DICE: There's a Misunderstanding With The Term "Beta"

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."

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"[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."

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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.

40 Comments Comment from the forums

kcorp2003

well i'm very aware of that. noobs don't, especially call of duty players or casual players. they never really experience BETAs. One reason why CoD games don't get affected by sales. however games that offer BETA, usually the 1st impression is something you really have to take a risk with. that is why i prefer close BETA AND NOT OPEN BETA.

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:)
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siuol11

I'd find that easier to believe if some of their previous releases were still riddled with the same bugs that showed up on day one.
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_Pez_

kcorp2003well i'm very aware of that. noobs don't, especially call of duty players or casual players. they never really experience BETAs. One reason why CoD games don't get affected by sales. however games that offer BETA, usually the 1st impression is something you really have to take a risk with. that is why i prefer close BETA AND NOT OPEN BETA.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 RAGETake a look on metacritic user score for Rage. I'll buy or preorder BF3 for sure ! :)
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proxy711

Rage was such a beta test for PC. I already asked for a refund it runs so poorly. id really dropped the ball with that game then made all PC gamers hate them for saying: .
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proxy711

oops sorry
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.
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n8dogg

Give me a break Dice, you're going to give us a buggy pile of BF3 and you know it. There are sooo many bugs in the beta, there is no way you are going to fix them all by launch. get you heads out of your asses.
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kcorp2003

n8doggGive me a break Dice, you're going to give us a buggy pile of BF3 and you know it. There are sooo many bugs in the beta, there is no way you are going to fix them all by launch. get you heads out of your asses.
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.
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My complaints about BF3 so far aren't bug related. Therefore they won't be fixed.
My complaints are stuff like, in game option changing cannot be done until you've spawned.
Stuff like that.
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dragonsqrrl

Tried out the 64 player Caspian Border conquest map earlier today. I just couldn't believe they finally made it open play for the beta!

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?
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dragonsqrrl

siuol11I'd find that easier to believe if some of their previous releases were still riddled with the same bugs that showed up on day one.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.
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