cutmeamango
(Banned)
- 672
- Brazil
What does public beta mean?
Gran Turismo Sport: General Discussion
- Thread starter Formidable
- 47,132 comments
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- 15,532
- Cairo, Egypt
- GTP_SEMS
That everyone can have access to it, or given that the servers will be by PD it will be an unplayable mess.
- 1,159
- Finland
- CONTINUE_F5
How? Do they have problems with the servers?
- 28,470
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
All will be forgiven if the product is stellar. If it's mediocre or subpar the natural reaction is going to be,"well, that's why they weren't anxious to show it off because it's the same old same old etc."
- 1,472
- Florida, USA
- Formidable_LG
- Formidable77
Well for one, there's no "servers". It's player-to-player connection. Second of all, PSN is one of the worst online services in terms of reliability, which is what PD uses. For example, today many people are being signed out spontaneously, so no one can hold a lobby on GT6 for longer than a few minutes. There's only 4 mic channels which means only 4 people in a lobby can talk at a time. It's problematic when you have 16 mic users in one room.
The list is much, much longer. I probably could go on about it for a while...
- 11,334
- The 51st state of america
- sparkytooth50001
Well that's why you have a beta, so they can fix it for the full game.
Unfortunately that rarely seems to happen with public betas these days, they seem more like marketing tools primarily.
cutmeamango
(Banned)
- 672
- Brazil
That explains the public part of "public beta", thanks. What does the beta part mean?
Not fixing errors/bugs present during beta phase seems like an awful way to market a game.
Could you list some games that have done that so I can avoid them? Although you said "rarely" so I guess I should just avoid all games that have gone through public beta.
By marketing the game I meant they use the beta as a way to get people interested in the final game, giving them a teaser then take it away and hope it encourages them to pre-order the full game. So now it doesn't matter if they fix the game, they've got the pre-sale, or day one sale. Of course they do still use them for feedback and fix a lot of things but it doesn't seem to be the primary use for most these days.
Especially those betas that arrive within a month or two of the final release date. Like Battlefield 4. Public beta from October 1st, game launched October 29th. If that isn't just a marketing tactic to get people playing the game and hyped to buy the full game I don't know what it is. Certainly any bugs and fixes reported weren't going to make it into the launch game, and on that specific example we all know how it went come launch.
A lot of public betas seem more like first release candidates, a lot more polished than a genuine beta that would be tested privately.
- 50,664
- Australia
- SpacedustDaddy
Remember when a demo of a game came with a game magazine? Now that eemos are available via the PS Store, I think PD are just trying to use the word "beta" like the word juxtapose and cohesive. It's just a word to use for everyone to think they know something new. The beta is just a demo. It may have more content than something like GT Concept but, it's still the same.
Downhill Dino
Premium
- 11,753
- Maryland
- DownhillDinosaur
That is the usual procedure these days. Demo exists in the form of betas. In recent times, Tom Clancy's The Division and Rainbow Six Siege are good examples of not having an actual beta but a demo under a different name. After all, when you call something a beta it gives the developer a scapegoat.
- 156
- Finland
I can see already that moaning because BETA not working like pikkujussi wants. And still in middle of february no news from GTS or GTSBeta. Ofcourse beta does get almost none marketing so it could be any day but still... Hard to believe full game release for this year.
Didn't KY promised that GT7 would be out too before 'year 2017'? We'll see won't we? Or have these two games already melted together and it is GTS only having future? I remember KY said that these two are separate games, am i right?
Didn't KY promised that GT7 would be out too before 'year 2017'? We'll see won't we? Or have these two games already melted together and it is GTS only having future? I remember KY said that these two are separate games, am i right?
- 2,026
- Vienna
- chrisspeed281
- 1,141
- England
Betas are only useful when the developers take the players input and use it, something PD has never done or shown any interest in doing. Hell the Q+A section had to be closed as they were so disinterested in our opinions and we haven't seen anything to suggest that attitude has changed.
- 1,141
- England
Maybe, it's hard to tell as they haven't interacted with their fanbase about it!
There are several constants to take into account-
1- Over the past two generations the more 'online' racing games have become the worse they have got both in terms of gameplay and sales.
2- Online games require a high level of community interaction and development to be successful.
3- PD a racing game developer have to date refused to acknowledge that a community exists and have only acted with total ignorance to it.
So based on history I'm not especially optimistic for this possible perfect storm of naffness.
- 2,810
- Tasmania, AU
- stigsdaddy
This was exactly what I thought when they first announced they'd have a beta of GTS. I figured, the only way they could make any use of a beta, would be to launch a forum or something like that within the community section of the game (presumably it will have built on the community part of GT6, which, IMO, was probably the best aspect of that game).
We'll soon see. Either they open up a platform to interact with the players, and for player feedback, or the beta is nothing more than a glorified demo of GTS.
- 2,012
With just some months before the release there's nowhere near enough time to gather the data, interpret it and then make changes based on that, to a game that has been in development for many years. Plus, no company is going to change their 2-3 years long work and 5-10 year old plans based on beta feedback made mere months before the release.
These days the free to play open betas of major games (so after the closed beta) are mostly released to gather interest into the game, not to improve it. They work as a way to have two release dates: open beta and final game.
While the idea of testing the network infrastructure before the final release date might sound correct in theory, in practice the first days of open betas of big games can have more players than the actual release date, therefore if the open beta has network issues then that turns into huge negative publicity for the final game, and those beta players won't return. That's why the network has to be already flawless from the start of the open beta, and not be a mere network test.
Lastly, don't forget this is PD we are talking about, meaning that they take zero community feedback. When Sony/PD says they are going to take the community into account, think about what happened with the Q&A (not a single reply) and with the blog (no meaningful updates after the first two posts). Or think of standard cars: the most discussed issue by the community, the vast majority is in favor of doing something about it, yet PD has been rejecting that feedback for over five years.
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- 1,239
- Italy
So what's everyone's bet on the BETA release date ? I say April.
(sorry I could not resist 
)
