Bugs should not and, in my opinion, will not determine how long the beta lasts.
After all, what are patches for?
No that's a fair rebuttal, I neglected to mention the main assumption of that comment. What I meant to say is, imho, most of the big showstopper bugs are going to be resolved before Blizzard releases the code for Beta test. I believe that Bliz has a very high defect standard which, if it isn't met, will gate the Beta release. So what I was really trying to say is, it's unlikely software defects will lengthen the Beta test cycle, because most of the defects will already be resolved. Along the same lines, it's unlikely that a lack of defects will shorten the Beta cycle. That's why they have a long, iterative Alpha test stage, and a friends and family Beta.. so they can have a predictable, specific public Beta, focused on gameplay, scalability, and compatibility.
Now it's definitely possible that scale and platform compatibility issues will emerge during Beta that could require some low-level re-writes, but Blizzard code is super-stable, so the likelihood of that actually happening is super low Again, just in my opinion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
Overall pretty exciting stuff, I can't wait to see what the trade system will be!
As for the home stretch, not to be a debbie downer, but if you watch the Blizzard 20th Anniversary retrospective video, Alan Adham says he told his development team for Starcraft every day that they were in the "home stretch" when, in his words "of course, we were nowhere near the home stretch." Apparently that "home stretch" lasted for 8 months. =/
I really don't know how to take the prospect of 6 months. For all we know, it might not even take that long if the Beta isn't filled with game-hindering bugs. If there are just a handful, I could imagine them trimming down those "6 months" to about 5 or 4.
I think putting a time-frame on the beta, from our vantage, might be a dangerous thing to do. In my opinion, the beta will focus primarily on class balance, gameplay flow, bnet feel/scalability, and system performance/scale testing. I think the length of the beta be largely dependent on how much iteration is needed to properly treat beta feedback.. Bugs should not and, in my opinion, will not determine how long the beta lasts.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
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No that's a fair rebuttal, I neglected to mention the main assumption of that comment. What I meant to say is, imho, most of the big showstopper bugs are going to be resolved before Blizzard releases the code for Beta test. I believe that Bliz has a very high defect standard which, if it isn't met, will gate the Beta release. So what I was really trying to say is, it's unlikely software defects will lengthen the Beta test cycle, because most of the defects will already be resolved. Along the same lines, it's unlikely that a lack of defects will shorten the Beta cycle. That's why they have a long, iterative Alpha test stage, and a friends and family Beta.. so they can have a predictable, specific public Beta, focused on gameplay, scalability, and compatibility.
Now it's definitely possible that scale and platform compatibility issues will emerge during Beta that could require some low-level re-writes, but Blizzard code is super-stable, so the likelihood of that actually happening is super low Again, just in my opinion.
-Thomas Jefferson
As for the home stretch, not to be a debbie downer, but if you watch the Blizzard 20th Anniversary retrospective video, Alan Adham says he told his development team for Starcraft every day that they were in the "home stretch" when, in his words "of course, we were nowhere near the home stretch." Apparently that "home stretch" lasted for 8 months. =/
I think putting a time-frame on the beta, from our vantage, might be a dangerous thing to do. In my opinion, the beta will focus primarily on class balance, gameplay flow, bnet feel/scalability, and system performance/scale testing. I think the length of the beta be largely dependent on how much iteration is needed to properly treat beta feedback.. Bugs should not and, in my opinion, will not determine how long the beta lasts.
-Thomas Jefferson