News Premium Beta access update

[spacehawk]

I need a recap, sry i'm new, and as fast as i read evrything i will probably collapse!
So far if i actually buy the Premium beta i will have accesso to a few singleplayer missions of a old alpha client and from the 30 may i will get the actual alpha client with more than a few singleplayer combat missions?
Am i correct?


thnx

yep u are correct ! I didn't do most of the fighting missions lol am just waiting it out till the 30th

 

[veep]

After thinking a bit about this:

(First of all, let's disregard the two-week lead-up to beta 1 because that will be gone and done in a few days.)

I have to say, I think that an exclusive "early access" to new builds, even if ostensibly only a last line of defense against showstoppers, is not a good idea. In the best case (no showstoppers) it means locking the paying customer out of the game for a few hours without need. In the worst case it means locking them out even longer (even though the ride would have been a bit rough). But again there is no need to deny access. There is that saying: "Don't play on patch day". One always has the option to refrain from the game for the first few hours after a patch while the wrinkles get ironed out -- but it sholud be a choice. After all, making sure that no show-stopping bugs get out to production is the domain of testing outside of production.

In that vein, what I think would make sense is to run prospective release builds on a parallel test universe that runs a snapshot of production and gets shut down when not needed. However, here I also think that it makes most sense to let everyone into this, because you need many players to stumble over the elusive bugs. Remember that the number of alpha backers is fixed and their active number will gradually decrease.

 

[QFlash]

I want to upgrade from standard to premium beta, i have the Premium Boxed Edition of Elite: Dangerous pledge level.

When i go to store, and get the premium beta - it wants to charge me the full 100 pounds price, i did log in, and proceed to checkout but the price is fixated to 100 pound, not taking my pledge level in to credit.

Anyone had problem like this ?

 

[Rog]

I want to upgrade from standard to premium beta, i have the Premium Boxed Edition of Elite: Dangerous pledge level.

When i go to store, and get the premium beta - it wants to charge me the full 100 pounds price, i did log in, and proceed to checkout but the price is fixated to 100 pound, not taking my pledge level in to credit.

Anyone had problem like this ?

Best to email: support@zaonce.net

They'll sort you out.

 

[Pup]

I don't know if it would be possible here, or that the Frontier dev's would even consider it, but just throwing it out as an idea.

I was also involved in the Kickstarter for Planetary Annihilation, and what they have been doing in recent weeks of their beta is to allow users to choose to playtest on the latest stable build or a newer test build, which tends to have experimental balance changes or other changes which might not normally have seen their way out to testers without a longer internal test. This works quite well, to give quicker feedback from the part of the player base who are keen to try stuff out in a less polished state.

If frontier are going to need to keep up servers on different build versions at the same time anyway, then what about giving backers with access the choice on whether they want to playtest on a more stable build, or the latest but potentially more buggy release. This could resolve a lot of the potential pitfalls of just releasing an update to everyone at the same time, while giving beta backers more involvement in the testing process should they want it.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

I want to upgrade from standard to premium beta, i have the Premium Boxed Edition of Elite: Dangerous pledge level.

When i go to store, and get the premium beta - it wants to charge me the full 100 pounds price, i did log in, and proceed to checkout but the price is fixated to 100 pound, not taking my pledge level in to credit.

Anyone had problem like this ?

Yep same issue. Can't just pay difference and extra etc. Need to pay pretty much the full price.

Its because kickstarters got rewards etc which you still will get. When you buy premium beta it doesnt' come with those rewards. They are apples and oranges etc.

 

[kilvenny]

I believe the store should recognise your kickstarter "donation" to the level of the equivalent current store purchase.
So if your KS was between 50 and 99 it would recognise it as the Standard Beta (50) and require you to pay the 50 extra. The 50 comes off as a discount at the end of the store transaction before you pay.

 

[thewzdoc]

yep u are correct ! I didn't do most of the fighting missions lol am just waiting it out till the 30th

I couldn't wait.....I had to play the missions....over and over again

Man I can't wait till the 30th

 

[God]

Nice job.

I just got premium beta and played the missions over and over again, it's a nice combat experience. I'm looking forward to the full beta access.

First time I played Elite was at school on a BBC computer, it's nice that the "feel of the game" hasn't really changed much. Very cool.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

I believe the store should recognise your kickstarter "donation" to the level of the equivalent current store purchase.
So if your KS was between 50 and 99 it would recognise it as the Standard Beta (50) and require you to pay the 50 extra. The 50 comes off as a discount at the end of the store transaction before you pay.

If it allowed me to just pay 50 extra I'd do it. If it were 75 I'd do it. But I was told I couldn't upgrade at all. I had to buy a whole new license for 150 which is too much.

This is just sad, they don't want my money. I'm even willing to give up all the benefits of the kickstarter just to get in.. sigh.

 

[ZZR600]

If it allowed me to just pay 50 extra I'd do it. If it were 75 I'd do it. But I was told I couldn't upgrade at all. I had to buy a whole new license for 150 which is too much.

This is just sad, they don't want my money. I'm even willing to give up all the benefits of the kickstarter just to get in.. sigh.

In all honesty, they gave everyone about 6-7 months to do this via the old kickstarter backer portal before it was transferred to the fully fledged Elite Dangerous store so I don't get why people are complaining. Every kickstarter backer had the same opportunity to up their pledges and had plenty of warning that the chance was coming to an end.

Same again for Beta backers being given the chance to upgrade to Alpha for a discount before Alpha 4 came online.

 

[CMDR Charybdis]

I have to say, I think that an exclusive "early access" to new builds, even if ostensibly only a last line of defense against showstoppers, is not a good idea. In the best case (no showstoppers) it means locking the paying customer out of the game for a few hours without need. In the worst case it means locking them out even longer (even though the ride would have been a bit rough). But again there is no need to deny access.

While nature of a showstopper can vary it usually means that the software cannot go to production release with this defect unresolved. The impact can vary depending on what the software does and for Elite this might be frequent crashes (recently happened in the Alpha 4 iirc) or a major part of gameplay unavailable (can't dock). This would be quite the problem for a game like this with a large number of players.

So I can see the need for early access for the alpha team and it is now baked into the release process as part of the quality control. I'm also happy that I'll still have a beta that is playable with more subtle bugs while the next version is prepared - yeah, a bit of enlightened self interest there

There is that saying: "Don't play on patch day". One always has the option to refrain from the game for the first few hours after a patch while the wrinkles get ironed out -- but it sholud be a choice. After all, making sure that no show-stopping bugs get out to production is the domain of testing outside of production.

This removes the distinction between alpha and beta status, which might be a better model once the game has gone to production and has proven scaleability and stability.

While you can always "not play" the alternative for some is to go and whinge on the forum at the developers with the sense of entitlement that goes with it. Most people do get what alpha/beta status means in terms of software quality and are the silent majority, but the minority will be very loud.

The distinction between alpha and beta status is mostly software delivery process, but in part this is also about PR: a low quality build that gets out to a large audience sends the wrong message. Have a look at the mixed reactions to the Star Citizen build for PAX for an example where it appears that too much was done too quickly with a fixed deadline fast approaching.

Ian.

 

[Helios]

Two weeks delay for every build PB backers will "test"? (I should rather say "play" I suppose, since the testing has already been done and discussions are over when we get it. Seems more like a glorified Demo version than a test.)

Admittedly: Looking at what FD has achieved so far I can not bring myself to be really angry, considering they are making the game I've been waiting for so many years.
This doesn't change the fact however, that the communication in this matter from FD was a total failure and it certainly makes me sad.
(...)

Quoting myself now.

With a few days between I feel like apologizing for the highlighted part in particular. The info just hit me so unexpectedly that my fingers basically slipped.

I do feel that the existence and extent of an early access period for alpha backers during premium beta should have been stated on the PB access shop page at the least, but calling FD's communication in this matter a total failure was a significant exaggeration and insulting. Wholeheartedly: Sorry for that, and also for the negative rep I gave to Michael Brookes for the post where I learned about this for the first time!

 

[Colonel Kenney]

In all honesty, they gave everyone about 6-7 months to do this via the old kickstarter backer portal before it was transferred to the fully fledged Elite Dangerous store so I don't get why people are complaining. Every kickstarter backer had the same opportunity to up their pledges and had plenty of warning that the chance was coming to an end.

Same again for Beta backers being given the chance to upgrade to Alpha for a discount before Alpha 4 came online.

They also pushed the dates out a good 9-10 months for release. Who knew how long it was going to take before they were actually ready for Beta. Some of us didn't know there was a "premium" beta.. I thought originally when I signed up paying over $100 CDN i'd be in beta. But I may have just decided to wait a few months to see how they were progressing and make my decision at that point. Which I just did. It turned out to be too late, my fault. Oh well... money spend on another game and a bitter customer who'll have to wait probably another few months for "standard" beta.

 

[veep]

Um guys, you should be able to upgrade to (first round) beta. If you can't, just contact support. I suspect they hastily migrated data to the new store by hand and a bunch of stuff slipped.

 

[Juniper]

While nature of a showstopper can vary it usually means that the software cannot go to production release with this defect unresolved. The impact can vary depending on what the software does and for Elite this might be frequent crashes (recently happened in the Alpha 4 iirc) or a major part of gameplay unavailable (can't dock). This would be quite the problem for a game like this with a large number of players.

So I can see the need for early access for the alpha team and it is now baked into the release process as part of the quality control. I'm also happy that I'll still have a beta that is playable with more subtle bugs while the next version is prepared - yeah, a bit of enlightened self interest there

I'm glad you get it.

Looking at the furore across the forum against alpha backers getting first access to report showstoppers, and the amount of dummies on the floor, it simply verifies FD's position that to release a build which may not even run to the wider public, some of whom are probably journalists, would be commercial & PR suicide for the company. Too many just don't get that they are testing a physically unfinished game... not just a buggy one.

There is a lot more to add to the game. Alpha 4 is great, but it is missing a lot which will be in the final game (and not just the other 400billion-5 systems). There is absolutely no danger of all the testing having been done by the time Premium Beta / Standard Beta folks get their hands on it.

 

[veep]

I'm also happy that I'll still have a beta that is playable with more subtle bugs while the next version is prepared - yeah, a bit of enlightened self interest there

Is that actually how it's going to be? Because it sounded to me as though the alpha early access would be to the (updated) production universe, i.e. regular players would be shut out of the game while the alpha backers have at it.

 

[Helios]

Is that actually how it's going to be? Because it sounded to me as though the alpha early access would be to the (updated) production universe, i.e. regular players would be shut out of the game while the alpha backers have at it.

I'm pretty sure that that will not be the case. Imagine the outcry if those who bought PB would be reduced to 1.1 for two weeks multiple times during beta.

 

[Juniper]

Is that actually how it's going to be? Because it sounded to me as though the alpha early access would be to the (updated) production universe, i.e. regular players would be shut out of the game while the alpha backers have at it.

No. Remember that the "universe" is held on your computer, not some central server. So it's whatever version of the "universe" that your client supports - whether it's the alpha pre-testing build or the current beta build.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Um guys, you should be able to upgrade to (first round) beta. If you can't, just contact support. I suspect they hastily migrated data to the new store by hand and a bunch of stuff slipped.

I did... they don't want my filthy money for an upgrade. I'm like HERE take my money!!

"If you login to the old backer app all your backer rewards will still be visible and you will still receive those, but they do not transfer over into commercial products in the store, so do not count towards your discount on the beta."

Which makes sense. I'm willing to forfeit the boxed copy (like I said unless it was signed by David haha) and the other benefits to just upgrade now. But it can't be done. So they were correct

"The pledging period for the project has now ended so I’m afraid it isn’t possible to upgrade your initial pledge level to receive additional rewards anymore unfortunately."

So I guess $100 CDN means I keep the starter ships and boxed version rewards . I was willing to pay another $100 to get into Premium Beta and ditch the starter ships.. They don't want my money.. well they do, they want 150 pounds which is well over $200CDN So I'd pay $300CDN for access.

Its just not fair.