Guild Wars 2
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Soldato
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Amen brother!!
The problem is that Beta tests used to be free and would have no complicit transfer of money involved. The common understanding was that it was a Beta test and, hell, the game's company needed the free, dedicated labour to help them improve their game. A Beta test used to be for fans of the game that wanted to help out.
The problem is that Beta tests have now become another weapon in the game companies' marketing arsenal. Promising 'early access' now is just a lame way of securing hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for a game that isn't even finished or in any fit demonstrable state. It has changed from a thing that dedicated people are asked to do to a sort of sly way of getting a load of money up front based on a) hype and b) people's impatience (and boy can you talk about impatience with a game that has been in development for as long as GW2 has). This is pretty underhand because what they're basically asking for is $60 of your money up front so you can work for them for free. Perversely the logic now has become 'help us out, and pay us a lot of money for the privilege of doing so'. Why do people enjoy this? At what point did Beta testing go from a free activity for fans and ended up becoming a pay-in-advance service?
This sort of tactic would almost be okay, if it wasn't for the fact that - and let's be honest here - most games that ask for money up front end up being pretty big failures. So many MMO's and such games have sold the majority of their copies on pre-release hype / Beta promises / the marketing rush, and then have ended up being terrible. The Beta has become this weird thing where games companies try to ensure a part of their early-release profits whilst doing nothing but giving the loyal and faithful fans a **** deal.
Associate
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Oh god not you again
Top be fair though, that isn't really the case with GW2. I'd play it quite happily as it is now. In fact that reason I was happy to hand over money was based on my experience in the GW1 beta, which was a pretty blatant finished-game preview.
I wouldn't have done it for just about any other game. Well, maybe Planetside 2
Caporegime
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Have you even played the beta? It doesnt have A LOT of work to do. maybe 2-3 months more of work and THATS being generous.
Most if not all the game mechanics work. pvp works, WvWvW works to an extreme surprisement due to the scale of the thing and there is hardly any graphical bigs/glitches or many game breaking bugs.
Yes there are a few things that need to be addressed like login system and que system on WvWvW and maybe a couple of balance issues in classes/weapons but other then that, where do you get the idea this game needs a lot of work?
Associate
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InKursion, if you don't like it, don't buy into it. No one's forcing you to play the beta. I'm really not sure what the problem is. You don't lose anything in the full game if you buy it once it's released without playing the beta.
To be fair, the game might need a lot of work, for all we know ANet hasn't even started working on the other 2 starting areas. But what's released is VERY playable and as others have said, if it was released now, I wouldn't feel ripped off by buying it.
To be fair, the game might need a lot of work, for all we know ANet hasn't even started working on the other 2 starting areas. But what's released is VERY playable and as others have said, if it was released now, I wouldn't feel ripped off by buying it.
By internal testers certainly. The game has it's certification so it's content complete.
I'd say these betas are not to test game content/features, they are to test the infrastructure and the reception of of the game by the public. And for marketing reasons obviously.
This is what i mentioned earlier, most if not all of the people that state it needs "A LOT" of work done are most likely saying that as they want it to be similar to other MMO's they have played.
It is not me saying they are wrong or having a go at anyone in particular, but it seems people who feel this is nowhere near finished clearly prefer other MMO's they have played and want something similar but not exactly the same.
I doubt ANET will change the game to please the small amount of people that feel this way as they will end up annoying the bigger player base that currently feels it just needs tuning here and there and a few little fixes.
In the end if you still feel the same at release, then go with Tera or wait for MOP Expansion later this year and you can get your fix then. You can never please everyone, there is bound to be plenty of people who don't like the game, but there will also be plenty that love it.
also remember 2 million people signed up for beta in 24? or 48? hours. There is no way they could appease everyone with a fully open beta. Pre purchase lowers the amount of beta people and is also a good fair incentive for the pre purchase. Many other games do it too. They have to pay for top of the line servers remember, and they are actually implementing updates and changes based on beta feedback. Most Betas now days are actually just a free demo. and feedback brings very few actual changes.
The biggest problem seemed to be login/performance issues which were stated as being intentionally done to find capabilities of client/servers. Also due to everyone starting in the exact same place, initial lagg is to be expected, once people spread out and progress from the start zone it wont be half as bad. the pre purchase guys get 3 days to progress from the start zone, meaning when full access for none pre purchase comes the start zone will have less clutter too. reducing the performance hit on the huge population areas.
Cant see a problem with it myself.
The biggest problem seemed to be login/performance issues which were stated as being intentionally done to find capabilities of client/servers. Also due to everyone starting in the exact same place, initial lagg is to be expected, once people spread out and progress from the start zone it wont be half as bad. the pre purchase guys get 3 days to progress from the start zone, meaning when full access for none pre purchase comes the start zone will have less clutter too. reducing the performance hit on the huge population areas.
Cant see a problem with it myself.
They are certainly nothing more than that. Not sure what Inkursion's problem is, he has a self righteous opinion about everything like he's some kind of super gamer.
A lot of people seem to forget that its a business at the end of the day and we all want to make money.
ITS NOT A DEMO, it's not free and they don't need to send out a free beta. It's simply a test and they have the numbers from pre orders to do that. Why not combine that with marketing and increase sales with people wanting to play the game now.
We played an old build of the debug client that was intentionally gimped performance wise. We have no idea how far ahead the latest development build is or how quick they are implementing changes.
What I'm saying is that what we see in the betas is not really a solid ground to be basing any form of release date speculation.
Also in my opinion it was looking pretty damn good and better than a lot of games at release.
Associate
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Except you are completely and utterly wrong about GW2 being unplayable or close to finished.
My guild and I spent roughly 20 hours each player over the weekend playing and other than 2 bugs (skill point in Bettletun being dead, and one of the dungeon bosses respawning WAY to quickly, the beta event was trouble free apart from the initial login issues. To characterise GW2, as anything other than nearly finished, is a complete falsehood on your part.
Actually I'm bailing from this discussion - just read post above this and people do seem to have an inability to properly discuss this so keep me out of it. I'll play it when I see it.
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The main point is though, this is completely market driven. People see value in handing over money early, so they do so. This is what I meant by sense of entitlement - it's not a life saving drug, it's a luxury. If you don't like what they're doing, don't buy into it.
But don't bang on about it incessantly like it's some major miscarriage of justice.
But don't bang on about it incessantly like it's some major miscarriage of justice.
I just don't understand the "needs a lot of work" comments, it would be fine if there was a list of the work that supposedly needs to be done. It just seems to be a comment thrown out there by people who loved other MMO's and want GW2 to incorperate things that it doesn't currently have or they don't like.
In the end everyone has their own opinion, i won't argue with anyone but if your going to state theres big problems that need fixing then list what you think needs the amount of work that you keep mentioning needs to be done.
In the end everyone has their own opinion, i won't argue with anyone but if your going to state theres big problems that need fixing then list what you think needs the amount of work that you keep mentioning needs to be done.
Top be fair though, that isn't really the case with GW2. I'd play it quite happily as it is now. In fact that reason I was happy to hand over money was based on my experience in the GW1 beta, which was a pretty blatant finished-game preview.
I wouldn't have done it for just about any other game. Well, maybe Planetside 2
everyone said the same thing about SWTOR