If you want it to be successful look at how Halo 3 and Reach turned out. Why do I want this game to have a beta? well I don’t want another weapon tuning update 7 months after the game is released and when 90% of player population is gone. The beta’s for Halo 3 and Reach were mostly used to help balance AA, vehicles, and weapons in the game. Look at Halo 3’s population when it was released and 2-3 years after its release hundreds of thousands of players only in MM. Why? because it was the only Halo game on the xbox 360 so it did not have any other halo game to compete with on the 360. With Halo 5 (or Halo Xbox One) being the only halo on the Xbox one I think I beta would be absolutely perfect for this game.
It is both good and bad since alot of the glitches will be fixed but many whiny little 12 year olds will just complain about something dumb.
A beta can do a lot of good.
I hope this game has a beta.
I didn’t have internet during Halo 3’s beta or during Reach’s beta.
So I missed out on the glitchy, buggy fun.
It already has a beta - Halo 4.
> It already has a beta - Halo 4.
SO MUCH THIS^
If a beta is a way for developers to learn from their mistakes and tailor their game more towards how the community want it, then Halo 4 was certainly the beta for Halo Xbox One.
Sorry 343, but your first game was a Beta. Don’t mess up the final product ( Halo Xbox One)
I hope they do, they can fix the game of any bugs or glitches and see what they need to improve or remove.
> It already has a beta - Halo 4.
For the most part I agree but since the weapon tuning update I actually enjoy playing Halo 4 now.
> It already has a beta - Halo 4.
Halo 5 still needs an actual beta.
Halo 4 may have been a good exercise in testing the waters for opinions in the community, but Halo 5 is also on brand new hardware and likely a new engine as well. There are a lot of technical issues that could still come up, many of which could be fixed with a Halo 5 beta.
That being said, anything in a beta is not necessarily final and still subject to change, but it would be nice to get an early preview of what things could look like a few months down the line.
> Look at Halo 3’s population when it was released and 2-3 years after its release hundreds of thousands of players only in MM. Why? because it was the only Halo game on the xbox 360 so it did not have any other halo game to compete with on the 360.
On top of the fact that is was an incredible game that gave players incentive to come back over and over for years.
And you can’t use Reach’s Beta as a supporting example because the gameplay was awful at the Beta and Bungie didn’t fix a damn thing for the release (they actually made some things worse).
as long as they don’t bull a battlefield 3, it wont be a bad idea…
but, knowing Microsoft, they probably will pull a battlefield 3 beta…
> > It already has a beta - Halo 4.
>
> For the most part I agree but since the weapon tuning update I actually enjoy playing Halo 4 now.
I never said it wasn’t good or enjoyable. 343i knew the real objective is the Xbox One. They probably went into it knowing they could take some risks because the next console life cycle is right around the corner. I’m not saying they just threw ideas against the wall to see what would stick, just that they knew their next major title is coming just 2 years later on the next generation of Xbox.
It beta have a beta.
Along with everything they have taken from Halo 4, I think it would still be a great idea for Halo Xbox One to get a Beta, it allows us, the community to help chip into the production of Halo Xbox One, and help 343i search for bugs and glitches in the system as well to try and give the game a playtest and see which features we like and don’t like.
I remember the Halo Reach beta, I played it for hours on end, keeping my eyes peeled for any bugs and glitches as well as enjoying the Beta as well (Because Halo is Halo at the end of the day :D) and during that period I made a little list of all the stuff I liked and stuff which could have been improved on the Bungie Forums, I would gladly offer my assistance and do it again.
I have nothing against a public beta, but I don’t believe having one is practical until someone shows me some real evidence that public beta tests are more productive than internal beta tests. There are, of course, things that obviously can be done in a public beta that couldn’t be done merely using an internal one. Such would be a large scale test of the matchmaking infrastructure. In general, tests that are directly tied to the population, tests that benefit from very large sample sizes.
But when it comes to things like glitches, I doubt a public beta is any more productive than any internal beta. The reality of it is that very few people are actually dedicated enough to test for glitches and report them in a useful manner to the developer.
Finally, balancing purposes are the least productive reason for a public beta. There are two options to balance a game: you can either look at statistics or consult people, or any combination of these. On one hand, the former benefits from a large sample size, but on the other hand, what players say is irrelevant. The latter benefits nothing from a large group of people with differing opinions. Realistically, the latter method would only be relied upon if something was unanimously agreed upon.
The reality is that either a player wants a public beta just because they want to play an upcoming game early, or they sincerely think they could get their opinion heard and affect the game’s development, in which case they are wrong.
The only relevant argument for a public beta is a large sample size. In which case it’s debatable how large the sample needs to be in order to be a reliable metric for anything it’s used. In any case, I doubt millions of players are needed, a smaller sample size would probably suffice.
> as long as they don’t bull a battlefield 3, it wont be a bad idea…
>
> but, knowing Microsoft, they probably will pull a battlefield 3 beta…
What was bad about the Battlefield 3 beta?
> > as long as they don’t bull a battlefield 3, it wont be a bad idea…
> >
> > but, knowing Microsoft, they probably will pull a battlefield 3 beta…
>
> What was bad about the Battlefield 3 beta?
It wasn’t actually a beta, it was a early Alpha build of the game.
> > > as long as they don’t bull a battlefield 3, it wont be a bad idea…
> > >
> > > but, knowing Microsoft, they probably will pull a battlefield 3 beta…
> >
> > What was bad about the Battlefield 3 beta?
>
> It wasn’t actually a beta, it was a early Alpha build of the game.
Really, you don’t happen to have a source? I mean, I’ve heard that by the time of the beta, most of the problems with the beta were already fixed in newer builds.
But that’s really the problem with public beta tests, especially on consoles. In a properly executed public beta, the community is always updated with a later version of the game. Compared to that, the public beta tests of triple-A titles tend to be more about marketing stunts rather than about any actual testing of the game.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t really take the idea of a public beta seriously. I mean, it’d be great if the developers could just release the unfinished version of the game, and keep it running until they get to the next version (from alpha to beta) and keep that running until the release version like is done with some PC games.
For a game like Halo, the beta is more of a burden when features like Campaign, custom games, and the like are disabled. At the point it’s released to the public, the community is playing whole another game than the developer.
> I have nothing against a public beta, but I don’t believe having one is practical until someone shows me some real evidence that public beta tests are more productive than internal beta tests.
Well, it allows the community that’s pretty on the edge about buying the game in the first place the knowledge of what they can expect from this iteration of the series. Instead of jumping in on false hopes and wasting 60 bucks if they don’t like the game, it allows them to see if they actually enjoy it.
Does that benefit the company making the game? Not really.
> But when it comes to things like glitches, I doubt a public beta is any more productive than any internal beta. The reality of it is that very few people are actually dedicated enough to test for glitches and report them in a useful manner to the developer.
No, but there is a greater chance of the community encountering a bug than there is the developers. If you have 50,000 people testing the game you are simply more likely to encounter bugs and errors than if you have 20. The community also tends to do things with the game that the developers wouldn’t even bother trying (see the phasing glitches that the HLG’ers found).
From that perspective, it makes more sense to test an open beta than a closed. Will you get good, in depth information? Probably not, no, but given the amount of youtube videos featuring glitches, it’s safe to say you can at least look up the glitch and see it in action, which would allowed you to make changes based on what you see and how they did it.
If they are that keen on encountering the glitches themselves though, they could always do both. I doubt it would make that much of a difference.
> Well, it allows the community that’s pretty on the edge about buying the game in the first place the knowledge of what they can expect from this iteration of the series. Instead of jumping in on false hopes and wasting 60 bucks if they don’t like the game, it allows them to see if they actually enjoy it.
>
> Does that benefit the company making the game? Not really.
That’s a valid point. But based on my observation, the public reaction a beta will always be “This is awesome! All bad things will get fixed by the final game”. And when you think about it, that’s absolutely expectable because of the unique feel of entitlement of getting to be a beta tester of a game, coupled with the fact that it only lasts a week or two, a period in which the novelty hardly has any time to wear off.
You have to be really pessimistic about the game to begin with to really make base your opinion on buying the game on the beta. And even then, nothing is stopping you from shrugging it off with “It’ll get better”.
I’m sure it’ll help some people to make the decision. It’ll help people who can look at the game critically that soon, past all the novelty and sense of entitlement. It’s a completely valid point, but I think some sort of a demo is a better option for that.
> No, but there is a greater chance of the community encountering a bug than there is the developers. If you have 50,000 people testing the game you are simply more likely to encounter bugs and errors than if you have 20. The community also tends to do things with the game that the developers wouldn’t even bother trying (see the phasing glitches that the HLG’ers found).
I don’t doubt that. But those 20 people are specifically there for testing and reporting the bugs. Out of those 50,000 people, how many do you think are actually going to report a bug if they find one? 1,000? 100? 10? If I could only remember to the days of the Reach beta, how many people were actually, actively reporting bugs, I could tell you the exact percentage. Either way, I predict it’s somewhere between 100 and 10 in that 50,000 player scenario, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even less.
Now, I have to admit, I don’t know much about the testing practices in game development, only some small insights I’ve read from people who work at QA. They do some things no regular player would ever think about doing just to reproduce a bug. They’re definitely dedicated to their cause. Now, I don’t claim there aren’t such people in the community, but how many? Out of those 50,000? I’d predict it’s between 10 and 1.
The reality is that while the community is an optimal resource for large scale data collection, most of them really don’t care about testing the game. There is that small percentage of fans who are actually ready to report bugs, but I wouldn’t doubt those 20 people get much more done in the multiple months they are given, compared to those 50,000 people in the two weeks they are given.
> > Well, it allows the community that’s pretty on the edge about buying the game in the first place the knowledge of what they can expect from this iteration of the series. Instead of jumping in on false hopes and wasting 60 bucks if they don’t like the game, it allows them to see if they actually enjoy it.
> >
> > Does that benefit the company making the game? Not really.
>
> That’s a valid point. But based on my observation, the public reaction a beta will always be “This is awesome! All bad things will get fixed by the final game”. And when you think about it, that’s absolutely expectable because of the unique feel of entitlement of getting to be a beta tester of a game, coupled with the fact that it only lasts a week or two, a period in which the novelty hardly has any time to wear off.
>
> You have to be really pessimistic about the game to begin with to really make base your opinion on buying the game on the beta. And even then, nothing is stopping you from shrugging it off with “It’ll get better”.
>
> I’m sure it’ll help some people to make the decision. It’ll help people who can look at the game critically that soon, past all the novelty and sense of entitlement. It’s a completely valid point, but I think some sort of a demo is a better option for that.
Good point. I definitely remember seeing a lot of that thrown around during the Reach era, where people would just go “No, it’s alright, they’ll fix it eventually” only to be dissapointed when it wasn’t fixed in the final product.
I do recall that happening with Halo 4 as well though. Even without having been able to play, there were a lot of people complaining about the additions of the game (as I’m sure you know, you were here). But what was also prominant (as I know, considering I was a part of it) were people saying “It’ll be alright. They couldn’t possibly be silly enough to implement perks like we see in CoD. And don’t worry, they’ll have a classic playlist on release.”
Well, needless to say I was wrong on both accounts, which is part of why I want to see a beta for Halo 5. If I know what’s in the game (even if it’s not the final product) I can at least get a feeling for how it will turn out and how it will play. If there are perks and Jetpack, or any massive assortment of things that take away from the game the I’ll at least know it may not be worth picking up.
Granted, most people (like you said) just want it to play the game early and get a sense of entitlement that they are helping.
> > No, but there is a greater chance of the community encountering a bug than there is the developers. If you have 50,000 people testing the game you are simply more likely to encounter bugs and errors than if you have 20. The community also tends to do things with the game that the developers wouldn’t even bother trying (see the phasing glitches that the HLG’ers found).
>
> I don’t doubt that. But those 20 people are specifically there for testing and reporting the bugs. Out of those 50,000 people, how many do you think are actually going to report a bug if they find one? 1,000? 100? 10? If I could only remember to the days of the Reach beta, how many people were actually, actively reporting bugs, I could tell you the exact percentage. Either way, I predict it’s somewhere between 100 and 10 in that 50,000 player scenario, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even less.
>
> Now, I have to admit, I don’t know much about the testing practices in game development, only some small insights I’ve read from people who work at QA. They do some things no regular player would ever think about doing just to reproduce a bug. They’re definitely dedicated to their cause. Now, I don’t claim there aren’t such people in the community, but how many? Out of those 50,000? I’d predict it’s between 10 and 1.
>
> The reality is that while the community is an optimal resource for large scale data collection, most of them really don’t care about testing the game. There is that small percentage of fans who are actually ready to report bugs, but I wouldn’t doubt those 20 people get much more done in the multiple months they are given, compared to those 50,000 people in the two weeks they are given.
Well, if the minecraft community is anything to exrapolate from (unlikely, considering minecraft is populated by a more creative/somewhat helpful group of people) then we can assume that the community can give good feedback and bug reports.
Mojang has a site open dedicated to bug reports and fixes listed by the community to help them polish the game as they go along. While the Halo community certainly isn’t the Minecraft community, it does show that the populace of the gaming world can report feedback and bugs in a decently respectful and helpful manner.
Aside from that, you do have a point. It might not make sense to go through all the work to expect very little feedback and insight into bugs and things that need fixed, but at the same time if they were to do both then it would be better than just one or the other. The community would at least be given the opportunity to help with the bug reports when they find it, even if the majority won’t and that may be just the little help they need to squash some important bugs.
It really depends on whether or not the community would give liable feedback. Theoretically speaking, they could give out Beta codes to people they know would help (people around the forums who are active within the community) but even then that would likely be too much effort to put in without any guarentee of adaquate feedback.
> Well, if the minecraft community is anything to exrapolate from (unlikely, considering minecraft is populated by a more creative/somewhat helpful group of people) then we can assume that the community can give good feedback and bug reports.
>
> Mojang has a site open dedicated to bug reports and fixes listed by the community to help them polish the game as they go along. While the Halo community certainly isn’t the Minecraft community, it does show that the populace of the gaming world can report feedback and bugs in a decently respectful and helpful manner.
The thing about the Minecraft community is that they have it really good on the PC side. The Community could be part of the development of the game from the earliest alpha stages, to the beta, and all the way to the final release. From there on, the game is still actively supported by the developer.
That’s not something a triple-A developer would ever do in the console space. Instead what we get is a month old build for two weeks. It’s not exactly optimal for the community to grow used to bug reporting. If we could have it like Minecraft, where the process is actually useful, it’d be great. But unfortunately that’s not the case.
> It really depends on whether or not the community would give liable feedback. Theoretically speaking, they could give out Beta codes to people they know would help (people around the forums who are active within the community) but even then that would likely be too much effort to put in without any guarentee of adaquate feedback.
Hypothetically, if they took that seriously – that is, actually kept those community members up to date, allowed them to participate for a substantial amount of time, treated them more like actual testers – there could be benefit from it. But the reality of it is that even if those people could be trusted, even if they took it seriously, there would be an extreme amount of jealousy amongst the rest of the community. “What’s so special about them?!”, “I can look for bugs too”,“Why just not have a public beta?”. At that point we’d be back at the starting point.
The gaming community definitely has potential for bug testing, but utilizing it isn’t easy, and may not even be possible in some cases. It means that the developer really needs to trust the community and actually supply them with the latest (stable) builds of the game for a meaningful period of time.