> We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
With each flight, I imagine we’ll get up to a beta state in no time. Flights after the first ones will be PVP focused and that’s a good sign(I think? Lol)
I think part of why they want to avoid calling it a beta is that for some games it means “releasing next week” and for other it means “releasing next year.” Early access content has made it tricker to have an exact definition for the term.
I’m not too worried based on the gameplay we’ve seen, but I’m very curious to see how well the game looks/plays in the flights— well have a much clearer picture at that point
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
I wouldn’t be worried. They also mentioned that what will be released in flights is months behind where they are in actual development.
The flight being a older build of the game means that itself isn’t up to “beta” standard or the idea of what people believe betas to be. This doesn’t necessarily reflect the full games current state.
Beta in recent years have basically meant the game is feature and content complete and contains basically almost no bugs. I think these flights are basically one step behind a beta in terms of thing sin them may change more than something in a beta will change from now until release. They may also be a bit rougher around the edges than a beta. Betas nowadays are basically a game demo at this point. It’s good to know that they are going to be more actively taking feedback from these technical tests.
Has 343 mentioned anything about an “all spartans on deck” style stress test?
Being f2p, I’m expecting millions of players within 48 hours of launch.
Hopefully in one of these flights or betas, they try it and see how everything holds up.
Would be like the old days
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
I finished reading the Inside Infinite post not that long ago. I guess it depends on what they see as being a “beta.” Yes flights (particulary this early) aren’t exactly representative of the final product and might lag behind where they’re at with the main development of the game (maybe that’s what they meant). Maybe they meant that flights are supposed to be focused on small parts of the game and not the larger product overall.
I, on the other hand, found this statement to be extremely concerning, especially when you add in everything else in the blog. Infinite was delayed for a whole extra year, this game should be pretty close to finished but at least quite a bit past beta state. I think they may have waited too long to start flighting (and this was a concern I raised back in 2020). If flighting starts on time (which, considering how things went with MCC I have my doubts it will) they would have at best 4 months to release the game in 2021. Look at what they want to test in the flight- matchmaking, game performance/ reliability, new features, testing new netcode. There’s so much on the plate, what if when they launch the flight it turns out to be like MCC’s initial launch? What if next to nothing works? What if matchmaking takes forever to find a game, people get disconnected, games don’t run well/ crash, the netcode is garbage, the bots suck, etc, etc, etc. Unless they’re extremely industrious (or whatever issues come up are small and easy to fix), there’s little time to thoroughly debug/ fix/ re-flight these issues. This game has not been put to any widescale, high player count tests yet so we don’t know what is going to happen.
Ultimately, we’re going to have to wait and see. This has the potential to be really bad but it also could be completely harmless. Personally, when I read this I see the potential for another MCC to happen. It’s possible they’re being too ambitious with Infinite. Frankly, with the delay I feel that they should be much further along and more confident with what they have.
> 2533274916415091;7:
> > 2533274924310758;1:
> > > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
> >
> > From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
>
> I finished reading the Inside Infinite post not that long ago. I guess it depends on what they see as being a “beta.” Yes flights (particulary this early) aren’t exactly representative of the final product and might lag behind where they’re at with the main development of the game (maybe that’s what they meant). Maybe they meant that flights are supposed to be focused on small parts of the game and not the larger product overall.
>
> I, on the other hand, found this statement to be extremely concerning, especially when you add in everything else in the blog. Infinite was delayed for a whole extra year, this game should be pretty close to finished but at least quite a bit past beta state. I think they may have waited too long to start flighting (and this was a concern I raised back in 2020). If flighting starts on time (which, considering how things went with MCC I have my doubts it will) they would have at best 4 months to release the game in 2021. Look at what they want to test in the flight- matchmaking, game performance/ reliability, new features, testing new netcode. There’s so much on the plate, what if when they launch the flight it turns out to be like MCC’s initial launch? What if next to nothing works? What if matchmaking takes forever to find a game, people get disconnected, games don’t run well/ crash, the netcode is garbage, the bots suck, etc, etc, etc. Unless they’re extremely industrious (or whatever issues come up are small and easy to fix), there’s little time to thoroughly debug/ fix/ re-flight these issues. This game has not been put to any widescale, high player count tests yet so we don’t know what is going to happen.
>
> Ultimately, we’re going to have to wait and see. This has the potential to be really bad but it also could be completely harmless. Personally, when I read this I see the potential for another MCC to happen. It’s possible they’re being too ambitious with Infinite. Frankly, with the delay I feel that they should be much further along and more confident with what they have.
this quote particularly scares me a lot:
> Again, there will be things we can’t act on before launch this holiday – and that’s okay – we plan on supporting Halo Infinite for years to come and this feedback will all be captured to help inform future priorities.
thats almost as saying "we won’t release a full game but don’t worry we’ll complete it as we go.
> 2533274924310758;8:
> > 2533274916415091;7:
> > > 2533274924310758;1:
> > > > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> this quote particularly scares me a lot:
>
>
> > Again, there will be things we can’t act on before launch this holiday – and that’s okay – we plan on supporting Halo Infinite for years to come and this feedback will all be captured to help inform future priorities.
>
> thats almost as saying "we won’t re;ease a full game but don’t worry we’ll complete it as we go.
This might not be entirely relevant, but back in 2019- 2020 my prediction with Infinite was that they would basically release it like an early access game and update it for some time before calling it official.
I don’t like to be a downer but their model since MCC/ Halo 5 has pretty much been throw it out in whatever the hell state and fix/ finish it later. It wouldn’t surprise me if that is what happens with Infinite. Personally, I would prefer to have a finished, decently functional game on day 1.
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
Not me. Means they’re still polishing things. They still have 3+ months. I would hope they’re still trying to refine and polish as much as possible.
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
Betas are almost full iterations of the game, keeping in mind. That said its definitely past the “Alpha” stages of development. And consider also what you saw in the multiplayer reveal.
Consider also the Halo 5 beta and how that was.
.
Im not that concerned right now, we’re just about to start getting more Infinite content now.
Betas are not builds generally used to test anything. Marketing just loves to use that term as they have trained consumers to think it’s better than a demo. Games sit in that state for prob the shortest amount of time. The build we are getting not being in a “beta” state is probably for the best given it means it’s old enough that it’s mainly meant for stability testing and addressing things that may have not been addressed in the most up-to-date builds.
This does not mean anything in the long run for the state of the game. The only ones this worry are those who don’t have the knowledge base on what actually goes into development and how builds actually function. Let’s not get hung up on naming conventions and instead just focus on what the build contains and its goals. It being focused on bots its extremely beneficial. While yes, it allows them to test bot functionality in a smaller scale live environment, it also gives them more data from a server standpoint.
We know that players will be able to play with each other against bots, not against eachother. This means that a team of 4 can play a match against 4 bots. When you have say, a population of 20k (just throwing out a number) you actually get more matches being played with that 20k compared to if 8 players were in a match. More matches = more data for foundational server testing. If that is stable, then they move towards more pvp focused tests. This is good.
> 2533274808453107;6:
> Has 343 mentioned anything about an “all spartans on deck” style stress test?
> Being f2p, I’m expecting millions of players within 48 hours of launch.
> Hopefully in one of these flights or betas, they try it and see how everything holds up.
> Would be like the old days
> “…but our goal is to eventually get every eligible Halo Insider a chance to go hands-on and help us achieve our goals on the road to launch.”
Implication is that they will get a large preview at some point in flighting.
> 2533274882881665;13:
> > 2533274808453107;6:
> > Has 343 mentioned anything about an “all spartans on deck” style stress test?
> > Being f2p, I’m expecting millions of players within 48 hours of launch.
> > Hopefully in one of these flights or betas, they try it and see how everything holds up.
> > Would be like the old days
>
>
>
> > “…but our goal is to eventually get every eligible Halo Insider a chance to go hands-on and help us achieve our goals on the road to launch.”
>
> Implication is that they will get a large preview at some point in flighting.
I see that as an implication they would like everyone to try it, but perhaps not at the same time. Focused flights
But I hope you’re right
> 2533274808453107;14:
> > 2533274882881665;13:
> > > 2533274808453107;6:
> > > Has 343 mentioned anything about an “all spartans on deck” style stress test?
> > > Being f2p, I’m expecting millions of players within 48 hours of launch.
> > > Hopefully in one of these flights or betas, they try it and see how everything holds up.
> > > Would be like the old days
> >
> >
> >
> > > “…but our goal is to eventually get every eligible Halo Insider a chance to go hands-on and help us achieve our goals on the road to launch.”
> >
> > Implication is that they will get a large preview at some point in flighting.
>
> I see that as an implication they would like everyone to try it, but perhaps not at the same time. Focused flights
> But I hope you’re right
There are hundreds of thousands of Insiders according to the blog. I’d imagine it would be very difficult to flight them all in small groups.
> 2533274882881665;15:
> > 2533274808453107;14:
> > > 2533274882881665;13:
> > > > 2533274808453107;6:
> > > > Has 343 mentioned anything about an “all spartans on deck” style stress test?
> > > > Being f2p, I’m expecting millions of players within 48 hours of launch.
> > > > Hopefully in one of these flights or betas, they try it and see how everything holds up.
> > > > Would be like the old days
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > “…but our goal is to eventually get every eligible Halo Insider a chance to go hands-on and help us achieve our goals on the road to launch.”
> > >
> > > Implication is that they will get a large preview at some point in flighting.
> >
> > I see that as an implication they would like everyone to try it, but perhaps not at the same time. Focused flights
> > But I hope you’re right
>
> There are hundreds of thousands of Insiders according to the blog. I’d imagine it would be very difficult to flight them all in small groups.
That depends on what your definition of “small”, is.
I’d like to see a million people In a flight, all with their respective pcs and xbox variations, etc, at the same time.
Here’s the thing we have little info on the current build of infinite and my guess is they’ll use data of flights of older builds to fine tune the current one (again no idea on what looks like) so I believe that infinite is actually nearing completion it’s just that 343 want to find some bugs they may have missed with the flights cause they want this to be done right
I think there’s only closed flights going on with very small test pools at least according to an older interview. They’re probably ironing out issues for the larger public flights. The big public flights will likely be beginning shortly as the next Inside Infinite is confirmed to be about Flighting.
In short it’s likely just being polished up before being deployed. I think I speak for everyone when I say it’s better that they take their time and it actually be playable than a non-functional mess. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready” I think is what’s been said, and it should remain as such.
> 2533274916415091;9:
> > 2533274924310758;8:
> > > 2533274916415091;7:
> > > > 2533274924310758;1:
> > > > > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
> >
> > this quote particularly scares me a lot:
> >
> >
> > > Again, there will be things we can’t act on before launch this holiday – and that’s okay – we plan on supporting Halo Infinite for years to come and this feedback will all be captured to help inform future priorities.
> >
> > thats almost as saying "we won’t re;ease a full game but don’t worry we’ll complete it as we go.
>
> This might not be entirely relevant, but back in 2019- 2020 my prediction with Infinite was that they would basically release it like an early access game and update it for some time before calling it official.
>
> I don’t like to be a downer but their model since MCC/ Halo 5 has pretty much been throw it out in whatever the hell state and fix/ finish it later. It wouldn’t surprise me if that is what happens with Infinite. Personally, I would prefer to have a finished, decently functional game on day 1.
To be fair, the MCC was initially being cobbled together by multiple groups most of whichj never worked with these engines before. Halo 5 they had to put it out at the listed date and probably weren’t given any extra breathing time by Microsoft. Infinite we could have had a year ago, but instead they somehow managed to talk Microsoft into letting them delay it an extra year since it wasn’t ready - given MS was planning on having this be a launch title, that must have taken some serious guts for them to even dare asking.
Even if it’s noit the flawless release some are hoping for, it’s certainly going to be far better than whatever we would have gotten then.
> 2533274924310758;1:
> > We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”
>
> From the latest inside infinite. What does this mean for the release of the game? should we be scared? i don’t know a lot about game development and i’m not pretending like I do, but this scares me.
From what I’ve gathered, it’s because Halo Infinite and the Halo Infinite Flight are two seperate entities of the same game. In order to test the flight of MCC, you had to install MCC INSIDER. I assume this is the same way for Infinite. This also prevents data miners on PC from getting into all the files and ruining a lot of things before Infinite is even released.
The flighting version of Infinite will contain only the relevant testing modes and games etc, not the entire experience and so it’s safe to assume that they will differ slightly and as always a Beta will always be less polished than the release day version of a game.