Do you think Premium Beta access should end?

[xAurora]

In my opinion if you have already pre-purchased the game/expansion, giving your hopes into them, you should be able to get a sneak peak into what you've pledged into by letting you experience it by yourself and tell them what would you like to be changed or if you even like it, paying up front the highest price without content (at the release) like those who would at the end of a season for a pretty low price, you should be able to somewhat direct the game's development so you get what you wanted from it.

 

[Nagual]

No need for personal comments folks, let's keep it friendly and constructive please?

Thanks.

No one is forced to pay for Beta access and Frontier has put it on record that the pricing structure was set to discourage casual gamers from entering the beta process.

See you and your joined up thinking... amazing

 

[PanicButton]

Bah...no beta for me. It would kill my immersion (and I'm also cheap)

Have no problems with others doing it, and I don't really care if they paid 15 bucks, a lifetime pass, or their firstborn.

 

[Kayweg]

Well blimey, having read this thread and seen the speed at which the trenches were dug, you'd think this was a done deal and implemented tomorrow.
Re-reading the OP, it seems he just wanted to explore opinions if perhaps there were better testing environments than the current one, which could be beneficial to the game.
Nobody is going to remove your privileges folks, don't worry.
If entry fee betas are the best solution for games though is another matter, but that discussion wasn't to be had here.

 

[anikaiful]

the pricing structure was set to discourage casual gamers from entering the beta process.

If they also implement a decent bug tracker, then I'm happy.

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I'm an Alpha, I still haven't fully accepted Beta folks having access.

They shouldn't.

 

[Rankaze]

By Premium Beta access I mean paying extra so that you may beta test features before their release. Horizons was sold for 45 USD (If you already owned season 1) with beta access being 15 dollars more.

I'm curious how many people actually bought and used their beta access to test, and whether the amount of beta testers was enough. Would you prefer if Frontier had more open beta testing?

One of the downsides I could see for this would be that constructive feedback in the beta feedback forums would be more diluted, more difficult to sort out from the poor feedback. Basically, it'd look like the Dangerous Discussion forum At the same time, does paying that $15 premium make your feedback more valuable?

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. I'd like to think that the game could benefit from having wider participation during the beta phases, but I can see how it could make it more difficult for the developers to track down legitimate bugs.

What do you think?

Bugs were reported. Lots. And lots. And lots. And lots. Of bugs were reported.

Blame FD for releasing it while many of the reported bugs remained unaddressed. Don't blame the beta testers.

Also, I'm sick of this discussion happening every patch after bugs reported in the beta are not fixed.

FD decides when the patch is released, not the beta testers.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'm an Alpha, I still haven't fully accepted Beta folks having access.

I bet liqua feels the same about the peasant Alpha backers

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I bet liqua feels the same about the peasant Alpha backers

Dunno .. FD keep pumping out half baked patches that I suspect they need all the money they can get.

 

[PiLhEaD]

I voted no.

If people want to pay a bit more to get involved earlier, then good for them. If they don't, then good for them.

If they have alpha/beta/lep access and do/don't contribute, well, good for them too.

One aspect not to overlook is that it is very time consuming to manage vast numbers of bug reports, so limiting the numbers that can participate in any test is sensible.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

One aspect not to overlook is that it is very time consuming to manage vast numbers of bug reports, so limiting the numbers that can participate in any test is sensible.

That would stand up only if FD did proper patch management. The whole idea of Beta was to test the current cycle; FD make fixes; then we test the next cycle. So it's interesting how 2.1P5/6 generated some fixes that went straight to live .. and here we are today with a messed up Engineers addon (that I find shamefully executed in the multiple layers of "content" RNG) and an AI that's improved (thanks MoM) but cheats by using bugged mods. Where was the final cycle test ?

No doubt the bean counters have a lot to answer for .. they always cause problems.

 

[Jpotter]

I understand folks that are upset at the idea of opening up Betas when they paid for Beta access (or Alpha in some cases). This was never a good idea but more a necessity of crowd funding.

But now that the game is way past crowd funding and 2 seasons in - I feel, especially for season 3 if not sooner, the Beta access should be opened up to all players. The more people playing, the more bugs that can be found prior to release, it's as simple as that. Less players means less testing = less quality release.

I've already found several bugs during my first few hours in 2.1 that should have been reported.

The paid 'Beta' access should be discontinued as seasons move on since the players are a big part of testing.

 

[SCTrojanbulldog]

I voted no.

If people want to pay a bit more to get involved earlier, then good for them. If they don't, then good for them.

If they have alpha/beta/lep access and do/don't contribute, well, good for them too.

One aspect not to overlook is that it is very time consuming to manage vast numbers of bug reports, so limiting the numbers that can participate in any test is sensible.

I also vote no because I believe beta access has value and that value pays the salaries of the programmers that are working on a game I really enjoy.

Same reason I'm very generous to pirates with paint jobs..

 

[Rankaze]

I understand folks that are upset at the idea of opening up Betas when they paid for Beta access (or Alpha in some cases). This was never a good idea but more a necessity of crowd funding.

But now that the game is way past crowd funding and 2 seasons in - I feel, especially for season 3 if not sooner, the Beta access should be opened up to all players. The more people playing, the more bugs that can be found prior to release, it's as simple as that. Less players means less testing = less quality release.

I've already found several bugs during my first few hours in 2.1 that should have been reported.

The paid 'Beta' access should be discontinued as seasons move on since the players are a big part of testing.

Do you have any idea how many bugs were reported in the beta? And not fixed?

Again, the beta testers are testing, and FD is disregarding the bug reports.

 

[Dozer.k.a.o.]

i think people who really understand what is a beta and want to try it have to pay for it, is some kind of filter for keeping out those moaners and rants about this don't work... i hate you frontier .... give me back my money.

I don't play betas...i don't have patience to deal with bugs and problems... i prefer you all do the work for me

 

[Straha Yeagar]

I understand folks that are upset at the idea of opening up Betas when they paid for Beta access (or Alpha in some cases). This was never a good idea but more a necessity of crowd funding.

But now that the game is way past crowd funding and 2 seasons in - I feel, especially for season 3 if not sooner, the Beta access should be opened up to all players. The more people playing, the more bugs that can be found prior to release, it's as simple as that. Less players means less testing = less quality release.

I've already found several bugs during my first few hours in 2.1 that should have been reported.

The paid 'Beta' access should be discontinued as seasons move on since the players are a big part of testing.

With regards to this, the beta testing so far from 1.1 up through 2.1...the beta testers never got to test the RTM, or final release versions. There have been changes made between the final beta's and initial releases, so some of these issues, there was never an opportunity to catch the bugs, because well, they were only presumably tested by internal QA, and never tested by the beta testers

 

[Barthok]

Sorry I have to say this, but...

I had voted other, because the sense of a beta game state is totaly lost... The primal sense of a beta phase is to test things out, in case of bugfixing... I think as an old IT professional, that this beta thing issn't for it's primal purpose anymore, sorry it issn't. The normal way would be a closed Beta and then an open Beta for mass testing. But the whole focus should be on finding and fixing the bugs. And lets face it, it's all about money and the nosyness of the players, "what await me in this mayor update?!"

Evil to him who evil thinks... Maybe this would be the reason why there are so many bugs ingame today... just saying.

Just my two Cents

 

[Straha Yeagar]

Sorry I have to say this, but...

I had voted other, because the sense of a beta game state is totaly lost... The primal sense of a beta phase is to test things out, in case of bugfixing... I think as an old IT professional, that this beta thing issn't for it's primal purpose anymore, sorry it issn't. The normal way would be a closed Beta and then an open Beta for mass testing. But the whole focus should be on finding and fixing the bugs. And lets face it, it's all about money and the nosyness of the players, "what await me in this mayor update?!"

Evil to him who evil thinks... Maybe this would be the reason why there are so many bugs ingame today... just saying.

Just my two Cents

Many of the issues we are seeing in live 2.1 right now were reported by testers during the beta. Also, what I said above, there were additional changes made between the final beta version, and the live release version. Particularly, what ever has caused the gatling PA and the beam rails...which to my knowledge as a beta tester, were never witnessed during any of the beta versions.

 

[Nagual]

That would stand up only if FD did proper patch management. The whole idea of Beta was to test the current cycle; FD make fixes; then we test the next cycle. So it's interesting how 2.1P5/6 generated some fixes that went straight to live .. and here we are today with a messed up Engineers addon (that I find shamefully executed in the multiple layers of "content" RNG) and an AI that's improved (thanks MoM) but cheats by using bugged mods. Where was the final cycle test ?

No doubt the bean counters have a lot to answer for .. they always cause problems.

Pretty much agree with all of this. I reckon it's all down to the amount of man power they have available and what they have committed themselves to publishing in any given season. Thrown in bugs and design faults and suddenly playing a three way tug-o-war. [HINT] The man power bit always loses [/HINT] So as man power lose compromises are made. Sometimes it's things being dropped from one update or perhaps moved to another one. Perhaps it's just they cannot afford to take a person(s) from their current roll and throw them into bug fixing. Assuming they don't need any training etc to be able to do that anyway.

Once the decisions are made and passed to the coders the only thing they can be faulted for are the bugs. It is a harsh thing to say, but at the end of the day they are professional programmers and we are their customers. Either they haven't been given enough time to do they job required of them or they require more training / mentor-ship. So in either case it comes down to the company to makes sure there are the correct resources in place to be able to commit to both time and quality. Unless of course your quality assurance mission is "Put out what we think we can get away with. Rather than what the customer expects."

It's it really so wrong to expect a working product. For clarification I define a working product as something that works fully as designed with no errors. Even before the birth of the modern internet gaming world, when end users first got the ability to update programs via the phoneline and believed to was to be the end of programs crashing or just messing up in general, there were people out there who saw the future. A future where we the paying customer would not only pay for programs that needed to be constantly patched, but would come to expect that to be the norm rather than the exception.

So in closing, it's our own fault.

 

[Barthok]

Many of the issues we are seeing in live 2.1 right now were reported by testers during the beta. Also, what I said above, there were additional changes made between the final beta version, and the live release version. Particularly, what ever has caused the gatling PA and the beam rails...which to my knowledge as a beta tester, were never witnessed during any of the beta versions.

Only one answer to this : Drunken programmers song: 99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs in the code, fix one bug, compile it again, 101 little bugs in the code. 101 little bugs in the ... just kidding [big grin]

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I'm not fond of the beta process. Most of the time, the reported bugs are ignored and Frontier goes ahead by releasing a buggy build. Out of the 3 bugs I reported AND that were acknowledged by QA, none of them was fixed in the final release.

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Pretty much agree with all of this. I reckon it's all down to the amount of man power they have available and what they have committed themselves to publishing in any given season. Thrown in bugs and design faults and suddenly playing a three way tug-o-war. [HINT] The man power bit always loses [/HINT] So as man power lose compromises are made. Sometimes it's things being dropped from one update or perhaps moved to another one. Perhaps it's just they cannot afford to take a person(s) from their current roll and throw them into bug fixing. Assuming they don't need any training etc to be able to do that anyway.

Once the decisions are made and passed to the coders the only thing they can be faulted for are the bugs. It is a harsh thing to say, but at the end of the day they are professional programmers and we are their customers. Either they haven't been given enough time to do they job required of them or they require more training / mentor-ship. So in either case it comes down to the company to makes sure there are the correct resources in place to be able to commit to both time and quality. Unless of course your quality assurance mission is "Put out what we think we can get away with. Rather than what the customer expects."

It's it really so wrong to expect a working product. For clarification I define a working product as something that works fully as designed with no errors. Even before the birth of the modern internet gaming world, when end users first got the ability to update programs via the phoneline and believed to was to be the end of programs crashing or just messing up in general, there were people out there who saw the future. A future where we the paying customer would not only pay for programs that needed to be constantly patched, but would come to expect that to be the norm rather than the exception.

So in closing, it's our own fault.

I think you summed it up quite nicely. +1 Rep.