Are We Losing Sight Of What Beta Means?

Shadowymoon I agree. After reading my rants, my friends all downloaded the game. One of them says he loves it. Poor kid...

Sarpedon, Not trying to start an argument. I rarely take a side, because usually both sides are right and wrong in a way. I meant to state simple facts, because the entire debate stems from a lack of understanding from both camps.

And yes, they were called graphical-MUDs, but do I really need to go that specific? If I call Madden a sports game are you going to correct me because I didn't call it a football sports game?

Your comment makes it seem as if you picked apart everything I said with the sole intent to find a reason to argue. I'm trying to do the exact opposite and help both sides understand there will is no resolution. Instead, the developer must understand the pros and cons and use them accordingly, while the player must understand they're not only helping generate buzz, but primarily helping discover unforeseen bugs.

Also, you have to consider journalists. They will play the game and write a "preview" which essentially is just a "pre-review" mentioning all their misgivings and/or praises.

they did this due to fan made request. what is op's problem? basically the ones who are buying the cash shop items that gives them beta access will get those items when the game gets release right?

so again, what is the problem?

it just shows how much they want to get into the beta. I don't get why the op's panties in a bunch. how others spend their money is their business.

this entire thread would only make sense if ggg are asking for money just to get into the close beta without the items from the cash shop.

get it?

"

boozee wrote:

this entire thread would only make sense if ggg are asking for money just to get into the close beta without the items from the cash shop.

It doesn't even make sense then. GGG can straight-up sell beta access if they want, it's completely irrelevant to what a beta is - a testing period before release.

"

Nadante wrote:

Shadowymoon I agree. After reading my rants, my friends all downloaded the game. One of them says he loves it. Poor kid...

Sarpedon, Not trying to start an argument. I rarely take a side, because usually both sides are right and wrong in a way. I meant to state simple facts, because the entire debate stems from a lack of understanding from both camps.

And yes, they were called graphical-MUDs, but do I really need to go that specific? If I call Madden a sports game are you going to correct me because I didn't call it a football sports game?

Your comment makes it seem as if you picked apart everything I said with the sole intent to find a reason to argue. I'm trying to do the exact opposite and help both sides understand there will is no resolution. Instead, the developer must understand the pros and cons and use them accordingly, while the player must understand they're not only helping generate buzz, but primarily helping discover unforeseen bugs.

Also, you have to consider journalists. They will play the game and write a "preview" which essentially is just a "pre-review" mentioning all their misgivings and/or praises.

I nitpicked a completely arbitrary point and appended a ":P" for that bit, so playful sarcasm was my only intent in pointing out the incredibly super serious and important distinguishment between MUDs, GMUDs, and MMOs and how they relate to one another. After all, if you didn't say GMUD, you probably weren't even around back then! I'm onto you. I figured mentioning that there was a distinction at all would alert you to the fact that I generally came from the same crowd and thus was just prone to the bouts of insanity and lack of coherence.

I wasn't actually trying to argue on any point, I was just pointing out that even if the goals of having a beta are no different, the fact that PoE is going to stay free after the "wait, you mean I get to play this MMO for free just because it's not totally done yet!?" phase is over and it's launched. Honestly, applying logic of any sort doesn't work here - GGG literally cannot lose. Open beta drives away non-diehard fans? We can cater to the diehard that'll stick around for years! Open beta attracts much more mass market appeal? Might be balanced in a way that drives some diehards away, but that's unlikely, given GGG is made up of people doing this the way they are because they want it.

I'm tired and rapidly losing sight of what I even mean at this point, but what I'm mainly getting at is: No, wasn't trying to argue, just make horrible sarcastic jokes and agree that what you said is true, it's just somewhat less relevant when the number of paying customers (or how much money can be wrung from their necks, whichever works for you) won't be consistently in proportion to the number of active players, at the end of the day the developer likely doesn't care much about profits beyond sustaining their ability to keep the lights on and the desks manned. And they know full well that they can take the Japanese devs' approach and just apply liberal amounts of author appeal and core player fanservice, which is essentially the same thing in this case.

I'm going to stop typing now, for fear of becoming lucid and realizing all that probably made no sense and was irrelevant to the topic at hand.

The facts are three.

1. GGG is advertise PoE as a total free game with paid only the cosmetics that arent affect the gameplay.

2. GGG see's that there is a big wave of fans and tries to make cash of it by SELLING beta invites. By selling the actual "gameplay"

3 This is called inconsistency, they saw the money and forgot all about the actual advertised advantage about PoE "a Free game".

"

Astrapoys wrote:

The facts are three.

1. GGG is advertise PoE as a total free game with paid only the cosmetics that arent affect the gameplay.

2. GGG see's that there is a big wave of fans and tries to make cash of it by SELLING beta invites. By selling the actual "gameplay"

3 This is called inconsistency, they saw the money and forgot all about the actual advertised advantage about PoE "a Free game".

1. fact

2. event clouded by opinion

3. nope


GGG is offering to take in donations/payments and in exchange give players vouchers for the cash shop and beta access. Nothing in that scenario breaks their pledge of not having a pay to win system. The "pay to win" only applies to members of the game world, if you haven't a key, you aren't in that world. Paying to have access to that world is something else entirely. If it isn't, then by that logic every game ever has been pay to win.

Beyond that, the beta access is really not the most exciting part from what I hear.

Except the way it is worded you are going to be buying cosmetic items you would normally find in the cash shop.

You are just getting beta access as a thank you for buying them early (ie before the game is actually released).

This makes sense with them being a small team making this game. Finances are normally needed for continued production of a game. They probably need the money right now and I would rather them get it in this way then rush the game to a release and it be half-assed.

I for one will probably take this offer up to at least have something to play until D3 comes out and I can still play it long after that if I want to. I may even get a nice little cosmetic out of the deal that I normally wouldn't buy. GGG wins as well by getting some of money at a crucial time of development to keep them going. Sounds like a win-win for everyone really.

I don't see how people can get mad at them for doing it.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

"

Astrapoys wrote:

The facts are three.

1. GGG is advertise PoE as a total free game with paid only the cosmetics that arent affect the gameplay.

2. GGG see's that there is a big wave of fans and tries to make cash of it by SELLING beta invites. By selling the actual "gameplay"

3 This is called inconsistency, they saw the money and forgot all about the actual advertised advantage about PoE "a Free game".

1. fact

2. event clouded by opinion

3. nope


GGG is offering to take in donations/payments and in exchange give players vouchers for the cash shop and beta access. Nothing in that scenario breaks their pledge of not having a pay to win system. The "pay to win" only applies to members of the game world, if you haven't a key, you aren't in that world. Paying to have access to that world is something else entirely. If it isn't, then by that logic every game ever has been pay to win.

Beyond that, the beta access is really not the most exciting part from what I hear.

The point isnt about a "pay to win" change, cause sure that will not happened, its about the inconsistency, in the same logic after a year GGG may announce "hey the servers cant handle all this amount of players, whoever wants can donate to keep the game up" and in a sneaky way, like this beta selling you put the addicted ppl to PoE to actualy pay to play like this "beta access by donate/pay" does to the newcomers that dont have access.

The thing is if GGG can handle in the beta server lets say a 5.000 ppl more or even 1.000 that will donate to get access, why didnt just gave 1.000 free keys. I guess we all know why, and its not bad of course for GGG to want profit but i dont like personaly this sneaky way.

But what is this apparent inconsistency? You haven't demonstrated one yet. When developers describe what a game will be, they're talking about when it is finished and released.

GGG have announced their game to be free to play. At the moment it looks like they're planning to sell beta entries, in addition to the regular lottery.

GGG have also announced their game will have three acts. At the moment it only has two. Is that an inconsistency too? Of course it isn't, because the current state of the game does not represent the final, promised product.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

But what is this apparent inconsistency? You haven't demonstrated one yet. When developers describe what a game will be, they're talking about when it is finished and released.

GGG have announced their game to be free to play. At the moment it looks like they're planning to sell beta entries, in addition to the regular lottery.

GGG have also announced their game will have three acts. At the moment it only has two. Is that an inconsistency too? Of course it isn't, because the current state of the game does not represent the final, promised product.

i didnt think i had to demonstrate the obvious... when i hear "this is a free game, you will pay only for cosmetics if you want" and this game has a beta invite timer set in every 5mins giving a key cause thats the amount of ppl that can handle, i dont expect to hear "you can pay to have beta access" that for me is the inconsistency, another thing is if 1.000 ppl pay for beta the timer will go at 10mins? 20mins? that will seem unfair too.