DICE: There's a Misunderstanding With The Term "Beta"
DICE launched the Battlefield 3 beta to make sure that it wouldn't crash and burn at launch -- they don't want a repeat of Battlefield 1942's launch.
Battlefield 3 producer Patrick Liu told the Guardian in a recent interview that there must be some kind of misunderstanding with the term "beta test."
As a tester, sometimes it's easy to forget that these betas -- closed or open -- aren't full-fledged demos even though they look polished and fully complete at first glance. Even Blizzard's Diablo 3 looks and feels like a full-fledged demo, but it's not. Yet on the other hand, many demos pushed out on the PC feel more like beta tests because of annoying technical issues across the board. So, in a sense, gamers have a good reason to mesh the terms beta and demo together. Heck, there are complete games on the market that have initially acted more like unstable alphas and betas.
But that's not the case here. Based on Liu's comments, gamers were looking for a conquest map to play in the Battlefield 3 beta. "I think there's been a misunderstanding of the term 'beta test,'" Liu said. "We ran the alpha tests with a rush map and we wanted to have some sort of reference so we could compare results – so we needed to have more-or-less the same map. But we do understand the concerns that we didn't show a conquest map, but we have demoed Caspian Border, and we did run a conquest map as a limited PC-only test."
"[The beta] has taught us a lot," Liu added. "Our primary intentions have been to test the backend... In previous games, like Bad Company and 1943, we've had serious problems with the backend, it's just been overloaded - this time it hasn't been a problem. We just wanted to know it wouldn't crash and burn at launch. It was horrible with Battlefield 1943 – it sold ten times the numbers we thought it would, and it was down for three or four days which is really bad. We don't want to go through that again."
Battlefield 3 launches on October 25 in the U.S. and October 28 in the UK for PS3, 360 and PC.
on the battlefield 3 forums UK and US and battlelog its total ape shit. even from vets. noob is what is ruin BF3 for them. due to "lowering the threshold". which i have no issue with as long its FUN experience for me.
Anyways, this game is definitely a buy from me along with Skyrim and perhaps RAGE
on the battlefield 3 forums UK and US and battlelog its total ape shit. even from vets. noob is what is ruin BF3 for them. due to "lowering the threshold". which i have no issue with as long its FUN experience for me.
Anyways, this game is definitely a buy from me along with Skyrim and perhaps RAGE
Take a look on metacritic user score for Rage. I'll buy or preorder BF3 for sure !
ment to link that. if that fails just copy : http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/3215/article/pc-is-not-leading-platform-for-games-says-john-carmack/
he pretty much in nice terms says F U PC gamers.
ah but the beta build of the game is 6 weeks old. the bugs experience right now are already cleared up. what they basically testing is balance and rank up progression along with server load.
My complaints are stuff like, in game option changing cannot be done until you've spawned.
Stuff like that.
Unfortunately the two servers I tried were having significant problems keeping up. The chat was flooded with "LAG" and similar comments. It was unplayable for me. I would've tried other servers, but by the time I got out of the second I was already pretty dizzy, had to stop.
O well, probably try again tomorrow. Anyone else experience similar issues? Or was this an isolated problem?
Ya, it took them a LONG time to work out some of the bigger stability bugs in BF2. But even to this day some problems haven't been patched.
Ya, wtf's up with that? You can only change game options when you're already in a game, and have spawned... that doesn't seem very intuitive or user friendly to me. Hopefully this is only the case in the beta.
Dunno if you experienced Black Ops on PC or not. But the full-fledged release was pretty much a beta.
Never really became stable on PC until after the first DLC (which I had already stopped playing by then, BFBC2 Vietnam called).
If you cared enough to read developer blogs you would know that's a bug which is fixed for final release.
this is on little brothers computer.
And I agree with other people who simply know better from DICE. I remember they couldn't even make a workable server browser for BF2 and patches seemed to cause more harm than good. Which reminds me. I hope AA turrets aren't worthless deathtraps in this. As long as the game is still fun and doesn't crash all the time like the beta has, then I can live with it.
You really think a dozen computers would be enough? No, even if they had 500 computers to test on all with different configs, its impossible. There is such a huge possible combination of hardware, software, drivers, you can only do so much.
I experienced all the problems others are having, buggy areas, crazy stuff happening. What I don't understand is why people are complaining about something they haven't paid for yet? It's a free open beta, don't like the bugs? Go pay Farmville or something.
People forget this beta wasn't for you at all.... it's to test the back end so that on launch day we all arent sitting around pissed off. Be patient - when it comes out and is just as buggy, then and only then do you have a legitimate right to complain.
I swear - it seems complaining is all people are good at these days. It's free, and 100% your choice to play yet you still act as if they owe you something. I will be glad when this entitled sense of being blows over in 20 or 30 years hopefully.
I understand that it is a beta, but, really? The amount of bugs is too large to be true, the ranking system glitches all the time (it kept saying you are leveling to the same level over and over again, unlocking the "new" attachment of the twentieth time...) I even saw player"s" can glitch through the map and shot me through terrains and player skin turned into a corpse and roam around the map...
What if, just what if, you update the beta once every week? heck, make it two weeks? even little patches SUCH AS THE FREAKING LATENCY ISSUES! and crashing to desktop all the times? You are going to release the retail version soon anyway, might as well, put up the little patches that will satisfy the community...