1) The beta is not for playtesting or balancing. It seems to be solely to test their servers having everyone online at once.
2) The beta is one half of one Act, and can be played through in an hour.
If players are only playing for an hour (maybe 5 times, once for each class), yet they want as many online at once, then... they will hand out a massive number of beta keys. Probably they will start somewhere reasonable, and keep handing them out as they see what the servers can handle and more players have already played through enough.
More importantly, the will only need a very short beta. Even two weeks could work if all goes very well. Probably one month is reasonable. Go go release date!
Not as much. They gave us only a bit of act one to complete, while they state that the main purpose is so test server and client stability. Clearly, we'll be able to get a glimpse of some of the gameplay systems, but other than that, we're not testing the game's systems nearly as much as if they were to give us a beta which included all four acts.
I wouldn't be a fan of this with many other companies, but blizzard products are generally worth playing at the beta phase anyway. Hell, i'm betting most fans would have shelled out fifty just to play the alpha builds.
Yes, their primary goal is to test the client in a wide range of machines and to test how will the servers react to a larger number of clients.
That's the difference of Alpha and Beta testing in Software Architecture. The Alpha testing is internal and focus on the development, the Beta testing is focused on trying the software in the client's environment.
They also stated that they will be accepting the feedback from users, but since it isn't their primary goal, and they've heard pretty much all the feedback they wanted when they announced the systems, I think they won't pay much attention to it in this phase.
I don't really think half of the ACT I could be done in one hour. The first act was announced to be the lenghtiest one of all and their size would shorten as you develpoed through the game, so, you ideally could finish the game in about 6-7 hours. Diablo 2 took a lot more than this if you didn't rush anything.
And about the Beta lifespan, well, they may do some changes and wipe out the databases sometimes so people would have to start over. Or maybe They would keep playing for grinding. I wouldn't expect a month of beta, at least 3 months would be a reasonable assumption.
1) The beta is not for playtesting or balancing. It seems to be solely to test their servers having everyone online at once.
2) The beta is one half of one Act, and can be played through in an hour.
If players are only playing for an hour (maybe 5 times, once for each class), yet they want as many online at once, then... they will hand out a massive number of beta keys. Probably they will start somewhere reasonable, and keep handing them out as they see what the servers can handle and more players have already played through enough.
More importantly, the will only need a very short beta. Even two weeks could work if all goes very well. Probably one month is reasonable. Go go release date!
This is truly new and shocking information. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
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2) The beta is one half of one Act, and can be played through in an hour.
If players are only playing for an hour (maybe 5 times, once for each class), yet they want as many online at once, then... they will hand out a massive number of beta keys. Probably they will start somewhere reasonable, and keep handing them out as they see what the servers can handle and more players have already played through enough.
More importantly, the will only need a very short beta. Even two weeks could work if all goes very well. Probably one month is reasonable. Go go release date!
That's the difference of Alpha and Beta testing in Software Architecture. The Alpha testing is internal and focus on the development, the Beta testing is focused on trying the software in the client's environment.
They also stated that they will be accepting the feedback from users, but since it isn't their primary goal, and they've heard pretty much all the feedback they wanted when they announced the systems, I think they won't pay much attention to it in this phase.
And about the Beta lifespan, well, they may do some changes and wipe out the databases sometimes so people would have to start over. Or maybe They would keep playing for grinding. I wouldn't expect a month of beta, at least 3 months would be a reasonable assumption.
This is truly new and shocking information. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!