How long is the Alpha phase of the Beta phase?

[Gibbonici]

That dose not look like a large. But I invested £300+ for the game and I am not a rich person. I payed it to help Frontier make a great game. Not to make another X rebirth release Flop.

We all did, and it's one of the reasons why beta backers haven't been demanding beta access every day since January. We all want a good game at the end of this, but the Newsletter 18 thing just pushed a lot of people's well tested patience a little too far.

FD have got the message, so lets stop antagonising each other and get back to the important stuff - arguing about guilds, pvp and newtonian physics

 

[Lestat]

You don't work in software development, do you?

It don't seem like you know much about computer hardware do you? See both go hand and hand. If it not software issue it tend to be related to hardware.

Now I believe I been in a few Alphas and tons of beta. Alpha tends to be harder to work with and more issue like crashes and system crashes.. Beta depending on the company but are more stable and easier to deal with.

 

[Amorelia]

It don't seem like you know much about computer hardware do you?

Let's see... I build my own PCs; I have certification in networking; I have a working history of installing and maintaining Digital Vax and Alpha mainframes / servers, including Alpha clusters over FDDI with local dual-host DSSI and SCSI, all running VMS.

All of which is irrelevant to a software release, so your point is a bit lost on me.

 

[icblue]

I've been following this discussion for a while now seeing the divide between alpha- and beta backers growing wider by the day till I finally felt I had to put my 2 cents in as well.

Let's just try to pull on the same string together again, we all want the game to turn out great with a great community. The majority of us are not kids anymore but ppl ranging from their 30s to 50s plus (me being in the second number). Let's act as such.

FD made a blunder (happens) and that blunder caused ripples in the community, it's up to FD and their PR to calm the seas again...and it's up to all of us to extend understanding for each concerned party and let this community be great again!
(I'm a Premium beta backer btw.)

 

[Gibbonici]

I've been following this discussion for a while now seeing the divide between alpha- and beta backers growing wider by the day till I finally felt I had to put my 2 cents in as well.

Let's just try to pull on the same string together again, we all want the game to turn out great with a great community. The majority of us are not kids anymore but ppl ranging from their 30s to 50s plus (me being in the second number). Let's act as such.

FD made a blunder (happens) and that blunder caused ripples in the community, it's up to FD and their PR to calm the seas again...and it's up to all of us to extend understanding for each concerned party and let this community be great again!
(I'm a Premium beta backer btw.)

Word.

 

[Del-Dredd]

My thoughts exactly icblue.

If only someone had proof read the Newsletter before posting it and said hold on a mo, we need to rewrite this statement and clarify some points as it will likely cause issue written like this.

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

Yay! It's Friday!
And yes, everyone has valid points (no matter how much or little they sabotage their own points with words).
We are ALL fans of Elite and really want to play it.
Yes, some are offended or feeling wronged.
Arguing about it does not make it easier on anyone.
It is what it is. If that's a deal breaker for anyone then no amount of discussion will likely have any effect. No amount of peer support, discussion, rationalizing or WHATEVER will make those offended feel better about what they perceive as an injustice to them.
For MOST (just like Alphas have and most every other backer has) it's VENTING and voicing concern or perceived injustice and they (rightly) just want to bend an ear and I can totally relate to that!
So, to each of you who are upset I want to say we are ALL part of the community and if the shoe were on the other foot we might just be hobbling along the same path.
Old Indian saying: Do not judge another until you have walked in his moccasins for 5 miles.

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

I've been following this discussion for a while now seeing the divide between alpha- and beta backers growing wider by the day till I finally felt I had to put my 2 cents in as well.

Let's just try to pull on the same string together again, we all want the game to turn out great with a great community. The majority of us are not kids anymore but ppl ranging from their 30s to 50s plus (me being in the second number). Let's act as such.

FD made a blunder (happens) and that blunder caused ripples in the community, it's up to FD and their PR to calm the seas again...and it's up to all of us to extend understanding for each concerned party and let this community be great again!
(I'm a Premium beta backer btw.)

This is exactly what I was thinking (but Icblue worded it way better)!

 

[stephen_usher]

I understand the reasoning behind the decision, but it would also work from a "let's pick a pseudo random number of beta testers" point of view, remember once beta starts in theory alpha and beta folks would be beta testers. Please, stop the condescending approach to this. Alpha backers are not martyrs.

I'm sorry that you read this as condescending, it wasn't meant to be.

On the subject of "a random number of beta testers", there are two points:

1. If Frontier Developments release a new version then all clients are forced to upgrade to that version, which would automatically mean that the alpha backers will have the first beta.
2. Who is to decide which of the premium beta backers would get access? Wouldn't this be seen as favouritism by those who didn't get enabled? Think of the hoo-hah that would cause in the forums and the bad blood.

This is a "Kobiashi Maru" scenario for Frontier I'm afraid.

If they do as they're planning and the beta backers have to wait an extra few hours or a couple of days then they'll be panned for that.

If they take a subset of the beta backers on-board then they'll set one set of beta backers against another.

If they let all the premium beta backers on it could overload the servers before they can gauge the necessary amount to rent and provision from the Amazon Cloud and no-one is happy, and it possibly delays any fixes happening for anyone, and they get panned.

Of course, FD could have just kept the beta backers in the dark totally, asked the alpha backers not to say anything and release the beta for initial load testing as part of the alpha phase, giving a bit blast of news to the beta backers on the day it went live for them, in the same was alpha backers get to know of new alpha versions. (They'd get panned for that too.)

As others have said, we are all here to help make an iconic game. I happened to back at a level that did allow me to help with the alpha testing but that wasn't why I spent the money, I'd have paid the same for a single copy and some trinkets. The rewards were nice perks, nothing more. Being able to help out with the design and the testing early on just helped me feel as if I was doing everything in my power to assist the game development, the only real objective.

P.S. As for alpha backers being martyrs, alpha testing is a mixed bag, there's fun but there's work as well. In a normal game development cycle the game developer would have to pay serious money to a testing firm for this. Given the real world network problems thrown up though, I'm glad they did it this way as unit testing firms wouldn't have shown the problems up. It also saved FD shed loads of money which they could plough into development personnel time, which isn't cheap.

 

[Faerie]

+1, icblue, I couldn't agree with you more.

My personal take on things is that FD made a PR boo-boo in the wording of newsletter #18 but have done little to alleviate the situation or offer a better explanation since, which has resulted in people taking sides & caused a rift here.
Mods haven't done a great deal to pour oil on the waters either, which to me (as a very experienced mod myself) means either they know no more than we do or they're out of their depth, merely threatening (& perhaps dishing out) infractions.
Note to mods: You do NOT get people around to your point of view by beating them up !

If FD have not briefed the mods on their intentions then they are (IMHO unfairly) asking them to deal with the fallout with one hand tied behind their backs. Either way, someone needs to get their act together & make a statement that calms the issue or the fractiousness may well continue.

 

[Styggron]

There's been a few warnings due to overzealous posts so they're definitely there.
Maybe they're following the Colon and Nobby Nobbs method of policing.

We're always here.........

Waiting...........

Watching...............

 

[stephen_usher]

We're always here.........

Waiting...........

Watching...............

Leaning on your crossbow?

 

[Gibbonici]

If FD have not briefed the mods on their intentions then they are (IMHO unfairly) asking them to deal with the fallout with one hand tied behind their backs. Either way, someone needs to get their act together & make a statement that calms the issue or the fractiousness may well continue.

Michael Brookes made a few posts earlier on which has clarified a lot, and said there is more solid news for betas to come next week. This is good thing. Hopefully we can finally feel like our £100+ pledges mean something and that we really are part of this game that we're all so passionate about.

From there it's not just up to the mods or FD to sort the community out, it's up to us too. We all need to take some responsibility.

 

[JeffRyan]

I love everyone!

mostly...

 

[winscale]

Alpha 4 is the last major phase of alpha, while there might be incremental releases to 4.0, the next major release after that is beta.

Michael

Disappointed.

Yeah, I was expecting to actually take part directly in the beta after the alpha 4.0 release was done with. However, now premium beta access means I take part in some later phase of beta, who knows how long this could go on before we get access?

Not even remotely convinced by previous arguments, that I should have somehow expected beta access to mean - not initial beta - but access sometime later in beta. Hopefully no more negative surprises like this pop up later.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Disappointed.

Yeah, I was expecting to actually take part directly in the beta after the alpha 4.0 release was done with. However, now premium beta access means I take part in some later phase of beta, who knows how long this could go on before we get access?

Not even remotely convinced by previous arguments, that I should have somehow expected beta access to mean - not initial beta - but access sometime later in beta. Hopefully no more negative surprises like this pop up later.

With all respect, that is exactly what is going to happen.

First Beta release is going to be wrapped up as an Alpha, and unleashed as such. After a few hours / days - that alpha build will then be repackaged, versioned, and re-released as Beta, and available to Beta backers who pledged as such.

As I said before - it's all down to numbers and keeping tabs on game-breaking problems. As FD themselves have said - they have had things working perfectly in the lab, but they utterly broke when released.

They are simply trying to save you potentially weeks of frustration.

 

[StarTux]

With all respect, that is exactly what is going to happen.

First Beta release is going to be wrapped up as an Alpha, and unleashed as such. After a few hours / days - that alpha build will then be repackaged, versioned, and re-released as Beta, and available to Beta backers who pledged as such.

As I said before - it's all down to numbers and keeping tabs on game-breaking problems. As FD themselves have said - they have had things working perfectly in the lab, but they utterly broke when released.

They are simply trying to save you potentially weeks of frustration.

Aren't you mixing up Alpha/Beta processes? Alpha 4.x will be final phase and then we move onto Premium Beta, with the Alpha backers getting first pass over it being released to premium if its deemed stable enough.

Alpha has been all about testing systems, not content (even the space station is incomplete), whilst beta will be about adding content and testing it from then on. I suppose they could call the first beta release PB 1.0 and the one which they give to Alpha's PB 1.0RC1 (release candidate 1), but numbering is more for their tracking...

If you think Alpha has been great, beta has the potential to go even beyond that .

 

[StarTux]

Disappointed.

Yeah, I was expecting to actually take part directly in the beta after the alpha 4.0 release was done with. However, now premium beta access means I take part in some later phase of beta, who knows how long this could go on before we get access?

Not even remotely convinced by previous arguments, that I should have somehow expected beta access to mean - not initial beta - but access sometime later in beta. Hopefully no more negative surprises like this pop up later.

After 4.x is complete, next release is Beta 1.x. Is it because of the Alpha backers getting a pass over the beta build first? They are not going to keep the beta 1.x for Alpha players until phase 2.x, hopefully there won't be any major show stoppers with the first premium beta build (1.0), so all the backers get in quickly .

I suspect we'll get more information soon enough.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Aren't you mixing up Alpha/Beta processes? Alpha 4.x will be final phase and then we move onto Premium Beta, with the Alpha backers getting first pass over it being released to premium if its deemed stable enough.

Alpha has been all about testing systems, not content (even the space station is incomplete), whilst beta will be about adding content and testing it from then on. I suppose they could call the first beta release PB 1.0 and the one which they give to Alpha's PB 1.0RC1 (release candidate 1), but numbering is more for their tracking...

If you think Alpha has been great, beta has the potential to go even beyond that .

I thought that was pretty much what I described

We'll see soon enough - I think it's going to be a lot of fun for everyone!

 

[Michael Brookes]

Disappointed.

Yeah, I was expecting to actually take part directly in the beta after the alpha 4.0 release was done with. However, now premium beta access means I take part in some later phase of beta, who knows how long this could go on before we get access?

Not even remotely convinced by previous arguments, that I should have somehow expected beta access to mean - not initial beta - but access sometime later in beta. Hopefully no more negative surprises like this pop up later.

This is not what it means. Premium beta provides access to the early stages of beta, standard beta backers then join at a later stage. The beta builds are simply being verified by the alpha testers before a wider release, this is purely a dev decision to feed the build through a widening net so we can hopefully catch major issues before they go out to too many people.

Michael