Betatesting?

[Steve]

What are the plans for betatesting? Do long-time Hero forum members get any better chances at getting into the beta?

[Enforcer84]

Yeah. What Steve said.

[McCoy]

Or Hero forum members who also have City of Heroes accounts?

[Haerandir]

Or Hero forum members who were CoH beta testers? I've got a resume! Of sorts!

Heck... That avatar up there is my original CoH Beta character.

[SAVeira]

Beta? I want in, just tell what to do, where to go and who I have to be friends with.

[Maelstrom]

Yes! Bring on the Beta! How do we sign up?

[Spence]

As an old person that doesn't play MMO's.


Beta?

[Karmakaze]

As an old person that doesn't play MMO's.


Beta?

Beta testing. As in the last shakedown before a full release. It usually involves a stress test of letting a bunch of folks play an advance copy and report on any issues they have.

[Spence]

Beta testing. As in the last shakedown before a full release. It usually involves a stress test of letting a bunch of folks play an advance copy and report on any issues they have.

Well I think that qualifies as a Duh moment....

[Comic]

I'd love to hear about the experience the builders had with previous Beta testers: what made the great ones good? Where there bad ones, and why? What should a Beta tester do/avoid doing?

[Steve Long]

It's way too early to talk about stuff like that, guys. I have no idea at this point. If and when I do have an idea, and Cryptic wants me to post it, I will be glad to. Otherwise all you can do is direct the question at them, and I think it's too early for them to have an answer that's not the purest definition of "noncommital."

I know that at the very least I'd like to be able to get some beta keys and somehow "raffle" them off here on the Hero boards, but I'm not sure if that'll be possible, or if it's advisable. I will leave it to wiser and more experienced heads than mine.

[SuperPheemy]

I was talking to one of the Cryptic folks over at GDC. They're *amazed* at the sheer volume and enthusiasm of the Champions/HERO fanbase. I think they're list of registered users hit 5,000+ in two days of opening on Midnight Wednesday. I have a real feeling that Champions Online is going to be HUGE.

[Barton]

I was talking to one of the Cryptic folks over at GDC. They're *amazed* at the sheer volume and enthusiasm of the Champions/HERO fanbase. I think they're list of registered users hit 5,000+ in two days of opening on Midnight Wednesday. I have a real feeling that Champions Online is going to be HUGE.

Not surprising to me, Steve Long once said at a GenCon that Hero has a core of about 5K customers/players/gm's.

As for beta testing it is often done closer to release and it is not only for finding bugs but for last minute changes/input. This varies company to company.
As said earlier way too early for a beta.

[Pattern Ghost]

I just read the Game Informer article today. It may not be too far off of beta, judging from what they said. Seems the basic game is done, and they're working on classes and content. I'd guess maybe fall/winter for beta? After all, they did have two years of development time when it was MUO.

[lemming]

I'd love to hear about the experience the builders had with previous Beta testers: what made the great ones good? Where there bad ones, and why? What should a Beta tester do/avoid doing?

Well, back when I ran Beta's (of boring stuff, non-gaming).

We basically got the product to a point where we thought it was near ready for release.

On any SW product greater than a few lines of code, the number of variables that can be input gets huge. So, opening up the program to more people will expose more problems than what in house QA would do.

A good Beta tester checks things out. Can repeat the error, and report it clearly.

Bad ones will just say "X is broken! FIX IT!"