Meaning of ALPHA and BETA games

[Narphalex]

Ok i see a TON of people complaining about this game not having this, or theres a bug here, or this is broken... basically a lot of whining and moaning about crap that is not in the game and should be. You need to remember that this game is not even a month old and instead of helping the devs you are hindering by just repeating the same old story. Here are the meanings of what games are before they are truly released

Alpha state games

A working alpha state game is the game itself with all the basic core concepts in place (and most likely some still being developed or drawn up) allowing players the base freedoms that allow the game to resolve gameplay issues, early exploits, small bugs, major bugs, early balancing and many other issues that you wont see in a fully released game that does not state that its an alpha or beta state game.

This all being said, the best way to get thing that devs have as a tool is in my eyes the community or "us" putting it plainly. We are the force that drives them to make an outstanding product that we are all eager to enjoy. When developers see the forums exploding with issues like people saying that "the game is dying" or "this game sucks" then whats the point of them continuing on making this game for people that have already given up on them? Things like this in some extreme cases do have valid points but in very rare cases do they matter for Alpha state games that have literally just been made playable for people.

The best thing that you can do in the Alpha State of game development (especially with a working and released alpha state game) is to give constructive feedback to the devs so that they can interact with the community, sharing ideas or even allowing us to sometimes vote on different content that could be included in the game later on. For those that are alpha testers who stay around from this point forwards our word and feedback becomes very valued and wanted by the devs because we would have more experience than a fresh player at release. This in itself can create a much better and more fluid game for everyone to enjoy.

RECAP
Alpha state games are:
-Incomplete basic forms of the game
-Full of bugs
-Unbalanced in some areas (or all)
-Will have major changes at times (such as the removal of Station PvP which is being re-implimented and will not be removed from game0
-Graphics Artefacts
- And a lot of other inconsistencies with the game that wont be in a full release or even beta state games


Beta State Games
Beta state games are in some cases a simple fine tuning of a 90% complete game, or could be another stage for the devs to add another round of content for the end product itself. There are a lot of different ways to see what beta state games are and normally they are categorized by the different numbers associated with them. a common way of seeing this (in most games but not all) are the 3 numbers in patch notes such as 0.1.9 (early beta phase) or 0.9.8 (late beta stage) different developers have different ways of doing this but the higher the number, the later in the creation it is.

Now this is a time when its like going over a game with a fine tooth comb to find all the last existing bugs or balance changes. At this point more and more players will most likely take a stance on if the game is a good one or not as most of the time (not all) the future potential has been revealed and what the devs work ethic is and how it will be possibly during later development and release. But this stage is critical as well, because sometimes large bugs, exploits, glitches and other issues do pass over from the alpha state. But its also the time when a lot of new content can be added, tested and looked over.

At this point in development keep an open mind, but keep active on the forums, look for issues and things that might need to be addressed by the devs. Or bring up new ideas and suggestions on in game stuff and mechanics

Review
-Less bugs and issues
-Better balancing
-quicker hotfixes or updates
-more content (but not all)
-game changes


Overall (if you did read all of this) stick with the devs, help them, and play the game. This game itself has a ton of potential, and everyone can be a part of it if they help. I understand that there was an issue with the XP os bug, and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but take a look at the fact that as soon as people brought that up the devs were on it and now a release date for that fix has been given to those of us who were effected by that. And yes as a sidenote i understand that XP wont be supported any longer by microsoft after early 2014, however people right now are still using it so if they cant or just dont want to buy another OS right now then let us learn and understand that, its not a huge issue and can easily stop meaningless fights on the forums by understanding that simple logic.

for those of you who found this helpful thanks for reading :D

[MaximumPango]

+1 would read again

[Narphalex]

thanks

[durnk]

+10 cause people need to read this and quit whining and start finding bugs for the devs

[Narphalex]

well im glad some people decided to read this whole thing lol. hopefully i can at least help in some way with the community even if i cant actually play the game yet

[Razors_Edge1 || TTV]

Thanks! Someone had to say it

[Sakura]

Thank you for your word of encouragment. :D

[Gatau]

haha why make this thread when alpha is all about getting players opinions and finding bugs this way. they even have a section in the forum where you should post bugs and another section where you should post player feedback LOL, what a waste of time this post was :D

man... and so many people agreeing with this guy? it makes a tear slowly crawl down my chin and I feel the hopelessness in the future of the human race.

also, if we dont push the devs we will keep seeing pointless fixes to players eyebrow colors and such when there are so many more important issues. and yeah, the game will die in time, people find other games while the devs do not fix the important parts and then people stay in those other games because those other devs fixed the important parts.

I would trade my eyebrow color or the map search function and more crap they made with a fix for the double loading screen or invisible pirates or pvp without hesitation. The devs must get a serious post about how they suck sometimes if this is how this project is gonna be played.

You may have defined the words alpha and beta nicely here but the purpose of having them is to get player feedback. Darkfall 2.0 banned players complaining and look at that game now, it is totally dead. Before I quit that game I spent 3 hours runnign around looking for another human player and that was about one year ago or so. Now the devs have stoped developing hte game because its so dead, they said this on the forums. I have been going to their forums just to enjoy seeing them fail hard because they did not listen to the complaints the players made.

[Gatau]

Originally posted by Narphalex:

well im glad some people decided to read this whole thing lol. hopefully i can at least help in some way with the community even if i cant actually play the game yet

how does disencourraing the devs to listen to what frustrates players support the community? oh please... the community should be greatfull that this kind of information was shared on the forums, the way it was, since if its constructed as a "whine" it means the person is very frustrated over it! This rates severity of issues that needs to be addressed to avoid player loss. Get it? See my post above to know what happens if these type of complaints are ignored.

[Landorcan]

Plus one and sticky this for the players that come later. My upvote for a future community moderator. If more were smart enough to get this involved in games they might see games actualy live up to or ecceed the hype. Not to mention we will as the alpha players chart the games course the way we wish it to be and have no one but ourselves to blame if it fails to live up to what we want if we don't help devs see our vision along side thiers.

As a counterpoint to those that feel this is wasted energy complaints are what alpha is about might I humbly sudgest you think of the thin line between a helpfull constructive veiw and the sky is falling chicken little that this person is trying to bring to light.

[Narphalex]

thanks Landorcan, appreciate the upvote :D

[JDubb]

I think this post is just good for people who might not know what to expect or know what the word beta and alpha mean in regards to a game and its developement stage.

The haters in this thread are just bored. If you have nothing constructive to say about a post, then make a better post?

[NotOxenWaffle]

Thanks for the read.. I always wondered.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

This game has been an unplayable mess since I've had my Steam account. It might have actually been the very first game I've ever purchased, and it is STILL the most UNPLAYABLE PIECE OF SHI.T ON MY FU.CKING STEAM ACCOUNT THIS GAME SUCKS ABSOLUTE SH.IT. I COULD DEVELOP A BETTER GAME IN MY SPARE TIME WITH NO PRIOR DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE LOL WHAT AN EMBARRASSMENT THIS GAME IS FOR ANY DEVELOPER EVER ASSOCIATED WITH IT.

GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK AND STOP TRYING TO PLAY DEVELOPER! LEAVE IT FOR TALENTED INDIVIDUALS.

[Darkfire]

oh god, another condescending post explaining what early access is, and of course, not knowing much about it but thinking otherwise. :/

We've been down this road before - just look around the forum for my threads on the topic.

I'll just say this: all alpha and beta games need critical feedback.

Don't let fools like the op bully you in to being quiet - the so-called "complainers" make the game better. That's the entire point of alpha/beta games.

7o

[Darkfire]

"You need to remember that this game is not even a month old "

jesus christ... shows how much op knows.

I'm actually on the developer's side on this game, despite the YEARS this game has been out. And i discourage angry kids from bashing this game without learning its development history, so in that way I agree with the op. But stopping people from reporting bugs (whether in the form of complaints or "whining") is counter productive.

Please let's not become like the Elite Dangerous community, which screamed and shouted at everyone complaining about the lack of features., and ended up kicking or banning all the "complainers".

Then Frontier released a crap game because of that.. now they're trying to LISTEN to the old complaints about lack of depth and releasing "DLCs" to "fix" the problem.

So the bottom line is this; let everyone complain about the BUGS in the game, about the FEATURES of this game, etc... but let's not attack the developers, like SpaceApe just did. That's just rude.