Only 25 Beta testers

[Nadexander]

This is some kind of joke right? Only 25 beta testers and theyre making a contest out of it? Most likely these people will have zero software testing experience and will mostly be fan-boys that are already salivating over the game. This is clearly a misguided PR gesture, rather than attempt to get real improvemnets in the game. QS's attitude must be that they dont want to make any real changes so theyre just gonna hand it out to a few lucky fans and claim that it was "publicly beta-tested".

P.S. I hope at least one of these betatesters will have the decency to put their copy on kazaa so that we can get a chance to give some _REAL_ feedback to QS gives us all the old hump'em and dump'em.

[ashbery]

With a month or 2 before release its only going to be bug-hunting anyway.

[SeanV]

I would think they would look at what people say about *why* they want to be a beta tester, and let that (and what kind of computer they have :-) influence their decision.
I mean, I somehow doubt that they will hand a copy over to someone who says "I really love this game and I want to be able to play it two months before everyone else does."

And even if most of those who do get picked don't have much, if any game testing experience I wouldn't think that would stop them from reporting bugs. In fact an inexperienced man (uh... tester) will probably report more bugs than someone with a little game testing time because the one with some game time may assume that this is a documented feature not a bug, whereas a neophite might even report game features as bugs. After all don't most experienced game testers work for companies? Or do they?

Note: I am not knocking experienced game testers or claiming that any old Joe off the street will be better than a good tester so don't kill me for something I didn't mean. )

[Imhotep]

Re: Only 25 Beta testers

Originally posted by Nadexander
This is some kind of joke right? Only 25 beta testers and theyre making a contest out of it?

Well, since this contest has been mentioned both on the official MOO 3 site (http://moo3.quicksilver.com/main.htm), and on their official forums (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=207203) I doubt that it's a joke.
As for only 25 beta testers that should read, 25 public beta testers. IG usually carries out most beta tests in-house therefore the 25 are in addition to the in-house team at IG (and possibly some people at QS.)

This is clearly a misguided PR gesture, rather than attempt to get real improvemnets in the game. QS's attitude must be that they dont want to make any real changes so theyre just gonna hand it out to a few lucky fans and claim that it was "publicly beta-tested".

Again since IG rarely if ever engages in public betas I agree with you that this is a PR "gesture". Though I don't believe that it is "misguided". It's about time IG began the PR machine rolling on this game.

P.S. I hope at least one of these betatesters will have the decency to put their copy on kazaa so that we can get a chance to give some _REAL_ feedback to QS gives us all the old hump'em and dump'em.

Well, I hope not. Such attitudes should make it apparent as to why IG prefers in-house testing as opposed to public testing. Especially after the "Kangamoo" incident QS and IG are a little skittish about placing this beta in the hands of the wrong people.

[moomin]

Nad, while I agree totally with your assessment of the inadequacy of this beta test, and largely with your suspicions as to why they're doing it, you're proposed solution goes beyond contra-productive into plain stupid territory.

[system370]

Originally posted by ashbery
With a month or 2 before release its only going to be bug-hunting anyway.

Agreed, it does not bode well to begin beta testing so close to the release date. Even more reason to delay purchase until after a patch or two have been release - in addition to saving a few bucks.

[Straybow]

"Kangamoo" incident… I've wondered how far-reaching the repercussions went. Much covering of hindquarters, little opening of ears already closed to criticism. I feel they missed an opportunity to learn from the feedback of an uncontrolled release of game features and data.

Yeah, I was tempted to hunt it down to see what I could see, but I realized that any comments derived from fiddling with it would be dismissed out of hand. It was months before QS/IG realized IFP would sink the game. We'd have the game now if they'd listened more to the Aussie feedback then. But such is life.

[Xentax]

I saw it -- from what I could tell, there wasn't enough there to realistically judge such key design decisions as the IFP concept. But that may have been because too much of the UI was undocumented/temporary; that is, while I didn't see much in the way of functionality, it may well have been there and only the devs knew how to get at it.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by system370
Agreed, it does not bode well to begin beta testing so close to the release date. Even more reason to delay purchase until after a patch or two have been release - in addition to saving a few bucks.

Well, for an anticipated "december" release, that means two months+ for the beta testing which is a reasonable and average time to expect a "good beta" at release, highly playable with minor bugs: face it, just like most other games. Of course the remaining bugs will be fixed, every major game is patched several times after release. In fact, expect 4 patches ( let's say, an additional 9 months- one year ) in order to have a more polished game. Just like SMAC, Civ III.

[vmxa1]

As they say in the card rooms here, "send it". I would be able to handle that and in fact agree it is likely to come down as you said.

[Darks]

I beg to differ with that comment, I am an Avid gamer and I have been playing Computer games for the last 15 yrs; I have played each of the MOO games at least 3 times over. I resent any remarks that the beta testers don’t know jack about playing game and are drooling over the game just to play it. I have been on countless Betas. In fact I am also on the Beta for Starfleet Command 3. So please keep your opinions to your self. I for one know how to Beta test.

I know how you feel, those of you that did not get choosen, I have tried to get on several Betas in the past and have been passed over to. So please keep the Beta tester bashing down to a minimum.

-Dark

[vmxa1]

Darks, could slap in a quote, so I know what remark you are talking about? Remember people are often only reading the post since their last visit and may not be clear on what you are responding to, thanks.

[Darks]

I was responding to the original poster of this message.

-Dark

[Nadexander]

Actually my opinion comes from the fact that I am a software QA (quality assurance) engineer. Most developers and many engineers who do qa (general engineers hired into qa as opposed to those with qa specialties) are NOT very good at software QA. In fact they are notoriously BAD at it. Now if this is what programming professionals do I simply _cringe_ at what a small random sampling of the game playing public might do. Really.

[vmxa1]

I will not try to dispute what you say, but I think one purpose of public testers is to see if they like it and to do the kinds of things that people do to applications when you let them use them. They do things we did not expect them to do and find issues. For those purposes anyone that can track what they do, should suffice.