News
The Importance of Betas
22nd May 2008 03:52 PM GMT | Maticus | 1 comments
An interesting article has popped up on mmogamer.com, discussing the important role of player testing in computer games. We all know what can happen if a game is pushed out too quickly. Developers must give the testers of an alpha or beta plenty of time to discover faults in the game, albeit large or small, and be willing to actually fix them before the game is released.
Respecting their users, EA Mythic waited two solid years before even going anywhere near the stage of “beta.” Then, they realized that they’d neglected a huge contingent of players who expected more large scale RvR. Without complaining or equivocating they immediately put their heads back down and went back to work. Thanks to a huge corporation and lots of support staff, a year later the team leader is proud to say they not only have a better product, but that those suggestions from last summer’s testing phase have, ” … made our game such a well-rounded full PvP game, it’s so deep and crazy when the players get out there and play it, they’re gushing about it.”
Luckily for us, Blizzard is the same when it comes to releasing their games. We might all grumble about having to wait so long (did someone mention one expansion per year..?), but we can all be sure that when they finally release a game, it was worth the wait.
Tags: alpha, beta
Comments
99 days ago
Well technically Blizzard is staying true to the 1 expansion a year. By releasing TBC in January last year they basically gave themselves all of this year to release WotLK.
