I honestly dont know, Ive been making up reasons to suffice my curiosity but id rather just ask.[not being sarcastic, i really dont know=/]
Does anyone know why they decided for an in-house beta rather than an open one for the public?
Was time just cut short for the deadline or would it have costed too much [which is understandable]
Speculation: the negative hype and wild over reaction over Reach’s beta scarred that game’s success from day one, and they were looking to avoid repeating that. More speculation: there’s more hype for a game if no one knows how it plays.
People still don’t understand that a Beta is an unfinished product. They see some glitches and start shouting HALO IS DEAD, HALO 4 IS BROKEN, and even if they fixed all of those things, the damage is already done. Betas hurt games more than they help.
This is the Beta, after TU it will be a full game 
> Speculation: the negative hype and wild over reaction over Reach’s beta scarred that game’s success from day one, and they were looking to avoid repeating that. More speculation: there’s more hype for a game if no one knows how it plays.
That makes sense, I mean, this game is getting a lot of hate, and I understand it needs it a chance to fix itself
Reach was successful, but would it have been more successful if there wasnt a beta? I think so
so if thats the case, good call
but, still an open beta would have fixed A LOT of problems were facing today=/
> I honestly dont know, Ive been making up reasons to suffice my curiosity but id rather just ask.[not being sarcastic, i really dont know=/]
>
> Does anyone know why they decided for an in-house beta rather than an open one for the public?
>
> Was time just cut short for the deadline or would it have costed too much [which is understandable]
While 343 has been quiet on the subject, it is pretty safe to say that there is no 1 factor that would cause a studio to negate a public beta. Public BETAs, while they have their advantages, do have disadvantages. Many of those advantages include a feeling of constantly being behind because you were not / could not get in the beta, bad press about trying to hike sales #s through pre-orders, and using it as a filler to delay game launch.
I’m not saying they did it because of those, more than likely it was a combination of time, resources to moderate and hot fix, a lot of people are saying Microsoft pushed the launch to Holiday of 2012, and probably others.
Cheer up, friend.
Tripod
> This is the Beta, after TU it will be a full game
Thats kind of disrespectful to call it a beta, I mean I have some huge problems with the game, but alas its still a game that hard work was put in.
Not that im saying 343 deserves praise, as im frustrated where the franchise is going, but at least give them some credit, it could be MUCH worse
You know when someone says that and its not raining, well the “rain” for this game is what I feared at first
> Speculation: the negative hype and wild over reaction over Reach’s beta scarred that game’s success from day one, and they were looking to avoid repeating .
This Sadly
> A beta would be a huge interruption of that process.
Source: OXM interview with Frank O’Conner
Start watching from 5:13.
> > Speculation: the negative hype and wild over reaction over Reach’s beta scarred that game’s success from day one, and they were looking to avoid repeating that. More speculation: there’s more hype for a game if no one knows how it plays.
>
> That makes sense, I mean, this game is getting a lot of hate, and I understand it needs it a chance to fix itself
>
> Reach was successful, but would it have been more successful if there wasnt a beta? I think so
>
> so if thats the case, good call
>
> but, still an open beta would have fixed A LOT of problems were facing today=/
Also, if you were here in the forums when Halo 3 launched or Halo Reach, you would know that these games were not well received either. You are entering hostile territory where there are 50 negative topics to every positive topic, and inside all 50 negative topics there are maybe a handful of constructive topics to actually help improve the game. The forums for just about any game are used as a place to trash and complain. While you may find some very sound arguments and frustrations, it is often hidden underneath the filth and grime of someone’s opinion of what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Most things on the forums are states as fact. “The DMR has no place in Halo.” “Kill Cam is for CoD.”
I am the first to admit that Halo 4 has its share of challenges and shortcomings, but I am also the first one to admit that 343 has built a solid base that with some tweaking, community love, and yes, even taking away some of the complexities, could end up being a phenomenal Halo game that we see back on the MLG circuit in force.
Until then,
Tripod
> > This is the Beta, after TU it will be a full game
>
> Thats kind of disrespectful to call it a beta, I mean I have some huge problems with the game, but alas its still a game that hard work was put in.
>
> Not that im saying 343 deserves praise, as im frustrated where the franchise is going, but at least give them some credit, it could be MUCH worse
>
> You know when someone says that and its not raining, well the “rain” for this game is what I feared at first
I agree with Panda but the line between beta and full release is very hard to see. Battlefield 3, one of my favorite games, is still making enormous patches to weapons, glitches, etc.
I believe you get the full release when there are no more updates, which basically means when the next one is announced. Black ops 2 had a very good start though, seemed like it was only lag problems.
> > > This is the Beta, after TU it will be a full game
> >
> > Thats kind of disrespectful to call it a beta, I mean I have some huge problems with the game, but alas its still a game that hard work was put in.
> >
> > Not that im saying 343 deserves praise, as im frustrated where the franchise is going, but at least give them some credit, it could be MUCH worse
> >
> > You know when someone says that and its not raining, well the “rain” for this game is what I feared at first
>
> I agree with Panda but the line between beta and full release is very hard to see. Battlefield 3, one of my favorite games, is still making enormous patches to weapons, glitches, etc.
>
> I believe you get the full release when there are no more updates, which basically means when the next one is announced. Black ops 2 had a very good start though, seemed like it was only lag problems.
Battfield 3 HAD a beta though?..
I agree that the lack of Fileshare, Forge Maps Online [lighting problems] and small playlist choices are rather upsetting! but still to call the game now a beta, no.
You dont get a campaign, secondary campaign [Sops], Theater, Forge and Multiplayer in a Beta
343i thought their dev process was great and they didn’t need the public’s help.
They were wrong.
[deleted]
Because 343 were on there high horse and thought they knew better then the community. I’ve already stated on the forums that I will not be buying Halo 5 if they don’t have a beta. If morons are scared off by the game being broken in the beta, then good, I don’t want idiots running around when the real, fixed, game comes out anyway, if they don’t understand the point of a beta. So many of the problems with H4 are small, easy to fix issues, that wouldn’t exist if there was a public beta, or even a semi-public one for mostly forum members and people who would pay for another game that came with the beta (like Shadowrun and active forum members for H3 beta)
> do you really have to make a thread for EVERY thought that comes to your mind?
>
> just look at the state this game is in… it would take them 6 more months just to turn it into beta state
They makes good discussion, most of my threads get 2 to 3 pages, if you dont like them, dont post in them and bump them up
> 343i thought their dev process was great and they didn’t need the public’s help.
>
>
> They were wrong.
Because Beta would have brought up a bunch of questions about the game that they didnt want to answer because if they did answer no one would have bought the game.
Halo 4 is missing a lot of stuff from previous games.
Both halo 3 and reach had betas. I loved halo 3, and disliked reach. So wether or not halo 4 had a beta isnt the determining factor of what made it better, its the gameplay.
I loved halo 3’s gameplay. I didnt like halo reach’s gameplay. Since 343i decided to use reach’s gameplay instead of what halo 4 is a sequel to, we basically got another reach mm (classes, AA’s…) and a campaign where the Cheif is basically a reskinned Noble 6.
But seriously, if you buy Xbox games for graphics, or wether or not they have beta’s, sell your Xbox and buy a PS3. Xbox games have always been about great gameplay. And for me Halo 4 doesnt cut it.
Almost everyone gets what defines a beta wrong. Just like they get what defines a desert wrong. A desert is defined by annual precipitation, and Antarctica is the world’s largest desert. I’ll let y’all do the research on that.
A beta test is any test conducted by people who did not write the software. It has nothing to do with where in the SDLC (software development life cycle) the software is.
It could be the first few pages of code, or it could be the final code right before it goes to the factory to be mass copied and boxed. It matters not. All that matters is that the people playing it had nothing to do with creating it.
They did do some beta testing, but it was closed and they apparently did it via LAN. That means they used a small number of people and used a local area network. So the networking topology we’re using never got tested, and no part of the game got tested by the numbers of people who would really be using it.
As an aside, alpha testing is what testing is called when people who wrote the software test it it.
Anyway, Halo 3 and Halo Reach had fully open public betas and they released as complete games with all the features working from day one.
We can quibble over the good and bad of having and not having a public beta and get nowhere but here are three facts that cannot be disputed:
Halo 3 had a public beta, everything worked from day 1.
Halo Reach had a public beta, everything worked from day 1.
Halo 4 had no public beta; there is no web based file share, console based file share has very limited functionality and isn’t working as originally intended, no theater mode for campaign or SpOps due to last minute engine changes, skilled based ranking system not in place at release, and the list actually goes on.
Shoulda had a beta
I believe their officially stated reason was that a Public Beta would have taken a lot of time and effort that they’d rather have put into actually making the game. So they had a private beta instead.
To be honest, I doubt it would have made a difference. Games with betas, like Reach, still had problems and got massive hate when they came out.
I think some people are a bit butthurt that they didn’t get to play it earlier