Limited Access to Closed Beta?

[runrhino06]

I tested CO for a year.

...Also, until about two weeks before the beginning of Open Beta we only had 2 nights a week to test for about 5 hours...


I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

[Yachiru]

Most beta I have been in start out with very limited time slots. They progressively gain time as the beta goes on. Some beta even stay restricted in Open Beta (I'm looking at you MAG)

[Winnuting]

but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.
I have.


Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

I don't know. Doubt anyone does.
But really, I don't care. It's a test so let them run it how they like.

[Jad]

I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

I have been in Betas with limited server times. One Big license in particular was 2 nights a week for several months, then they opened servers full time and shut down a week later. Still hoping they start back up, lol

[runrhino06]

Well obviously there has been limited forms of beta since most of you say so..

Anyways, I think the primary question is...

Will this be limited closed beta?

Access is access but it's a question within curiousity.

[Replica]

That level of restriction could well explain why Cryptic was "shocked" that people had level capped by the end of the first week after the launch of CO. I'm hoping that because the CrypticEngine is already solid, most of the Closed Beta can be focused on content, exploits, and balance. Those things take a lot of game hours to really work out, so I'm hoping for Beta servers to be open 3 out of 4 hours every day. CO, WAR, AoC, Vanguard, and many other MMOs have had bad launches and would be much more popular games today if they had launched with the level of polish they acquired two months after launch. But once you get bad opening reviews....

[cedarbear1969]

I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

in the beta for COH (third wave) and CO (mag beta giveaway) the servers were only availabe at certain time. Wednesday and Friday. sometiems during the day sometimes at night. they also had weekends where the servers were up all weekend. so i woudl expect the same for the companys' thrid game.

so do not expect the servers to be up and running 24/7 for closed beta. open beta yes.

[TruthSeer]

I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

Almost all closed Betas have limited access.

[EDDS]

the apb beta has just started which i got into and that has started out only 3 nights a week for 4 hours each night, so i imagine this will be similar

[TygerHawks]

SWG was an interestingly limited beta. On top of set times, we essentially stood in the middle of a cityless Tattooine waiting for Devs to spawn something. Run from here to there, shoot a parasol, take down a Bantha. Things didn't really open up until Open Beta. Had to be one of the most boring testing sessions I was ever a part of.

[s0ulsurvivor]

You can't expect them to just let you play continuously. They have updates to make, errors to fix constantly. Beta is for testing which is a great thing for when they finally release it. Testing requires short bursts of runtime and analyzing specific things, then going back and making improvements.

[Zepath]

Yeah, I'd be particularly impressed if they kept the beta servers up 24/7 the first few months.

Very few companies have real time updating anymore ... choosing instead to work on a development system, moving the changes to the test system nightly, and then updating the live servers once in a while.

But I'm not sure Cryptic can afford all that right now. And during beta, there is no live system ... just the development and test systems.

[vobedarkelf]

I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

That person was not very accurate. It was like that for a long time, but about two months (not weeks) before open beta, they increased it. I think Wednesday's test ran about 9 hours and the Friday test ran about 12 hours, give or take.

I didnt like this system at first either, but it really was a very smart way of doing things. They would spend monday and tuesday getting a big patch ready, and then we got to test it hardcore on wednesday. Thursday they sorted out our bug reports and fixed everything as best they could. Friday was for testing the fixes and asking "Are those problems still there?"

Then of course, the cycle repeated the following week. Because testers could NOT play at any time we wanted, it gave us good opportunity to spend time on the beta boards discussing things between playtests. That was one of the best run beta tests I have ever participated in. I would have no problem with Cryptic doing the same thing for STO.

[runrhino06]

That person was not very accurate. It was like that for a long time, but about two months (not weeks) before open beta, they increased it. I think Wednesday's test ran about 9 hours and the Friday test ran about 12 hours, give or take.

I didnt like this system at first either, but it really was a very smart way of doing things. They would spend monday and tuesday getting a big patch ready, and then we got to test it hardcore on wednesday. Thursday they sorted out our bug reports and fixed everything as best they could. Friday was for testing the fixes and asking "Are those problems still there?"

Then of course, the cycle repeated the following week. Because testers could NOT play at any time we wanted, it gave us good opportunity to spend time on the beta boards discussing things between playtests. That was one of the best run beta tests I have ever participated in. I would have no problem with Cryptic doing the same thing for STO.

After breaking it down a little, yea that does sound like a good testing system but it doesn't seem like it would help much toward end game content.

[Replica]

That person was not very accurate. It was like that for a long time, but about two months (not weeks) before open beta, they increased it. I think Wednesday's test ran about 9 hours and the Friday test ran about 12 hours, give or take.

I didnt like this system at first either, but it really was a very smart way of doing things. They would spend monday and tuesday getting a big patch ready, and then we got to test it hardcore on wednesday. Thursday they sorted out our bug reports and fixed everything as best they could. Friday was for testing the fixes and asking "Are those problems still there?"

Then of course, the cycle repeated the following week. Because testers could NOT play at any time we wanted, it gave us good opportunity to spend time on the beta boards discussing things between playtests. That was one of the best run beta tests I have ever participated in. I would have no problem with Cryptic doing the same thing for STO.
That does sound like a very good system for fixing bugs, but not a very good system for tuning the gameplay. I think that is reflected in the lukewarm reviews that CO got after launch. I never have even a glitch while playing CO, but it was like pulling teeth trying to actually team up with group. After my fourth alt the tutorial felt like punishment. After the first month an a half, I stopped playing, even with a six month sub. I really hope that Cryptic learns to beta test the gameplay as well as they test the game engine.

[USS_Parallax]

I'd fully expect the STO to have a limited beta much like CO did.

[vobedarkelf]

That does sound like a very good system for fixing bugs, but not a very good system for tuning the gameplay. I think that is reflected in the lukewarm reviews that CO got after launch. I never have even a glitch while playing CO, but it was like pulling teeth trying to actually team up with group. After my fourth alt the tutorial felt like punishment. After the first month an a half, I stopped playing, even with a six month sub. I really hope that Cryptic learns to beta test the gameplay as well as they test the game engine.

I am going to be perfectly honest with you here. Remember what I said about the limited playtime giving us more time to discuss the game on the beta boards? The 'problems' you just described in the quote above are exactly some of the things we talked about on the beta boards. I personally posted many times over the months that I didn't see any real group play options in the game. It felt like a single-player game with other people around. The devs absolutely read the beta boards. They knew about these problems. When they pushed back the release date three months, I was seriously hoping they would use that time to correct some of these problems, but it didnt work out that way.

I will not make excuses for them. Their beta system worked great, and they got all the feedback you could think of, but in the end the devs decided what to patch each week, and what you got at release is what you got.

[starbuck1771]

Yeah, I'd be particularly impressed if they kept the beta servers up 24/7 the first few months.

Very few companies have real time updating anymore ... choosing instead to work on a development system, moving the changes to the test system nightly, and then updating the live servers once in a while.

But I'm not sure Cryptic can afford all that right now. And during beta, there is no live system ... just the development and test systems.

Which is a big issue. Limited time means limited testing which means a buggy game. As stated before SWG's beta was limited and look at what happened there. On the the other hand look at Lord of the Rings Online the Shadows of Angmar. We were testing 24/7 dureing Alpha as well as Closed Beta. We had a perfect bug free launch. That is what Cryptic should be shooting for not some idiotic half-baked idea of a beta.

[gair22]

I'm hoping it isn't limited for the fact that there is alot of randomness in the genesis matrix. I don't expect limited testing to really dig deep on random bugs that would occur from it.

[Ellsworth]

Considering that it looks like it's going to be a short beta, I'm guessing that it will be a 24/7 beta

[mrwalsh]

I read this in a post asking Cryptic to not make the same mistakes in the usage of Beta as they did within CO. I haven't done a Beta test for Cryptic as I'm sure others haven't either but I have never heard of a company using a limited access to the servers during testings.

Will there be a limit to the server usage for us testing in STO?

Most companies do that, especially in the early stages. They need time to sort through bug reports, server logs, and the forums to see what needs to be fixed, and on top of that they still have to be working on new builds and putting the final features into the game. Restricted server times also has the added advantage of periods where the beta community is heavily on the forums providing feedback, which you'll notice is greatly diminished when the servers are open.

As for the limited time=limited testing argument (which we'll no doubt see 90000 posts about in the near future): if they don't have time to sort through the logs, they can't get to the info on the bugs we find. On top of that, the downtime lets them apply fixes, so you don't have the same old bugs (that they could easily fix otherwise) being reported an extra few thousand times. Limited server time means more bugs fixed in a timely manner, which means more players addressing other issues (and testing fixes), and leads to more bugs found and addressed on the whole. It's similar to the reasoning behind limiting the number of players with beta access; there's a margin of diminishing returns and Cryptic will have to figure out where it is once we start.

[Yachiru]

I know realistically its likely that it'll be limited (at least at the start) but I'm hoping its not. I support the dev system encouraged by limited time frames, but I dont think I'll be able to come up with a decent excuse at work as to why I cant work certain nights :)

[mprhead5]

hopefully 24/7 for a few days then down for a day or two for fixes then 24/7 for a few days. rinse repete

[vegadane]

You can't expect them to just let you play continuously. They have updates to make, errors to fix constantly. Beta is for testing which is a great thing for when they finally release it. Testing requires short bursts of runtime and analyzing specific things, then going back and making improvements.

QFT

I'd rather the beta period was used for making sure the game works, rather than being able to play the game at all hours. I appreciate that beta testing has now essentially become a new marketing tool, but there are far too many people these days who demand beta access to play for free, and then decide they won't play the finished product because they don't like the (highly unfinished and unpolished) beta version.

On a side note, lets hope the devs don't forget the euro time slots, was weeks before we got a reasonable test time during CO closed beta.

[Powerhelm]

I think Wednesday's test ran about 9 hours and the Friday test ran about 12 hours, give or take.

He's right but then again, having a beta test open at 1 pm during a weekday you might as well have it closed since most people that can test (18+) are working. I had some days off on these beta days and for the most part it was a ghost town til the last 4 hours or so.

The only actual player progression testing was done a week before closed beta ended and it was a couple of days and the weekend, not nearly enough time for many people during the summer to get that kinda testing done. No one busts their hump to get a character leveled to max in a beta test like they do live. People will take the day off work once a game launches to get a big headstart. I hope they take this into account in their testing and post launch. They freaked when people capped in 3 days yet I see people routinely cap in older games in that time as a means of challenging themselves or testing their knowledge of the game's leveling scheme...

CoH had beta testing for 6 months and had 24/7 bey a month prior to launch (2 weeks prior to Open) when I got in. This from a company that literally was formed just to make that game and had no previous MMO experience.

I can only assume that CO's problems came from those in charge of it's production given their past MMO experience (Hellgate, SWG:NGE)...

Obviously for the first half of beta we'll see 2-5 hours every two to three days of server access. But a month prior to launch of your first big title in years?

[ShadowStalker]

If they will have certain "opening" times for the servers i hope they will have 2 diffrent servers for US and EU. Since the time difference would be annoying :p

[Shatterhand]

I'm willing to live with a limited schedule, provided that Cryptic allows proper testing time for all applicable time zones and for us working gamers who can't be on all day long (or all evening, for you 2nd-and-3rd shifters out there).

I recall it being said (I believe by Zinc) that STO's closed beta wasn't to be so much a bug-finding fest as a playtest of the fun factor of the game. How much fun can you have exploring and trying out the Genesis system and tweaking your bridge officers' skills and customizing your ship and avatar if you're limited to a few hours a day for two days out of a week? That especially comes into question if a few hours of that time is spent playing the tutorial, unless they're going to bypass that for the beta.

[Fatherfungus]

here is my wish list

beta key ...or else the rest is pointless
some place to record bugs so I know if it has been already reported
a listing with current 'online times'

that would work

[Geist06]

Beta tends to move in waves, each one with a different option. They have to find bugs, make sure the game's engine is working properly, make sure their servers can handle whatever stress load people bring, and yes... test the fun factor (although that tends to be last unless there's a huge uproar. And even then, they have to decide if its doable in their timetable.)

The biggest part will be finding bugs / ways to crash the system. Heck, us being a part of beta (especially closed beta) is being their assistants. Their eyes and ears. It isn't about playing the demo. While I'm not a huge fan of PvP, I fully plan on trying to get as massive of a fleet as possible to fight against a similar size fleet. Why? (outside the idea of that'd be awesome...) Because I'd like to know that there servers can handle multi-ship combat without lagging / freezing / crashing / glitching.

The more punishment, exploits, glitches and purposely attempting to see if their game can handle it.. the better the game will be at release.

While the game could be a blast in the beta phase, it should come second to us simply playing / testing / and being as descriptive as possible when it comes to the faults we find.