get about that?

 

[who?]

Judging by the Beta bug reporting forum, there's NO shortage of bugs/bug reporters.

When they start advertising "Become a Beta Bug-fixer" packages, it's time to get out the pitchforks!

 

[IamMe]

But they give us free beta streams on youtube!

 

[Martian Successor]

You know what? If the "work" involved relaxing at home in my dressing gown, cracking open a few beers, playing a god damn computer game for fun and then noting any bugs I'd spotted and raising them (not that I'm ever first, never spotted an original bug yet), then yes I'd pay a whole 5 pounds. Crazy eh?

But many people would rather froth at the mouth like some indignant Daily Mail reader. "How dare some business try to charge for things I want to be free and even worse, advertise the fact in a marketing letter! I know my rights!!" And because they know it's ridiculous then try to redefine capitalism. *sigh*

Indeed. Because businesses are run by special snowflakes who should never, ever be criticised lest someone onthe Internet invoke the word "Capitalism" like it's some kind of boogeyman consumerist dictatorship hell hole whereby the customer sheep should know their place and are only there to chuck money in the general direction of the business just because it's a business and it wants your money.

 

[MrPapaGiorgiio]

@OP

You have a fair point, I am in agreement.

I laugh daily at these people who actually paid extra for early access to a beta. [haha]

 

[NW3]

Judging by the Beta bug reporting forum, there's NO shortage of bugs/bug reporters.

When they start advertising "Become a Beta Bug-fixer" packages, it's time to get out the pitchforks!

As a programmer and ex-game developer, I'd sign up for that. I'd like code access, so I could fix some of the issues FD never seems to get around to.

The first thing I'd fix is HUD colors, just to stop the b****ing on the forum. I probably wouldn't even use that feature; I seem to be one of the few people who actually like the orange. It reminds me of those old amber monochrome monitors I used to use.

 

[khaitom]

Do not try to sell people beta access via marketing email please. You are not struggling for cash nor do you have a lack of micro transaction revenue sources so please don't act like you are/do. You're not helping your image by being so eager to exploit your own beta process as an extra revenue source.

http://i.imgur.com/UzIoF8Th.jpg

If you need a large number of beta testers to test new features then I suggest you stop charging for early beta access and just make open beta (accessible to all) and closed (invite only) beta stages. That's how productive and effective beta testing is done in pretty much every other game in the industry. I've been part of a few over the years.

@My fellow CMDRS - there are 2 commander faces with smiles in the images, does this mean we now have changing expressions, i.e. a smile animation from time to time?

Also, there is a female face with a black line of paint across her eyes. Is this cosmetic option available currently as part of the feature or will it be a micro transaction addition purchasable from the store? - And if it is a micro transaction cosmetic why is it being advertised as a part of this beta?

I completely disagree. I miss out on offers to spend my hard earned cash with Frontier because they don't email me with enough offers and I only hear about many of the time critical ones after they've expired. I didn't even know the recent beta was available until I stumbled back into the forums. I'm happy to support Frontier with more money even if they technically aren't "desperate" for it (would you be happier about receiving promotionsl email that you signed up for if they were approaching bankruptcy?).

Dear Frontier,
More email promotions will get more money from me. If I change my mind I'll unsubscribe from promotional emails. I'm fed up of missing offers.
Khaitom

 

[space pilot]

^Me too, I buy good too! When sent good product why not to buy! You play good its good for money.

 

[ianstrauss]

What we need to consider are the effects of this strategy in the long run.

Its ok to charge for beta test, its really the prerogative of the developer to decide on this.

What is not acceptable is that, due to the fact that there are few people paying for beta test access, not all bugs and issues are addressed before target launch date.

This creates a negative domino effect. At the end of the day, the playerbase suffers which makes this strategy counter intuitive.

FD gains money from a small number beta testers in the short term.
On the long term perspective, FD will get a lot of negative feedback from players if a lot of bugs are not fixed
This will result to bad publicity and may fail to attract huge potential new players

Ultimately, its really the best interest of any developer not to charge for beta testing as more people will be engaged and more bugs will be fixed before launch date.

I agree with the OP.

it would be better to have an early paid Beta access which will be preceded by a limited Open Beta access before target launch date.

 

[khaitom]

^Me too, I buy good too! When sent good product why not to buy! You play good its good for money.

Take the P if you want but Frontier have missed out on about £40 of my money because I didn't know about various offers. If you don't want to know just unsubscribe from the promotional email. Simple.

 

[Mengy]

Judging by the Beta bug reporting forum, there's NO shortage of bugs/bug reporters.

Yep, and this is pretty much the end of the discussion, because as long as Frontier keeps selling beta access and people keep buying it, Frontier doesn't have any reason to stop selling beta access. Their marketing is working, people are paying to do their beta testing, why would Frontier want to change what's working?

Plus suddenly making it free to beta test would devalue everyone who has already paid during the kickstarter and such for such access, so I really don't see Frontier changing it at all.

Can't say I'd blame them either, no matter how much I might dislike it, lol!

 

[B0SSD0G]

I'm in the shouldn't have to pay for access to BETA testing camp .... IMO it should be free ... at least in its current format.

To make me want to do it (and especially to pay for it), there should be incentives that carry over into the main game, so that 'X' weeks of BETA play does not equate to 'X' weeks of lost progress in the main game. We all know several weeks of play is a long hard grind in Elite and whilst my participation in the BETA might result in a less buggy final release for everyone, for someone that is still trying to get enough credits together to buy their first Anaconda and reach reasonable Fed and Empire ranks, selfishly my motivation is to plough on with the current version as much as possible.

Time = money in most walks of life and this is no different. If FD want me to give them my time for nothing (or for me paying 5 quid), they should give me an incentive - a free special edition 2.3 BETA skin pack, or better still 1000000 credits in my live account at the end of the BETA. Something like that would probably do the trick. Something that costs them nothing, but compensates me for a lack of progress in the live game!

On the 'should FD have sent me the email about BETA access' issue? ... personally I don't care ... this one just went into trash. But it does raise the point that perhaps we should be able to opt out of marketing emails in our Newsletter Subscription account settings.

o7

 

[khaitom]

^^ Why should you get something for free, that ks backers, without whome the game wouldn't even exist, paid for?

Testing beta isn't work. It's FUN. You might as well argue the while game should be free.