...is this an open beta or a open semi-'kind-a'-bastard-partial-joke-quasi beta?

[Mydis]

This doesnt seem a traditional open beta. If it is open beta, why are they e-mailing accounts to select people and having contests to win spots?

Don't use the word open unless you mean OPEN.

[Alias]

Why are you telling PSU this?

[Zentenk VA]

I dont understand either, but i doubt they want to give out a million cd's for free. That and people "over" 18... for some reason.

[Terik]

You must be 18 or over to legally agree to a contract, and since applying for beta requires you to agree to one (the NDA) you must be over 18.

[glsauron]

All the contests you see are for exclusive beta (first stage, fewer people, going now) which will also work in open beta. Open beta is later, mailed CDs, TONs of people.

AIUI

[gondor]

It's an open semi-'kind-a'-bastard-partial-joke-quasi beta.

It shoudl be called phase 3, 4 or 5..not open. It isn't open. It will never be open.

Open means anyone can join. BTW the beta contests running say you only have to be over 13, not 18.

[afex]

jesus christ what is wrong with you people.

they can call it whatever the fuck they want and then have it work however they want.

"wah! wah! they call it open but i cant downlaod it for FREE!?! wah!"

[Navaron]

You know, once upon a faq, I had a set of PS beta stages broken down, using the devs own words - which explained how this worked out pretty well, but some people thought they were pretty high and mighty, and that there was only 2 beta stages. Hmm, guess I was right again. (btw I'm not talking about PSU peeps)

[Zentenk VA]

Lol that was pretty darn funny there.

[Ghostling]

Originally posted by afex
jesus christ what is wrong with you people.

they can call it whatever the fuck they want and then have it work however they want.

"wah! wah! they call it open but i cant downlaod it for FREE!?! wah!"

LOL go afex!!!

[Unknown]

It's "Open" beta, NOT "Public" beta. Open beta means they will be accepting thousands of applicants, nearly anyone who meets minimum requirements and lives in a reasonable area (not Antarctica or Africa for instance ). I think it's something along the lines of a 1 in 3 - 5 chance of getting in. Maybe less of a chance but it was around there last I heard, which isn't a bad chance, considering that the contest I won had around a 1 in 60 chance of winning.

Public beta means anyone (a.k.a "the public") can download and play the beta. These aren't used very often at all, since they can often lead to bad first impressions (n00bs who think it's some kind of demo and not a beta, and then proceed to gripe at how buggy the game is and claim to not buy it because of that), an overload of testers (thousands of reports for the exact same bug that everyone is experiencing) and download server stress (which is why Sony is sending CDs. It will be cheaper and more efficient than having a 3 GB file for around 20,000 people to download)

[starrider]

but still i have been in a few betas and in all of them except this one "open" ment it was free and you could download it or get it sent to you and "closed" was what is happening now lots of people are getting in and you have to be accepted to get in. i can name lots of games that have had "public" betas like you call them. ex. , necron, and earth and beyond. and "public" betas that are currently going on are Chivalry - The Conquest, Hostile Space, PlaneShift,Rubies of Eventide,and warbirds PTO

[Zarparchior]

I'm sure everyone has already explained it well enough, but...

Reasons "Open" Beta is not "OMG im 9 ad in bayda" Beta:

I. Sending out a CD to 50k+ of people interested in game is not very smart fund-wise.

II. Having 50k+ try to download it at the same time from your servers is a good way to get them to crash.

III. Why have a lot of lamerz join Beta? Because it doesn't cost anything to play Beta, you'd see a good many more idiots. They can't really control whether or not you're an idiot but they CAN control how many total people they can let in, thus limiting the idiots.

There are other points as well... but these are the ones that came to my mind first. I understand your angst, but it is better this way.

For them.

[glsauron]

Zarp-
Where are your sigy quotes from (where can I get more?)

[BlackHawk]

Sounds like stuff from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to me, but I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know :o