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Pirates of the Burning Sea is ready to be boarded by all beta testers again
There was a mishap on the PotBS mizzenmasts earlier today as thousands of beta tester's under the stress test and open beta flags walked the planks and could not login leaving them to flee to Booty Bay. Admiral, Horatio Loreblower reports they do have a suspect in custody, and he almost died ten times in the process when capturing said prisoner while his officers looked on dumbfounded.. The Royal Navy said shortly after Loreblower's victory party that the man responsible is Jolly Roger, and will set trial for interfering with the Early Beta at Sea Treaty. When asked for comment, Roger's parrot who went to law school released this statement: "Yohoho. Ye' scurvy Beta dogs plundarrr all my epic loots. I do it agen if I could, even with SOE on my syde!" I'm out of control; however, all beta accounts have been reinstated, and we don't know how many parrots Jolly Roger used to pull this off, but everything is fixed. Thank you, and please enjoy the rest of the beta while you can. The beta ends the morning on January 1, better get a move on! If you missed out on our earlier PotBS coverage, we got all sorts: crafting, missions, press tour, galleries, and the news mound. If you haven't played PotBS in awhile I recommend giving it another chance. The Developers have been hard at work, polishing the game, fixing it, getting it ready for its big launch come January 22nd. If you have never played PotBS go here to get a key and download the open beta client at no cost. If you pre-order the game you get early access to the game by two whole weeks too. It gets better, as with most betas, the end of beta events are coming. Lots of scurvy high-sea plundering end of beta shenanigans are planned to take place any day now.
Moxi opens doors for hardware, software beta testers
Did Zatz's hands-on approach with Moxi's forthcoming Home Cinema HD DMR leave you thirsty for more? Willing to take one into your own home for awhile? Believe it or not, Moxi is actually recruiting hardware beta testers to pore over the high-end Home Cinema HD Digital Media Recorder, which means that you'll actually get one of the units in your house to try out if you're selected. If that's not really your bag, you can also apply for access to its (software-based) Moxi TV for PC beta, which only works on Windows XP and specific tuner cards at the moment. Granted, you'll be expected to devote a minimum of two hours per week to testing and provide "on-going feedback" to the outfit, but what else were you planning on doing over the holiday break? Hit the links below to get your name in the hat.[Via ZatzNotFunny]Read - Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR beta testRead - Moxi TV for PC beta test
The purpose of beta testing
Anyway Games has some good thoughts up (I especially like that continuum in the title between "testing" and "fun") about what beta tests are really for these days. It seems you can't publish an MMO without having a beta test-- the world is so big and meant to support so many players that you not only need volunteer help for QA, but you have to have enough people to stress the servers, just in case.But is it OK to invite players into a game that's not actually done yet? Richard Garriott blames TR's slow start on a poor beta reception, and I was one of those players who wasn't impressed with the early beta (although I don't know if the game has actually improved since then). I also have been playing the Pirates beta since a few weeks ago, and after playing it again yesterday afternoon, I was pretty astounded at how far the game has come just within a week or two of development. There is no question that the game I was playing a while ago was definitely unfinished compared to the game as it is now, and even though it's in open beta, there will undoubtedly be improvements before the game goes live.So what's the purpose of a beta? Is it marketing for the game, or a massively multiplayer quality assurance session? Every developer has to decide for themselves, obviously-- there's no golden point at which the game is good enough to be played, but buggy enough to still be tested by the unwashed volunteers. The best you can ask for, at this point, is a development schedule that gives you a game strong enough to give a great experience while buggy, and a beta testing crowd interested enough to stick around and help you fix the bugs that are left.
Garriott says too many Beta testers hurt Tabula Rasa
Gamasutra caught up with well-known designer Richard Garriott at the Independent Games Conference held late last month in Austin, TX. During the event he was asked what lessons he took away from the marketing of Tabula Rasa; his response was a bluntly negative appraisal of their Beta test. Too many testers were added too early, in his opinion, which created a current of negative views in the community and soured a lot of potential players on the game. The people who did participate in the beta, we've had to go back to and say 'look, look, we promise: we know it wasn't fun two months ago, but we fixed all that. Really, come try it again.' We've had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process.Massively, of course, was there as well. Check out Elizabeth Harper's great writeup of the keynote in full.
Waiting for Warhammer Online? Keep waiting
Warhammer Alliance have gotten their hands on the October State of the Game for Warhammer Online, and it contains some news that you may have suspected, but didn't want to believe would come true. Yes, the game has been pushed back, and is now expected in the second quarter of 2008. Okay, so that's really not too bad if we're being honest. If EA Mythic want to take a little extra time to make sure that the game lives up to people's enormous expectations, then that's fine with us. Mark Jacobs, VP and general manager of EA Mythic, said that they could either release the game with fewer than planned features, or push back the release and complete development to their satisfaction.There's also confirmation in the State of the Game that the beta will be reinstated in December, with new content for testers to experience. They are hoping to introduce more people to the test too, so if you haven't signed up yet -- go now!
Halo 3 MP Vidoc Impressions
Wow. After watching today's ViDoc about Halo 3 Multiplayer, that's all we can muster to say. Despite only being Alpha footage, it looks to be very promising, and they showed us some never-before-seen weapons, arenas, and features. The most recognizable of which, is the bubble shield from the "Starry Night" ad back in December. Also shown is a trip mine, in this case, as a last ditch attempt at revenge for becoming roadkill via an oncoming Warthog. More analysis ensues after the break. But for now, we've got the video embedded for your viewing pleasure.
OLPC BTest-2 XO beta machine sequel arrives
Good things happened with that last round of test XO test machines, and now OLPC has shipped out round two, with an improved screen (now with real-live diffuser action), and at last the appearance of a touch pad. The main thrust of BTest-2 is mesh networking and suspend / resume functionality, the industrial design is relatively unchanged, since there wasn't enough time to implement changes found in BTest-1. The third BTest of this trilogy will be supposedly much more rugged -- for instance, Jean Piché already noticed some trackpad woes: "Because of blotches and air bubbles, I almost tried to peel off what seemed like a protective strip of paper on the trackpad. It's a mylar sheet not to be removed!" Thanks for the heads up, Jean. Now what nerdy prof do we need to mug to get a bit of BTest-2 up in the HQ?[Via OLPC News, photo courtesy of Jacob Kaplan-Moss]
A later release means... more beta invites?
Well, Nethaera didn't phrase it quite in that way, but she did confirm that there are still opportunities to get a beta invite. While Blizzcon attendees and beta contest winners have guaranteed entry, there are still invites for players who were neither. Nethaera advises us to keep an eye on fan sites and Blizzard's own site for possible information on how to get yourself into the beta test -- though, no, she can't tell you when you might expect to see anything.
Ratchet & Clank online beta test
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is one of the few titles from Sony that will future Infrastructure multiplayer in the future. Gamer Advisory Panel members just received an e-mail inviting them to a beta test, with registrations limited to the first 2000 entrants. (We're not allowed to link to the application form, sorry!) With a beta test happening in the coming weeks, Ratchet & Clank is probably pretty far along in development. The game's supposedly going to come out in March, but wouldn't it be awesome if it came out just a little bit earlier?If any of our readers are GAP members and partake in the beta test, shoot us a comment. We'll try to make you famous.
A chance to get in to the BC beta!
At present, I'm only seeing this contest up on the European website, but it wouldn't surprise me to find a similar affair on the US website soon. (If not, expect more moaning on the forums than usual over the next few days.) Winning is simple -- just take a screenshot of your guild near a well-known NPC. So get out your fanciest clothes and get searching for that perfect spot. The best 40 entries will receive 25 beta keys for the guild. Now get going -- you only have until October 5th to send in your entry!
Beta invites for raiding guilds?
Multiple threads on the forums have popped up today asking about mails claiming to come from Blizzard (that is to say, an e-mail address ending in @blizzard.com) requesting the names and e-mail addresses of 25 players for beta invites. Is this real? A hoax? A scam? Responses in the forums have ranged from calling it out as an obvious scam, to saying that it's a known fact that Blizzard has been looking for raiders to test the newest raid content. Well, Tseric has replied to one such thread dodging the scam issue entirely, telling us the following: "The players invited to the beta have a rather broad demographic, so looking at it as only raiding guilds being invited into the beta is simply inaccurate." This seems to kill the scam angle and open up another question -- if Blizzard isn't simply picking out raiding guilds for these out-of-the-blue beta invites, who are they picking? (And what do I have to do to get one? Huh, Tseric?)
Forum Beta Testing: Finished!
I don't know about you, but I hate the World of Warcraft forums. Popular threads eventually break, meaning you can no longer browse through them (though people can keep posting to them), lending to the potential loss of much useful information (or much useless spam - but it's hard to tell!). Needed information is impossible to find due to a very poorly implemented search feature (perhaps it worked once upon a time, before the forums got so big). And I could go on! But at any rate, this is why I'm glad to see the new forums that Blizzard has been beta testing. And the beta testing period is now closed, meaning the forums should be released for general use soon. To that I can only say... yay!
HOMM V: Nival (An SAT analogy question)
(a) Phantom: Infinium Labs (b) Duke Nukem Never: 3D Realms (c) Area 51: Guantanamo Bay (d) None of the above If you answered (a), you're correct! Read aloud, the question-answer pair go like this: "Heroes of Might and Magic V is to developer Nival as the Phantom console is to Infinium Labs." Quick summary for those of you puzzled by the suggestion that HOMM V is another Phantom or Duke Nukem Forever: Kevin Bachus (whom you might remember from his role co-creating the first Xbox) recently quit as CEO of Infinium Labs, the company that promised to deliver the Phantom game console. Kev then took a job as CEO of Nival Interactive, the hybrid LA-Russian (like, whatever, Comrade, I'm so sure) developer that is responsible for developing and releasing HOMM V. HOMM V recently made headlines because beta testers complained so loudly about the poor quality of the beta that Nival was forced to scrap its release plans and send the game back to developers in Russia. (In Soviet Russia, beta test plays YOU.) So now Bachus is promising a launch of HOMM V some time in 2006, according to a GameCloud chat with Mr. Bachus. We are therefore suggesting (via analogy) that this promise too may be broken. In our gamer heart of hearts, however, we're hoping that HOMM V does indeed launch soon and that Mr. Bachus will shake his Phantom legacy.
