The Old Republic Beta Attracts Two Million Testers

[JesterRaiin]

"We had about 2.4 million people register for the Star Wars fan site, over two million of which volunteered to do [beta] testing for free.

Out of curiosity : how's that even remotely possible that industry releases games so bugged that they are practically unplayable WHEN there are so many testers ready to invest their time and do beta-testing for free ?

(Rage, i'm watching you)

Because there usually isn't? This is Star Wars. it and a few other franchises in this world use different rules than the rest of the world when it comes to popularity. And Bioware has put the testers to good use apparently, as the beta was almost flawless from my perspective.

Star Wars or not, testing is a vital part of any sane undertaking. And I'm not sure what have you in mind talking about Bethesda, since beside Skyrim i don't remember any PC "big hit" either created or published by them that didn't required patching immediately after release.

(snip)
So sheer numbers don't really mean very much.

Sure, not everybody has skills and patience to become a pro tester, but c'mon. 2.4 million people ? That's whole army. That's potential. That's clay ready to be molded into something useful.

 

[Corven]

I hope their staggered launch idea works, or they quickly add more servers, because the idea of waiting in a queue for over 6 hours, like I did in one beta weekend, was not a fun experience. Certainly I will not be a happy camper if the money I spent to be in the game for 30 days is wasted primarily on waiting times.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Not that I want to hop on any bandwagons, but I know only one person who took part in the beta test, and he uninstalled it after one day. Which is of course the other risk with something like this: two million people telling you that your game sucks bantha nuts.

 

[Kragg]

Out of curiosity : how's that even remotely possible that industry releases games so bugged that they are practically unplayable WHEN there are so many testers ready to invest their time and do beta-testing for free ?

Well, 'beta testing invite' is often read by MMO players as 'free trial' so there may not be much actual testing going on. In this case EA/Bioware distributed tens of thousands of beta access keys via MMO sites like Massively, because they wanted as many players as possible to stress test their servers, not to actually bug hunt. Besides there's no time left to make major changes. What we've seen is what will go live, with minimal changes.

(e.g. City of Heroes' PVP changes were pretty much universally reviled by the entire PVP community, and wen the devs asked for feedback after it went live and more or less destroyed the game's PVP what they got was "we told you all this in beta over and over again...")

I supposed closed betas may be more effective - I've never been in one so couldn't say - though MMO forums are often filled with horror stories of bugs being reported in beta and ignored, or features receiving universally negative feedback and being implemented anyway. Of course there are also the beta testers (often 'vets' of alpha) who act like they are part of the design team and try to demand things they were never asked about in the first place.

(e.g. Fallen Earth decided not to go with global pvp in alpha. Two and a half years later there are still 'testers' from that period ranting about this decision.)

So sheer numbers don't really mean very much.

OT: they'll launch at or near 2 million, and then we'll see a rapid fall off. I give it 6 months before they're under a million, and two years tops before they go F2P. If the first content updates are underwhelming in the eyes of the playerbase then half those timescales. That's my prediction anyway.

i like the game and even i think those numbers are a bit high, 3/4th of that max i'd think.

good post though

thing that worries me most about this game atm is the fact that voice acting every bit of dialogue is going to add alot of development time to future content

 

[Aeshi]

Breaking News: Free stuff is popular!

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Is it just me, or does that trooper fellow in the pic look like he's wielding a giant dildo-cannon?

Also, I'm still really pissed off at Bioware about The Old Republic: Revan. Prolly going to avoid TOR simply because I don't want to see two of my favourite Star Wars characters reduced to mid-game NPCs/bosses.

DAMN YOU DREW KARPSHYN!!!! DAAAAAMNN YOOUUUUUUU!!!!!

Spoiler: You already spoiled part of it, but I'll spoil the rest...

That was a fake Revan. Not the real one.

 

[Sansha]

A lot of people in WoW are saying that this MMO will be better in every aspect. I hope it is - WoW's patch 4.3 was disappointing in terms of production value, and while I can't fault them for failing due to over-ambition, if it's what we're to expect from future patches, I don't have a lot of faith.

My point is, I hope SWTOR, combined with Guild Wars 2, causes a mass exodus from WoW and Blizzard learns to up their game.

 

[Nimcha]

I participated in the beta test and thoruoughly enjoyed it. It was pretty much what I expected when I pre-ordered the game.

Most reactions I heard were decidedly positive. There are however some people who went in with complete misconceptions about the game. And unfortunately a lot of people who don't realise it's not supposed to be a singleplayer game.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Is it just me, or does that trooper fellow in the pic look like he's wielding a giant dildo-cannon?

Also, I'm still really pissed off at Bioware about The Old Republic: Revan. Prolly going to avoid TOR simply because I don't want to see two of my favourite Star Wars characters reduced to mid-game NPCs/bosses.

DAMN YOU DREW KARPSHYN!!!! DAAAAAMNN YOOUUUUUUU!!!!!

Spoiler: You already spoiled part of it, but I'll spoil the rest...

That was a fake Revan. Not the real one.

Spoiler

They still turned the Exile and Revan into a pair of complete idiots in the novel, and ballsed up everything about KOTOR II's story that was meaningful. This may sound like the whining of a butthurt fanboy, but the Revan and Exile that I played would never have run headfirst into a fight with a Sith Lord while siding with an obviously treacherous Sith, only to get killed off/frozen in carbonite... simply because the characters I played had some actual brain cells, and because the ending of KOTOR II implied the battle in the unknown region was going to be more of a metaphysical war of beliefs anyway.

If it's a fake Revan, then that only serves to make the shitty outcome more convoluted, so I can hardly say it makes me feel any better.

That's more of a problem with George Lucas. KOTOR II was declared to not be canon (actually just about everything in Star Wars is not canon, but KOTOR II is less canon than most things...It's stupid and complicated) because of those interesting things that were unusual in the setting.

George wants the story to be simple and childlike, and any attempts to change it are shut down or bumped down the canon ladder.

Which is why I kind of hate Star Wars as a whole at this point, honestly. The first movies were great, the Old Republic games are neat, and that's about it.

 

[JesterRaiin]

"We had about 2.4 million people register for the Star Wars fan site, over two million of which volunteered to do [beta] testing for free.

Out of curiosity : how's that even remotely possible that industry releases games so bugged that they are practically unplayable WHEN there are so many testers ready to invest their time and do beta-testing for free ?

(Rage, i'm watching you)

Single-player games usually don't have betas because of obvious reasons. Giving potential customers 80% of your content for free in a bug-ridden state will likely cripple your sales.

Large multiplayer games usually do have open betas, but only the ones who are predicted to be large enough that people will still buy them on launch day.

Well, call me "naive Greta", but i see possibilities instead of hardships. People've built the Pyramids, reached the skies and went to the bottom of oceans, so no. I can't be talked into believing that there's no way to use such potential for the good.

Hint : i never said "give them DVDs with copies of full, installable game and let them off the leash"

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Is it just me, or does that trooper fellow in the pic look like he's wielding a giant dildo-cannon?

Also, I'm still really pissed off at Bioware about The Old Republic: Revan. Prolly going to avoid TOR simply because I don't want to see two of my favourite Star Wars characters reduced to mid-game NPCs/bosses.

DAMN YOU DREW KARPSHYN!!!! DAAAAAMNN YOOUUUUUUU!!!!!

Spoiler: You already spoiled part of it, but I'll spoil the rest...

That was a fake Revan. Not the real one.

Spoiler

They still turned the Exile and Revan into a pair of complete idiots in the novel, and ballsed up everything about KOTOR II's story that was meaningful. This may sound like the whining of a butthurt fanboy, but the Revan and Exile that I played would never have run headfirst into a fight with a Sith Lord while siding with an obviously treacherous Sith, only to get killed off/frozen in carbonite... simply because the characters I played had some actual brain cells, and because the ending of KOTOR II implied the battle in the unknown region was going to be more of a metaphysical war of beliefs anyway.

If it's a fake Revan, then that only serves to make the shitty outcome more convoluted, so I can hardly say it makes me feel any better.

(Beta tester here) While there are numerous references to the Revan in TOR, (without spoiling, some of which are very interesting) I've yet to see any evidence that Revan herself will make an appearance. HK-47 has been confirmed for a major instance and some of the other characters are referenced throughout the game, but the 400 year gap between KotOR and TOR pretty much took care of any meatbags from the previous games.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Is the beta still open and if so where can I go to get a key?

Nope. The beta closed on Sunday.

Great game. Much better than what I expected from it.

Pretty much my own words right here.

 

[Sixcess]

Most reactions I heard were decidedly positive. There are however some people who went in with complete misconceptions about the game. And unfortunately a lot of people who don't realise it's not supposed to be a singleplayer game.

I don't think Bioware realise it's not supposed to be a singleplayer game.

 

[Nimcha]

Most reactions I heard were decidedly positive. There are however some people who went in with complete misconceptions about the game. And unfortunately a lot of people who don't realise it's not supposed to be a singleplayer game.

I don't think Bioware realise it's not supposed to be a singleplayer game.

You must have missed all the information on Operations (Raids) that has been released so far.

 

[Rallus]

People go into these sorts of games expecting the saviour of the genre. Unfortunately they have yet to understand that most, if not all mmo developers cannot possibly make their brand new game as polished or full of endgame as a certain mmo that has been running for around eight years. Give it time and we'll see how TOR works out instead of judging an empty room before the furniture is brought in (Augh, terrible analogy).

 

[JesterRaiin]

Well, call me "naive Greta", but i see possibilities instead of hardships. People've built the Pyramids, reached the skies and went to the bottom of oceans, so no. I can't be talked into believing that there's no way to use such potential for the good.

Hint : i never said "give them DVDs with copies of full, installable game and let them off the leash"

What.

You are assuming people have done all those things either for free or of their own will.

I don't remember giving you privilege of putting things in my mouth. Please kindly don't do that again. It's impolite - at least here in this sh*thole i call my country.

Besides, we're talking about entertainment products, not scientific discoveries.

Scientific endeavor, erection of colossal monument of human greed and egoism, video game, baking a cake - all this things are "projects". No matter the importance, budget, aim or extent, principles stay the same. Someone gives orders, someone does the job, someone supervises it, someone makes reports and so on.