Re: Responsibilities of Beta Testers
In terms of testing this game, it is not just about "fixing bugs and balance game" in beta. It's about testing fun and enjoyment. It's about people who will enjoy toying around with b.net 2.0. It will be about people who want to create communities within B.net's potential for Social Networking (It's been confirmed on a few websites that facebook and myspace references were not uncommon in a few old interviews when it was in concept) If you are going to beta test b.net 2.0 and sc2, you want to have a large a pool of testers as possible in terms of variety. Remember, ANYONE could opt in for ANY game as long as they purchased ANY Blizzard product. They didn't sign up for SC2, they signed up for a BETA OPPORTUNITY.
In terms of game development, data from many different pools of testers is very required. There is a valuable pool of people who will provide direct information to them via the forums and reports. However, the people who are casual and wanting to try it out are just as important as something as simple as "usage of game" statistics can tell how gripping the game is and help directions.
Re: Responsibilities of Beta Testers
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I don't mean to be offensive, but why? The beta is for balancing and finding bugs, surely the more competitive a player you are, the better you are at helping in the beta?
Um, no. The game needs to be balanced at a variety of skill levels. If it's only balanced for the competitive player, then the only people who will play it are a small group of the hardcore. This is not what Blizzard wants.
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While a person with a game development education like me can look at the game both as a player and a developer and understand and report bugs and solutions to bugs much better.
Oh please. Blizzard doesn't want your solutions; they're not going to care what you think the right way to fix a problem is. They're not even going to take your word for it that there is a particular problem. They will do their own testing to verify whether that problem exists before considering solutions. And those solutions will be ones that they create themselves.
