The Closed Beta of The Awakening is live!

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PassivePicasso wrote:

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starklife wrote:

Well I guess by your definition I'm not selfish. Just passionate. Whatever.

I don't think I'm better or that my time is more valuable only that I contributed with money and time and you have yet to do so. Contribution us valuable I think.

I don't see how anything I've asked for or said is at someone else's expense either. People can be treated equally to their contribution.

Before that I have admitted I see the point that only raw unbiased statistics are important here, I just think this has been handled poorly, that's all.

Equal to their contribution, good luck with that. lets think about that critically.
What exactly is each person's contribution, and what kind of ratio should we establish?

Sure you people who buy support packs have contributed to the financial bottom line of GGG directly. That is important absolutely, and it does give GGG incentive to give you preferential treatment.

You also have people who have bought things in the store, pretty much the same deal here.

However, Twitch streamers also contribute to GGG's bottom line indirectly because they are a free advertising source. Even if the streamer NEVER pays any money into Path of Exile, they are contributing a significant resource to Path Of Exile. So this also gives GGG incentive for preferential treatment. Infact the streams contribute such an enormous value to Path Of Exile they did get preferential treatment. Smart move (also kind of dickish if you consider its like teasing viewers)

Then you have the people who put the work into building up sites like PoeBuilder and Poe.Trade. They are providing services to the PoE community, which also contributes an indeterminate value to the overall game. These sites provide players with more incentive to trade and really talk about what goods are available in game, as well as experiment with build concepts and talk about them in the PoE forums.
Those discussion add to the overall knowledge of the game and help create informational resources for other players. Other players who happen to create and contribute to the Path of Exile Wiki site which is yet another valuable resource for the community and GGG.

Many players also contribute bug reports and balance feedback to GGG to help them make Path of Exile a better game.

Then there is the simple fact that every single player who likes the game talks about the game to their friends, likely because they want their friends to play with them. Which yet again adds indirectly to GGG's bottom line.

As far as brand new accounts. It would be silly not to allow them access to the beta. Would be a great way to drive away players. "Oh I'm not allowed in because I'm new, well screw this game I'll go play Diablo 3"

EVERY SINGLE ONE of these sources is important to the success of Path of Exile. GGG Couldn't have done it without us, without the community. Choosing a specific group over another would be PR suicide since every single player contributes something to GGG whether directly or indirectly.

Money out of your pocket really has much less impact than most of these other contributions, so get over it.

That being said, I've put over 2000 hours into this game and have regularly made a point of virally advertising this game on IRC, to my friends, to my family, and on facebook.
Am I entitled to get in this closed beta? Hell no, I'm not.

As a developer I see the value in getting varied sources of input from the community.
This release system is very similar to a common practice called "Hallway Testing" where you literally grab a random person walking by your office to see if your user interface is as intuitive and genius as you think it is.
Often it is not, and you take feedback from the entirely random, likely not knowledgeable person about why your interface didn't make sense to them.
You use this to further improve the software, make it easier and more enjoyable to use.

Regardless, I WANT TO PLAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!! LET ME IN!