SoE locking threads on main forums about their "beta" Secret. You are still in beta!

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by NewSith

They will not. I'm under the impression that devs are starting to consider the playerbase to be mindless sheep (or mice) to conduct testing upon.

What I am saying is - it's way more demonstrative when testing it on live servers, that's what they think, I am quite sure.

Wrong, actually:

Originally Posted by lordprinceps, post: 813010, member: 76094

Title: [Suggestion] take a page from many other games SOE, create a testing server

seeing as how many people are really angry about game change 1, and the numerous other patches you have pushed, i just have a simple request.
-put all new game builds onto 1-3 dedicated testing servers before releasing publicly
-add in a survey function to the testing servers
-for every 5 sessions of PS2 someone plays in testing, they must complete one survey, or risked being banned from testing
-listen to player feedback on the testing server, and do one of two things
--if the build receives negative feedback, tweak it, and put it back on testing to see how the changes work
--if it gets positive feedback, push it to public

to be honest, im surprised you guys havnt done this yet.

Originally Posted by RadarX, post: 813606, member: 11

We agree. It's why we are in the process of preparing one. We don't have a solid ETA yet but expect it in the very near future.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...-server.65351/

[VaderShake]

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

The future is going live too early because the studios can't wait to make money off their game, which, in addition to the nowadays common "overhyping" of a new game, results in a massive player peak right after "release" followed by a steady decline of the playerbase due to releasing with not enough "game" and, in the worst circumstances, the downward spiral of a "failed" game because people recall their bad initial experience and are not coming back (or found something else).
And then the next "big thing" with no staying power hits the (virtual) shelves.

I may be exaggerating here, but that is the major drawback i see with what you call "future of gaming".

Bottomline: You can gradually improve and refine your game even if you launch a bit later to prevent that bad first impression smell. One possible bullet dodged...but also no Smedbucks for a bit longer.
I can only guess how that discussion went over at SOE, but something tells me it wasn't the actual devs that got the last word there.

It's already happing with sequels, expansion packs, & DLC...it's been happening for awhile my friend, this is just another refinement.

[ThePackage]

It's fairly clear that PS2 wasn't a complete game at launch, and still isn't. However that doesn't have to be taken as a negative. You could be spending those hundred hours in a beta right now testing and in essence gaining nothing. Or playing the live game and your time and investment has merit.

Personally I'm glad they released the game on the 20th of November, even in it's unfinished state. Are there still A LOT of bugs to fix? Yes, tons. Would less people playing the game in beta somehow allow them to fix these bugs faster? Nope.

The only thing that concerns me is everyone seems to be taking vacation. While I believe it is well deserved, it is incredibly poorly timed. I get it, it's the holidays....blah blah blah. This seems to be a trend these days. The most important time in a games life cycle is how it is initially accepted. No one is going to care about your game in a year just because it finally has enough content to make it engaging. They will have moved on to newer things. Unfortunately PS2's new player experience might be the worst in any game I've seen.

There are a lot of things that need fixing immediately and can't wait until people come back from their turkey induced comas. PS2 is a new IP for the majority of players in game right now, and I've already begun to see a massive decline in active players. Nearly my entire outfit has already gotten bored.

When you release a game in the state PS2 released, you need to have easily digestible patches on a consistent basis. Especially in the first few months of the game. There's been a few guns, and bug fixes. The amount of content is limited at best, and the 3 continents promote a bad metagame. I understand why they would want to focus on bug fixes, there are a lot of freaking bugs. But you can't expect bug fixes to peak the interest of players these days.

I, like many of my buddies, really want to enjoy PS2 and play it for years to come. The game right now just doesn't support that hope, and playing the game sober is a challenge in itself.

[Sunrock]

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

In case you are not aware, the founder of these forums has also been censoring people complaining about supposedly illegitimate bans. If we can't trust the founder of what has been the true forum for planetside fans not to bow to pressure from SOE (due to perhaps getting a little too chummy with them) then you can't expect much more here.

Where do we talk, where can we express freedom of speech without moderation from Sony? The same happened in the last MMO I played, Warhammer Online. EA Mythic actually bought up the company that hosted the most popular (and previously unrelated) forum for the game in order to extend the reach of its control over what people said about the game or other players.

Made me feel ill watching that lock on a thread about bans.

Do we need a new forum?

I know I'm a little late to the party (I brought some beer if anyone needs it. I also brought some additional rolls of tin foil)

Yes, I've been locking threads. Why? Because there is nothing a forum thread will ever do about it. It's a customer service issue between the person banned, and Sony Online Entertainment. Do you think SOE comes to this forum to see if they have banned someone unjustly? Nope.

They mostly end up in witch hunts that serve no real purpose.

I have no intention of locking this thread though.

Also this:

Originally Posted by Gryphon

We don't allow it here because they are of no use and only cause endless speculation and mud slinging across multiple threads because people have a difficult time using existing topics. Sony is not going to take action on an account because of any post made on PSU. We are not bowing to SOE, it is simply not a community we want to foster here. We have our own goals for PSU.

Regarding cheaters, SOE has supplied a method to report players, SOE has the data, they have the admin tools, they have the business plan, they know more than any random players speculation.

As far as bad bans, it is up to the player who got banned to contact SOE support and get unbanned. They are not going to unban based on any post here, even more so by people who don't even own the account.

Happy Monday!

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I have no intention of locking this thread though.

You should. No reason to protect the feelings of the confused.

[Elgareth]

Originally Posted by ThePackage

The only thing that concerns me is everyone seems to be taking vacation. While I believe it is well deserved, it is incredibly poorly timed. I get it, it's the holidays....blah blah blah. This seems to be a trend these days. [...]

There are a lot of things that need fixing immediately and can't wait until people come back from their turkey induced comas.

Exactly! Games (and especially MMOs) are things people use when they have free time. Just like for example restaurants.
And when do people have free time? During Holidays and Weekends! That's why restaurant-staff rarely closes their doors Saturday and Sunday...more like Wednesday or something.

Especially MMOs, and ESPECIALLY new MMOs, and Ultra-Especially a MMO which got a new patch recently which brought some new bugs NEEDS full staff-force during Holidays. That should belong to the job profile of a MMO Programmer nowadays IMHO.
It's just a great opportunity to show how great the support on PS2 is...or could be, while many people try it out during their holiday, having nothing to do and being bored from another family-dinner

[weenus]

Name ONE MMO that you weren't playing a beta version of less than a month after release.


Don't worry, I'll wait.

[EVILoHOMER]

They were making money, The Alpha Squad....

They could have also done what GW2 done and let people buy weapons and then just reset the Station cash (Gems in GW2) when it goes live. They coulda also done this thing called an open beta or just launched and called it an alpha and people would forgive it.

[Gimpylung]

Is there some kind of Darwin award equivalent that can be given to the OP's of these kinds of threads?

[maradine]

So we're in beta, eh? Fine. I hope we never leave. Pace of change will be high and I can tell sharts like OP to WAIT FOR LAUNCH.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I know I'm a little late to the party (I brought some beer if anyone needs it. I also brought some additional rolls of tin foil)

Oh good, we were running out.

I'm in the same camp of people as NewSith who have been saying that the game is in an open beta state. My reasoning behind that opinion is that the game's internal skeleton of gunplay, vehicle physics, and technical robustness is there and done (stop laughing). The shop is open and the progression system is in. However, the game lacks the meat that allows for long term organic growth by the players. The goal of being a fun sandbox for people to play in isn't there at the moment as there are only a few tools players can rationally use to shape the game. There needs to be more than 3 roles in the game for people to explore (Pilot, Tanker, and Rifleman). Higby talked about wanting the infiltrator to be a gadgeteer class and I really would like to see them explore this (free c4 unlock?). Classes are lacking at the moment witnessed by the fact I can tell you pretty much all you need to know about each with one or two words: Rocket Launcher, Heal Tool, Repair Tool, jump-pack, Sniper Rifle, and Heavy Armor. There is effectively no difference between the empires when it comes to fighting their infantry. Empire specific HA is the only example of something different that's man-portable that actually matters. However, those are so rare that you don't really need to actually think about them when approaching a fight.

Using BF and CoD as examples for the game you want to emulate in gunplay has a serious problem as both games rely on frequent sequels to maintain their popularity and the majority of their innovation is actually in their player logistics and unlock systems rather than their gunplay. The instinct to say that copying their gunplay is a good idea then because it's stable and you have examples on how to balance it is seductive but it's not correct because your weapon interactions are then stuck in a box. You can see this in how the devs are struggling to create meaningful differences in their infantry weapons while maintaining balance. Despite rof, recoil, mag size, and damage differences, weapon characteristics are moot if they're all balanced properly as then individual skill, twitch speed, and circumstance become even more king over pre-conflict thought. Significant differences in empire weapon reliance means that for each base you attack you need to have different modus operandi depending on who holds it, doubling the amount of theoretical game content. The balance and normal selection of weapons types from bf/cod are setup to promote a fairly stale meat grinder.

In a game as open as planetside you are allowed to have weapons that are overpowered against 1 thing but suck against everything else. The feeling of 'power' that arena shooters demand from their guns is not mandatory in an mmofps.

(and now that I've written my dissertation I predict no one will debate/read/or pay any more attention to this post which might actually end up killing the thread as most of my longer posts often do instead of sparking debate. Oh well!)

[Bags]

Planetgate

[EisenKreutzer]

Actually, it isn't even a beta. It's a proof of concept, little more than a scetch, and it's all done in MS Paint and coded in java.

[Moodel]

Originally Posted by Terrorsauce

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...n.65279/page-2

Pretty much dead on. We are not playing the real release version of PS2, but yet another beta build. Now that this is being called out, SOE is locking threads trying to keep it on the low.

Its time to let people know they are still in BETA!

I call bullshit and sensationalism.

When you're a computer game programmer working for a successful gaming company then you can come back and make outlandish claims so leave your paranoia at the door.

No MMO to date. I repeat NO MMO TO DATE has ever been 'complete' on release day and many bugs will be found that are not found during testing.

If that really is the way you feel then keep your negativity to yourself and go and learn to be positive.