To Devs how much content can we expect in Beta?

[Flow]

I wouldn't be surprised if a bit more content is added over the next couple of months, but Sawyer seems pretty committed to not spoiling the main story before final code is released. Pretty sure I'm OK with that.

[Marceror]

I think Obsidian could take a cue from inXile who allowed 50% of their game to be included in the Wasteland 2 beta. The amount of bugs caught and feedback offered on such a large chunk of the game I know has been massive. The game will be far better as a result.

 

Give a much narrower slice of the game for beta testing, and expect a significantly reduced level of benefit.

[Marceror]

I wouldn't be surprised if a bit more content is added over the next couple of months, but Sawyer seems pretty committed to not spoiling the main story before final code is released. Pretty sure I'm OK with that.

 

It's good to know, I suppose. Sounds like the beta in its initial state at least will require a couple of evenings only. So perhaps I can take a closer look at D:OS finally.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Marceror

[Doppelschwert]

Well, they have their own beta testers regarding bugs.

Still, you're right about it being beneficial, but I think what they are doing is viable as well.

Given that you can replay the little content in all kind of party variations, there should be more than enough time to have fun with the beta. It's probably enough for balancing, given that the max level is supposed to be 12 and you can go all the way to 8.

[Flow]

Well, they have their own beta testers regarding bugs.

 

Presumably. In addition to Obsidian being a much larger studio than inXile, they also have access to Paradox employees for play testing.

[TrueMenace]

Josh said in the stream that there will be 4 quests for us. Seems a bit low...

[Marceror]

 

Well, they have their own beta testers regarding bugs.

 

Presumably. In addition to Obsidian being a much larger studio than inXile, they also have access to Paradox employees for play testing.

 

 

My understanding is that inXile also has a large team in Europe (Russia, I'm thinking) doing beta testing for the full game. They are reported to know the game inside and out at this point. But even still, fans have found plenty that was missed. They always do, and always will.

 

 

EDIT

 

And for what it's worth, on the one hand I can respect Obsidian not wanting to "spoil" their fans. But you know, in this case the backers are more than just fans. Giving us greater opportunity to see the game and provide feedback is a rare opportunity. Not just for the backers, but for Obsidian. Seems like perhaps it's turning out to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Marceror

[Lephys]

Josh said in the stream that there will be 4 quests for us. Seems a bit low...

It's possible quests will be more extensive than you're imagining.

 

I have a feeling they won't be "Go and talk to Pete." Then, when you talk to Pete, you've "finished" a quest.

 

From what we saw in the last demo they showed (the previous one, from a few weeks back), it looked like thew hole Prologue was essentially one quest, in the form of a chain, sort of.

 

*shrug*. Guess we'll know when we know.

[Flow]

 

And for what it's worth, on the one hand I can respect Obsidian not wanting to "spoil" their fans. But you know, in this case the backers are more than just fans. Giving us greater opportunity to see the game and provide feedback is a rare opportunity. Not just for the backers, but for Obsidian. Seems like perhaps it's turning out to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

 

It's a fair observation. Bugs that could have been caught by a pool of thousands of play testers will escape notice, but they're unlikely to be major bugs.

 

I'm much more interested in the opportunity to provide feedback on look, feel, and mechanics. Which is exactly what we'll be doing.

[Marceror]

 

 

And for what it's worth, on the one hand I can respect Obsidian not wanting to "spoil" their fans. But you know, in this case the backers are more than just fans. Giving us greater opportunity to see the game and provide feedback is a rare opportunity. Not just for the backers, but for Obsidian. Seems like perhaps it's turning out to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

 

It's a fair observation. Bugs that could have been caught by a pool of thousands of play testers will escape notice, but they're unlikely to be major bugs.

 

I'm much more interested in the opportunity to provide feedback on look, feel, and mechanics. Which is exactly what we'll be doing.

 

 

They may or may not be fairly major. I feel like I've personally brought a couple of fairly significant bugs in Wasteland 2 to light. And I was just trying to play, rather than locate bugs.

 

One was an area of the game that was causing players to lose their ability to save their game. Hadn't been caught by the paid beta testers, and could have resulted in who knows how many hours being lost. And could repeat over and over in that location. Another was causing the game to partially freeze, where only one character could be selected and the main game menus were deactivated. It required some specific steps to identify and recreate. If you didn't know what was going on and how to avoid (which I didn't at first), it could have been a total show stopper. Both of those are fixed in the latest version of the beta, and I presume will remain fixed for final release. I've also found several more minor bugs. And that's just me. One pathetic fan.

 

So I'm not sure we can assume that it will only be minor bugs that will get through. Many bugs are situational, and not immediately obvious depending on how you play. And the larger the game, the greater chance for bugs to slip through. Since PoE will be a very large game, I'm expecting some nasty bugs, particularly if the backers aren't included in more thorough testing.

 

But at the end of the day, I defer to Obsidian/Josh. This is their gig, and just because I may not agree with every decision I respect that they have to do what they believe is in the best interest of the game.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Marceror

[ryukenden]

Josh said in the stream that there will be 4 quests for us. Seems a bit low...

You heard wrong, He said there will be quests FOR us.  Not FOUR.

[Marceror]

I just rewatched that part, and Josh definitely said "there are four quests you can go through in the backer beta" at 1:09.

[Zeckul]

He did, and one of these quests consists of killing an ogre and going back to town to tell an NPC, so nothing huge. However Josh did mention that the wilderness area shown in the stream was large and would offer lots of combat opportunities. Personally I'm expecting 2-4 hours of gameplay going through it the first time and being as completionist as possible. The point of the beta is mainly to experiment with the different classes and combat options if I understood correctly, so it's mainly about replaying it with many different types of characters and seeing how they play out.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Zeckul

[PIP-Clownboy]

The point of the beta is mainly to experiment with the different classes and combat options if I understood correctly, so it's mainly about replaying it with many different types of characters and seeing how they play out.

 

That's what I was always planning to do. But if you're going to use the word beta with a 25 dollar buy-in people will have certain expectations. Backer tech-demo would have been more apt. 

[Zeckul]

 

The point of the beta is mainly to experiment with the different classes and combat options if I understood correctly, so it's mainly about replaying it with many different types of characters and seeing how they play out.

 

That's what I was always planning to do. But if you're going to use the word beta with a 25 dollar buy-in people will have certain expectations. Backer tech-demo would have been more apt. 

 

Yeah but paradoxically one of these expectations is for the beta not to spoil much of the main quest (repeated time and again on these forums), so unless you were expecting Obsidian to produce a lot of unique content for the beta which wouldn't make sense, it was either going to be a few relatively unimportant side quests or some huge spoilers.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Zeckul

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

 

The point of the beta is mainly to experiment with the different classes and combat options if I understood correctly, so it's mainly about replaying it with many different types of characters and seeing how they play out.

 

That's what I was always planning to do. But if you're going to use the word beta with a 25 dollar buy-in people will have certain expectations. Backer tech-demo would have been more apt. 

 

Yeah but paradoxically one of these expectations is for the beta not to spoil much of the main quest (repeated time and again on these forums), so unless you were expecting Obsidian to produce a lot of unique content for the beta which wouldn't make sense, it was either going to be a few relatively unimportant side quests or some huge spoilers.

 

 

That's fine. But really, if you don't want to be spoiled don't play it. 

 

When they go Early Access (which I'm sure they will) I assume it will be different from backer beta. Wonder how that is going to work out in terms of spoilers. 

Edited August 14, 2014 by PIP-Clownboy

[Marceror]

Heya Zeckul. Still bummed about your Youtube shutdown.

 

Unless Obsidian plans to add a lot more content later, this whole "PoE Beta" doesn't sound like it's going to be a beta at all. It sounds more like a sneak preview.

 

When you do "beta testing" the idea of getting spoiled is pretty much a foregone conclusion. So I hope that Obsidian will actually offer the beta opportunity that they claimed they would. I'll take the sneak preview for starters, but this does not fulfill the promise that backers will have the opportunity to beta test the game.

[Pdubya64]

Heya Zeckul. Still bummed about your Youtube shutdown.

 

Unless Obsidian plans to add a lot more content later, this whole "PoE Beta" doesn't sound like it's going to be a beta at all. It sounds more like a sneak preview.

 

When you do "beta testing" the idea of getting spoiled is pretty much a foregone conclusion. So I hope that Obsidian will actually offer the beta opportunity that they claimed they would. I'll take the sneak preview for starters, but this does not fulfill the promise that backers will have the opportunity to beta test the game.

 

Hmm. I don't really remember Obsidian getting into specifics on just what level of involvement and depth, etc. the Beta would entail. To be honest, I don't recall them saying or committing to much of anything, other than the fact there would be a Beta for those who opted-in on it through Kickstarter.

Perhaps I am mistaken though as it has been quite a while.

[BrokenMask]

Heya Zeckul. Still bummed about your Youtube shutdown.

 

Unless Obsidian plans to add a lot more content later, this whole "PoE Beta" doesn't sound like it's going to be a beta at all. It sounds more like a sneak preview.

 

When you do "beta testing" the idea of getting spoiled is pretty much a foregone conclusion. So I hope that Obsidian will actually offer the beta opportunity that they claimed they would. I'll take the sneak preview for starters, but this does not fulfill the promise that backers will have the opportunity to beta test the game.

Err, it does.

 

Just because some other game's beta testing means testing of whole game doesn't mean same applies to other. Heck, alpha testing of some games vary greatly <_< Technically Minecraft was alpha when people started to buy it in masses and it already felt like complete building game. There was no real difference between "released game that has frequent updates" and "unfinished game to which we are adding features" when it came to that.

 

Sooo yea-

 

Wait a minute, are you on Wasteland 2 forum with exact same username? Huh

 

 

It's a fair observation. Bugs that could have been caught by a pool of thousands of play testers will escape notice, but they're unlikely to be major bugs.

 

I'm much more interested in the opportunity to provide feedback on look, feel, and mechanics. Which is exactly what we'll be doing.

 

Wasteland 2 got at start of the month update that was supposed to be pretty much final update to Arizona <_< IIn final major area of Arizona, it had bug where you couldn't leave the map if you had certain NPC you need for a quest in your party if you tried to leave map with him after completing the area.

Which is really bad thing since if you leave the map before beating the main quest in area, everyone there dies

 

Also, one of recruitable CNPCs seems to be bugged since she seems to be really random whether you get her or not.

 

There are quite a lots of bugs in that release, some are quite major and some are minor but annoying. Some are just baffling. "Wait, how the heck did EVERY beta tester miss this? It is a text mistake in FIRST CONVERSATION OF WHOLE GAME"

Edited August 14, 2014 by BrokenMask

[Zeckul]

Heya Zeckul. Still bummed about your Youtube shutdown.

 

Unless Obsidian plans to add a lot more content later, this whole "PoE Beta" doesn't sound like it's going to be a beta at all. It sounds more like a sneak preview.

 

When you do "beta testing" the idea of getting spoiled is pretty much a foregone conclusion. So I hope that Obsidian will actually offer the beta opportunity that they claimed they would. I'll take the sneak preview for starters, but this does not fulfill the promise that backers will have the opportunity to beta test the game.

Wee some people still remember me. I might put up some PoE content on a new "Zeckul" channel although I'll have no more insight into the game than anyone else. I'll let you guys know if I do.

 

Beta testing is more about providing feedback to the developer regarding bugs and areas of improvement than getting early access to the content. I was on the BG:EE closed beta team and it wasn't much fun, just test, file bug report, test, file bug report, etc. Apparently Obsidian isn't looking for user feedback regarding most content right now, rather with the basic systems and classes. I've not heard anything to the effect of a more "complete" beta somewhere closer to release but it's possible I guess. 

 

As for avoiding spoilers that's specifically what Josh said at Gamescon regarding the limited size of the beta, and was a concern raised by many right here.

[Marceror]

 

Heya Zeckul. Still bummed about your Youtube shutdown.

 

Unless Obsidian plans to add a lot more content later, this whole "PoE Beta" doesn't sound like it's going to be a beta at all. It sounds more like a sneak preview.

 

When you do "beta testing" the idea of getting spoiled is pretty much a foregone conclusion. So I hope that Obsidian will actually offer the beta opportunity that they claimed they would. I'll take the sneak preview for starters, but this does not fulfill the promise that backers will have the opportunity to beta test the game.

Err, it does.

 

Just because some other game's beta testing means testing of whole game doesn't mean same applies to other. Heck, alpha testing of some games vary greatly <_< Technically Minecraft was alpha when people started to buy it in masses and it already felt like complete building game. There was no real difference between "released game that has frequent updates" and "unfinished game to which we are adding features" when it came to that.

 

Sooo yea-

 

Wait a minute, are you on Wasteland 2 forum with exact same username? Huh

 

 

In the strictest sense I'll concede that you are correct. Technically, even if a person only tests a single quest during beta, they have "beta tested" the game.

 

That said, when Obsidian claimed that backers would have an opportunity to beta test the game, I know I was expecting a much larger scope the 4 side quests. It's sort of like if someone invites you out to dinner. The expectation is that you're going to go and order yourself a meal. But if when you get there, you're told you're going to receive an empty plate and your host will push a few mouthfuls of his meal onto for you. Well, technically he's taken you out to dinner, but you haven't exactly gotten a meal.

 

That's what the idea of 4 side quests seems like to me. It's like you're going to be a beta tester... psyche! You just get to play these same 4 quests with 13 different classes if you want. Talk about over promising and under delivering.

 

As for the Wasteland 2 Marceror. I hear that guy's a total tool. Okay, gotta go now. Off to check my Wasteland 2 account!

[BrokenMask]

Yeaaah, I understand where you are coming from, but I'm personally happy with the way they are doing it. I mean, I got Wasteland 2 beta when access was given to all backers and I have played it enough to know how I'm going to "efficiently" make my story choices in actual release <_< And metagame attribute and skill points. So being able to play small area with all different character creation choices without real party members(they all seem to be named Backer Beta (Class)) is pretty cool to me. No spoilers, but still the gameplay!

 

I'm still assuming that game is going to be obsidian buggy though, with some quests being impossible to finish and that causes me to cry at release since I'm obsessed with completing all quests. I mean, if Wasteland 2 is this close to release and STILL has major bugs that prevent quests being completed... Yeah

 

And cool, you can guess who I am over there if you notice my "obscure" theme naming in usernames

Edited August 14, 2014 by BrokenMask

[Marceror]

Yeaaah, I understand where you are coming from, but I'm personally happy with the way they are doing it. I mean, I got Wasteland 2 beta when access was given to all backers and I have played it enough to know how I'm going to "efficiently" make my story choices in actual release <_< And metagame attribute and skill points. So being able to play small area with all different character creation choices without real party members(they all seem to be named Backer Beta (Class)) is pretty cool to me. No spoilers, but still the gameplay!

 

I'm still assuming that game is going to be obsidian buggy though, with some quests being impossible to finish and that causes me to cry at release since I'm obsessed with completing all quests. I mean, if Wasteland 2 is this close to release and STILL has major bugs that prevent quests being completed... Yeah

 

And cool, you can guess who I am over there if you notice my "obscure" theme naming in usernames

Going to go with the mask theme and guess GasMaskFan?

 

And well, if this is all the beta will ever be, I'm not going to die or anything. I'll cope, but it seems underwhelming after nearly 2 years waiting.

[BrokenMask]

Yup to both

 

I'm going to assume that people who didn't read what the beta actually has and still bought it are going to be complaining on Steam forums. Oh joy. I admit that its probably not best 25 dollars I have used, probably should have waited until I at least knew what the beta was before I purchased beta key, but I don't mind it that much.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Character creation is half the fun in the PoE beta - I don't care about the number of quests.