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And like some mentioned before, an MMO OB these days for a P2P game is more of a demo than a real test.
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But that's a wrong approach . There's a huge difference between a demo and a beta-release . One is a sneak preview of a
finished game whilst the other is there to find gitches by player-testing ( there's no way developers can cover everything during development cycle and the best way to find "hidden " bugs and exploits is by testing it with a larger pool of testers even if they don't have the expertise to fix the bug - they can make devs aware of the existence of glitches ) .
I'm always surprised when beta-testers start whining about these bugs : if you want to play a game without any bugs you should never apply for beta-testing because you're missing the point of the entire thing . That's probably the reason of NDA's and those new p2 test schemes . But in my opinion it's far better to have a fairly open discussion - due to relations with your possible future subscribers - on forums like this about anything that might crop up from beta testing than to nail it shut and apply all kinds of restrictions on beta testing .
There's also the possibility of test-servers ( all the big MMO's eem to embrace this now ) where patches and additions are going through a test-run before being applied to the "real " server . Again : this only works to perfection when you're communication isn't limited to "we'll look into it " or "we'll think about implementing x in the future " . The quality of your community relations is the most vital component during both the beta stages of games ( or applications ) and during testing of patches on so called test servers . There should always be a cordial atmosphere and a showing of respect between players/testers and the development team during this process.
Example : a while back ,not so long ago , Tabula Rasa was getting into serious trouble and it was caused by players feeling their feedback was being ignored ( the aforementioned "we'll look into it " -thing ) and they felt disrespect from developers . With Tom Potter taking over as led dev we see a 180 degree turn on that : there's constant communication between players/testers and the dev team now ( and the atmosphere is far better as a result ) . They're not just making
announcements anymore but are actually listening to players and acting on valued input . If you don't do that right ( AoC ) you'll always get into serious trouble however good your game might be .
Beta testing stage isn't just for testing either, it's also about building that playerbase-devs relation . If you do it right during beta stages you can get away with quite a lot . But if you're not showing respect both ways the atmosphere will always become sour and to fix that you usually need to bring in a new dev team or communications-team . That's more expensive than getting it right - or try to at least - from the start. That's one of the reasons there should be some kind of beta testing for NA/EU Aion.....