BETA Demo Prior To release, for BUG testing (for Pre-orders/selected members only).

[aussieterry84 10]

Maybe they could have a read only section for community beta testers to post in? But make it readable for others :D.

[gonk 0]

Maybe they could have a read only section for community beta testers to post in? But make it readable for others :D.

Don't be so Elitist .... Pre-order with the option to download Beta's for anyone is would not be a big deal.. I just like the way OFP turned up and BIS got feedback from hundreds of amatures to make it GOTY....

[sethos 2]

My respect for BIS would really increase tenfold if they started to conduct some serious Beta testing long before the release of their games. Especially because they're taking on a huge task with their every game because of its very nature, it tends to be a performance beast with lots of possible bugs and glitches that are hard to iron out with a smaller QA team. Every single one of their games have suffered through the release phase of terrible performance and it'll even make long-time fans pull out their hair in frustration. Do you know what the number one complaint about this game is among the 'non-core gamers' out there? The performance and a lot of the bugs! It's the reason why ArmA II will continue to be a sort of niche product in the market, because of the reputation and everyone unfamiliar with the game who tries it, just gets scared away and shares their experiences.

Look at the DCS crew with the their A-10C Warthhog game. That game looked like a game ready to put every computer out there to its knees and be a nesting ground for tons of bugs and issues but their extensive beta testing phase turned a so-so performance with lots of issues into a well tuned game that ran fantastic on release. Obviously it still had its problems but I just couldn't imagine what would have happened without that testing phase.

Look at Men of War: Assault Squad, they even did some testing where you'd buy access and got a special tester title on the forum and access to a constant evolving build of the game.

Both great examples of simulators getting early beta tests and I implore you BIS, consider it. Don't just make it a public test or some weak, closed test that 5 people get into and you always get these skewed opinions. Allow the core players, the hardcore fans to possible buy access via a special subscription or a one-time fee. I'm not a massive fan of the pre-order idea as there'll be too many unaware players who doesn't understand a beta test, doesn't understand the purpose and will start judging the game.

I'd love to pay to get access to an early beta test and help evolve one of my favourite games, get a clean release with great performance and iron out as many bugs as possible. Hopefully also get people with lots of different computer configurations, to test out every possible scenario. Could even do a very controlled test, get an NDA in place.

BIS, let's for once have a launch release we can all get raise our glasses to and start killing the bad reputation the game has gotten over the years among the 'other' gamers :)

[EAGLECruz 1]

Good night.

We get in touch with you on behalf of the clan CIA.EAGLE (www.cia-eagle.com), we are an expanding Spanish clan Arma 2.

We would be very interested in our clan is beta-tester Arma Simulator 3.

We took a 2 years working hard with the gun 2 and its expansion Arrowhead, now formed the group 31 members, official members and new members, managers considering whether or clan kindly ask to be beta testers Weapon 3.

We currently have a dedicated server without a problem expected to meet the expectations 24GB of RAM, I7 processor, 100mb bandwidth, in which we currently have installed the web, fully automated in terms of signatures of the users, courses, training and designed for missions that are currently members of Arma 2 + OA, all provided by excellent programs we have in our ranks, called Raiden, publishers are also 5 missions, both 2D, 3D, such as editing sqs scripting , sqf ... ect

We also have 6 servers Arma 2 operating at 10% load on the server

A greeting and thank you very much for your attention

[Tonci87 163]

Good night.

We get in touch with you on behalf of the clan CIA.EAGLE (www.cia-eagle.com), we are an expanding Spanish clan Arma 2.

We would be very interested in our clan is beta-tester Arma Simulator 3.

We took a 2 years working hard with the gun 2 and its expansion Arrowhead, now formed the group 31 members, official members and new members, managers considering whether or clan kindly ask to be beta testers Weapon 3.

We currently have a dedicated server without a problem expected to meet the expectations 24GB of RAM, I7 processor, 100mb bandwidth, in which we currently have installed the web, fully automated in terms of signatures of the users, courses, training and designed for missions that are currently members of Arma 2 + OA, all provided by excellent programs we have in our ranks, called Raiden, publishers are also 5 missions, both 2D, 3D, such as editing sqs scripting , sqf ... ect

We also have 6 servers Arma 2 operating at 10% load on the server

A greeting and thank you very much for your attention

You have to be kidding....

[PuFu 4600]

i shiver only thinking about the way reports and feedback (the purpose of having a beta) would be written....

[tacticalnuggets 24]

A large scale beta test would not be for the detailed reports and organized bug testing. It would be for the bugs that are difficult if not impossible to purposefully replicate. I think those bugs tend to be a problem in A2 multiplayer. Things that are never taken seriously because A2 is no longer in full development. When you are not working on a patch, your more inclined to make bigger risks in the game code to try and fix something.

[4 IN 1 0]

I 'd hope there is some sort of grouped MP testing under BI developers control to test out the MP side of things, much like what CCP doing with their test server.

[Tonci87 163]

I 'd hope there is some sort of grouped MP testing under BI developers control to test out the MP side of things, much like what CCP doing with their test server.

I hope that too!

The Release of Arma 3 needs to be much smoother compared to the Release of Arma 2. Many potential customers didn´t buy the game because of bad reviews.

Reviews that criticised Arma 2 as a bugfest

[SnR 1]

You have to be kidding....

I was like, "great suggestions" then the Eagle landed.

[NoRailgunner 0]

80-90% of so called "happy-to-be-a-betatester" don't betatest they just want to be the first ones who have + play a game. Betatesting is boring, very repetitive and not really fun or entertaining. Making detailed reports over and over again for little to no kudos/payment isn't motivating either. In fact people have to test very buggy gameversions and ingame stuff ad nauseam...

[tacticalnuggets 24]

80-90% of so called "happy-to-be-a-betatester" don't betatest they just want to be the first ones who have + play a game. Betatesting is boring, very repetitive and not really fun or entertaining. Making detailed reports over and over again for little to no kudos/payment isn't motivating either. In fact people have to test very buggy gameversions and ingame stuff ad nauseam...

Beta's are not just for beta test, they are for play testing and finding those rare unpredictable bugs.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Although first and foremost, a Beta is designed for a Beta test. Hence the name. The rare unpredictable bugs don't matter nearly as much as all the blatantly obvious ones that the designers can't see because they are too close to the game. When you stare at something for months/years eventually your going to stop noticing bugs, and you need fresh pairs of eyes to spot things you generally smack your forehead for missing. :D

[sethos 2]

80-90% of so called "happy-to-be-a-betatester" don't betatest they just want to be the first ones who have + play a game. Betatesting is boring, very repetitive and not really fun or entertaining. Making detailed reports over and over again for little to no kudos/payment isn't motivating either. In fact people have to test very buggy gameversions and ingame stuff ad nauseam...

I think you're confusing a consumer based beta test with in-house QA testing.

They are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Although first and foremost, a Beta is designed for a Beta test. Hence the name. The rare unpredictable bugs don't matter nearly as much as all the blatantly obvious ones that the designers can't see because they are too close to the game. When you stare at something for months/years eventually your going to stop noticing bugs, and you need fresh pairs of eyes to spot things you generally smack your forehead for missing. :D

If beta testing is designed for ruling out bugs, then play testing is designed to see if game play is enjoyable.

Saying that rare unpredictable bugs dont matter is bullshit! You would have to be an extremely uncaring person to shove a product down peoples throats thinking the unpredictable bugs don't matter. Memory leaks and race conditions can cripple networks and compromise security.

[Tankbuster 1746]

The stupid tank just doesn't work, fix it zomg zomg!!!!!!!!!

You want a repro mission??????? Damnit!

[hellfire257 3]

Good night.

We get in touch with you on behalf of the clan CIA.EAGLE (www.cia-eagle.com), we are an expanding Spanish clan Arma 2.

We would be very interested in our clan is beta-tester Arma Simulator 3.

We took a 2 years working hard with the gun 2 and its expansion Arrowhead, now formed the group 31 members, official members and new members, managers considering whether or clan kindly ask to be beta testers Weapon 3.

We currently have a dedicated server without a problem expected to meet the expectations 24GB of RAM, I7 processor, 100mb bandwidth, in which we currently have installed the web, fully automated in terms of signatures of the users, courses, training and designed for missions that are currently members of Arma 2 + OA, all provided by excellent programs we have in our ranks, called Raiden, publishers are also 5 missions, both 2D, 3D, such as editing sqs scripting , sqf ... ect

We also have 6 servers Arma 2 operating at 10% load on the server

A greeting and thank you very much for your attention

This post is win.

[Tankbuster 1746]

31 members, official members and new members, managers considering whether or clan kindly ask to be beta testers Weapon 3.

<google translate blah blah snipped>

Goodbye!

This game, Weapon 3, tell us more about it? Sounds interesting.

Hello!

[roberthammer 582]

Goodbye!

This game, Weapon 3, tell us more about it? Sounds interesting.

Hello!

You know - In Latin arma is a weapon ;)

[Tankbuster 1746]

Of course. I'm fully fluent in all the ancient languages.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Of course. I'm fully fluent in all the ancient languages.

French, Italian, Spanish aren't ancient languages :rolleyes:

[rye1 21]

I wish a BIS dev came on and trolled this EagleCruz guy... that would make my... year.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Sethos do those time consuming and expensive in-house QA (beta) testing really exists - in game productions? Tell that a publisher or sales staff and they will say something like: "Our marketing will take care on this, now go slice the full game into some DLC canapés..."

IIRC publishers are deciding to make open public betas only if they can sell much over 1 million copies. There a too many people who will break the NDA or just don't test beta's properly. Sure if the public beta is great it will be used to boost the sales. But someone has to make sure that this public beta version is great and not bad. Otherwise you need to burn lots of money into advertisement, PR and make sure that an XX+ gigabyte of patch won't annoy customers. :cool:

[djfluffwug 10]

I hope a player named CIA wasn't in this clan. I remember about a year ago, some player called CIA hopping into a black hawk, then taking off and trying to be cool by flying in between the hangers on the runway near chernarus. Well, it ended in a flaming wreck near a hanger and the whole thing actually collapsing I think.

Anyway, I still remember the player to this day and hope he never plays ArmA again for his horrific piloting skills :D

[160thSOAR 10]

I hope a player named CIA wasn't in this clan. I remember about a year ago, some player called CIA hopping into a black hawk, then taking off and trying to be cool by flying in between the hangers on the runway near chernarus. Well, it ended in a flaming wreck near a hanger and the whole thing actually collapsing I think.

Anyway, I still remember the player to this day and hope he never plays ArmA again for his horrific piloting skills :D

I'm going to assume you posted this in the wrong thread?

I think that giving out a Beta test to the public would be a good idea. Even if most people aren't willing to devote a large amount of time to testing the same bug over and over again, it might help the professional team find bugs faster so they have more time to do the intensive testing. And I'm sure that there are some customers who would be willing to intensively test the game as well.

I would be happy to spend a few hours driving a Humvee around and seeing if I notice any bugs, or do something like testing different guns and vehicles for problems. I think having people doing things like this would limit the amount of time the professionals spend hunting for bugs, and increase the amount of time they can spend on fixing them.

However, this really depends on how difficult it is to release a game to the public. If it's very hard to do, this probably wouldn't be worth it because you wouldn't be getting enough return out of the time put into releasing it in the first place.

Edited December 18, 2011 by 160thSOAR