> > Absolutely I do, do you think Halo 4 would have turned out like it is if we were given a Beta test beforehand?
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> In the “be careful what you ask for” category, what if the majority (>50%) of beta players played with the equivalent of Infinity settings?
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> That’s why I think the H5 beta is appearing so far out from release. You can bet the MM in H5 will reflect what the beta playing majority actually play. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - or the one (something like that). I also think the MM in the Master Chief Collection will factor into how H5 MM turns out (i.e. what people actually play most).
Wouldn’t that actually require two different playstyles? And isn’t it in general quite a bad approach? To form your game after a test run of a game’s mechanics?
I mean, if you were to present me with two different modes, let’s pretend that you say Classic which is a mode where all the fancy pancy stuff is disabled, and not in anyway actually developed on from “classic gameplay”, in other words a watered down version. The other mode would then be Infinity which has all the new gadgets, features and so forth.
As a beta tester, I’m there to test the product. First of all, going into the “Classic” setting, that’s not me testing the product. That’s me selecting what I’d like to play, not beta testing which is what the beta is for. Now, if I go into the Infinity setting I’m testing the product, but I might not enjoy it, which leads to me leaving feedback of course if that’s taken into account.
Either way, if they’re to take what’s played the most, which will be the more developed mode, they’re using the beta wrong and they’re getting a very bad data on what players actually want to play.
See, not many will want to play that “classic” setting as it’s a watered down version which skewes numbers towards the more developed version. The other thing is that if players are meant to test the new settings, most players will go for the new setting to test it, both to see what they’ll think of it and to actually beta test it.
Now, if you have two different versions, a “classic” that isn’t a watered down version and then an “infinity” version that’s a further developed version of infinity, that’s a different thing. But you’re still left with the problem of both versions being in their Beta stage and players not actually representing their preference. They’re beta testing.
Two retail versions are better representations of what players prefer. Simply becuase they’re not time limited and it’s the full games.