Beta only for Rebellion pre-order customers...

Because pre-order customers have already paid for it.

Couldn't you get it for like $20 by using the $10 coupon code from the e-mail survey in conjunction with the $10 off from owning Trinity/Diplomacy?

That aside, it's just a perk, and we know quite a bit about the finished product now, Titans, Corvettes, 6 Factiosn, etc.

Would you believe I pre-payed for it back in September of 2010? Or was it October? Been a long time awaiting, I know that.

I think that it's better to receive more feedbacks about one product in order to improve it, than selling the game, for the moment, and only for the moment, to some more users...

Because the users who already preordered the game are soase enthusiasts, and they represent only a little percentage of all the customers who will buy the game. If the strategy of Ironclad Games is to have more preorders (How many? 20? 40? 100?) fine, but I think that what this developer is really interested in is selling the game to as many users as possible, and once the final product is out, there will be THOUSANDS of potential customers and not just a few enthusiasts.

Be careful with what you do, realeasing a final product that needs a lot of updates would cause you a much greater loss than the one caused by SOME users who didn't preorder the game.

I am not angry, but this is a decision that doesn't make any sense to me. I know you want to give a prize to those people who pre-ordered the game, but believe me, that's not the right way of doing it. I am happy that some customers pre-ordered the game, but you can find so many different ways for rewarding them, Which I think is something fair after all. but not giving the opportunity of trying this beta to other users, I am talking about users who already bought diplomacy, is just something that goes against you and against your profit.

Why is it right to NOT allow users who DIDN'T buy diplomacy to try the beta? Simple, if the beta presents a lot of bugs or the game is still unbalanced diplomacy customers would understand those problems and send feedbacks about them, normal users would not. This is true only if the game presents a lot of bugs or is still unbalanced, otherwise it's always better to allow everybody to try everything, which would be some sort of advertising.

This is true only if the game presents a lot of bugs or is still unbalanced, otherwise it's always better to allow everybody to try everything.

And the beta has a lot of bugs and is notably unbalanced. So......yeah.

You have to look at it from their position (Ironclad). Firstly, i do not think, they need unlimited number of betatesters, there is surely a critical mass of testers, whose feedback they are capable to follow. If there was for example million people testing the game, and every single one would create only one single thread with his feedback, do you honestly think anyone would be able to read through all of it?

The other thing, you need to look how specific game Sins is. I played few free betas myself, Red Alert 3, Battlefield 3, recently Gemini Wars... RA3 and BF3 were multiplayer betas, while GW was about single-player campaign test... now Sins does not have any campaign, and the beta can be played over LAN...so you are basically getting fully functional game in its entirety (although bugged, unfinished and currently without advent and vasari, which will be included at the later beta stages). So there is basically nothing left as some kind of "cliffhanger", to lure the people to buy the game. All in all, once you have this beta, unless there are some game-breaking bugs - like freezing or multi-player desyncing or some major balance issue like ability to build multiple Titans, many people could feel, there is no need to buy the game, if they have it already anyway.

The devs did specifically say (I'll have to dig the post up) that they wanted this phase of beta to be somewhat small, maybe they'll open it up later.

They probably feel most comfortable providing beta access to the group of people that cared enough to pre-order it. Those folk probably have played previous Sins titles, are very familiar with the concept and have a vested financial interest in the game being a polished and balanced success.

I have little to no problem with them only opening up the beta to pre-order customers.  The game that they give in the beta is pretty complete (if you like TEC...) and I don't blame them for not wanting to shell it out for free.  They don't ask for much price-wise, and if you bought the last three versions like you said you did, 30 dollars is hardly a lot to ask for a great new game.

We don't do free and open game betas; we've always limited it to preorder customers (or who otherwise would be getting the final product, such as with Fallen Enchantress). People with some investment in the game have more of an interest in making it better.

The people who paid for the game already are more understanding to bugs/unbalancing than some joe-shmoe who will play the game for free, see it for what it is think it stinks and then not give it a second look.

Yea, a problem I see with people who get into free open betas judge the game for the beta quality. Won't buy it, it has bugs in beta mentality. Even a few real life friends are this way... That said, preorder people have a vested interest in testing.Preorder peopleprobably have the first games and know the lore, design, mechanics of the previous titles and know how things should work, have an opinion ofwhat shouldn't change, and knowledgable input on what should change. 

Yes, with 1mil people beta testing they could get more data, butthe quality of that data goes down. How many people on the Internet do you know that have an opinion and express that opinion that really shouldn't have that ability?

Thank you for your posts.

I totally agree with you about not allowing normal users to try the beta, at least for the moment.

But I think that allowing users who bought diplomacy to express their opinion about the game would be something useful.

I believe that most users who bought diplomacy are seriously interested in Rebellion.

In my case I am certainly not a fan of soase as the users who pre-ordered the game, but I am sure there are some people who just don't pre-order games, NEVER. That doesn't mean those people don't care about Rebellion. (Personally I've never pre-ordered a game)

Besides, receiving different kinds of feedbacks might be something positive, I mean, receveing feedbacks from soase enthusiasts and feedbacks from people who just liked the three previous games can be something very useful for the development of rebellion.

I am not upset, I just think that limiting the beta of a game only to pre-order customers until the final product is released is not a good strategy for developing/selling a game.

Thanks.

Hi Kyro,

I was goign to answer this about the same way you did.  Its like a reward system. you pre-order our game and we let you play and test the beta. its an incentive program and one that works really well.

You will get no arguments from me.

Nope, i don't believe you

Fact is that until these first beta was released, nobody have "pre-payed" some, only "pre-order"... credit card was only charged when beta was released...

Long time ago, beta tester was professional pay by game devs for test their product... as today, with the huge variety of Os, hardware, driver version, and more, it is almost impossible to really test a game in private beta, no game publisher can have all the PC hardware/software who exist for testing purpose...

The actual problem with the beta is not that it is open to everybody or not but that a lot of people who have the beta are not beta testing or don't know how to beta test... you know, the usual "your game don't work, it suck" beta report... something really useless for the devs... a good reading for potential beta tester : http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/streea/122007/859_Being-a-Good-Beta-Tester-and-not-a-whiny-fiveyearold 

Other problem to me is that Stardock don't seem to handle beta testing pretty well... will be good that any beta tester fill a form with information about the hardware/software setup before deliver key for unlock the beta... a second problem is that a forum is not a good tool for report/follow bug... why not use something like Bugzilla ( http://www.bugzilla.org/ ) who allow a good tracking of bug, with action report and logical step :

Well, maybe stardock devs don't like Bugzilla... not a problem, make your choice at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems ...

Some reading : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000029.html

Good... it is the number one rule on http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BetaTest.html

How about making beta partially free for every user with the limitation; making non-pre order can choose TEC sides only.

It will be good for more opinions, advertisement and, especially we can play with more players.