Would you take part in Civ4's beta test ?

[Socrates]

I know it is very early, but I suddenly wanted to know about what you think of it : the beta testing ! I've never done such a thing, but it could be worth it, and it could be funny. Options 2 & 3 must be understood as :
2. I'd be interested only if the game looks like it will be a hit, in which case I'd want to see it in advance and join the party.
3. I'd be interested only if I see many things that aren't there, that could be improved... and I feel I'd be the right guy to fix upcoming problems.
Has anyone here taken part in one of Civ3's beta test ? Could you then talk about your experience, without mentioning the things Firaxis doesn't want you to talk about ? Do we have to be American to do a beta test ?

As for me :
Don't know yet, I'll see later.

[Shabbaman]

AFAIK there's a nice secret development forum on CFC, for which the users have signed a non-disclosure agreement. My bet is that they'll pick the betatesters out of the c3c betatesters that actually contributed something.
Of course I'd like to play civ4 before anyone else. Of course I'd put much time in it. Of course firaxis will eventually release a product as buggy as PTW, so why bother with betatesters at all?

There are some betatesters on this forum. If you want to read how much fun/useful it is to be a betatester, read Sirp's thread on "why conquests went wrong" on CFC, or check out one of the "oh, another crappy patch for CFC" threads here. No. Fun.

[Socrates]

Unless it's something I haven't read, it is Sullla who started that thread at CFC, and he even posted it first at RBCiv. I happen to have replied a few times there. ;) I also happen to have luckily read Sullla's betatesting report, which he removed quickly after being told to.

Your post looks like there isn't much to wait from Firaxis on the subject. [}:)]

[Shabbaman]

Right, Sulla. I've read that report as well, pretty nicely done.
Maybe firaxis will be getting more betatesters. The beta for Pirates 2 has just been released (or not quite yet), and the product should go gold before christmas. So you can figure the amount of real work they could do in that time [rolleyes]

[Matrix]

What was in that report? [mischief]

I would've loved to test, but they didn't select me. [cry]

[col]

In theory I was on the beta test team for Conquests. In practise I didnt have much time to do anything other than playtest it a few times. Chieftess invited me but I dont think I'd do it again. Didnt even get a free copy. :(

There was a pretty active forum set up by Firaxis for feedback and betas came out at a phenomenal rate - 2 or 3 a week for several weeks.

There was a lot of argument about some of the minutae with different people pushing their own hobby horses.

There were quite a few well known people involved. Trip was one iirc. Warpstorm too. Even Anarres made it I think.

[Grille]

I would not want to beta-test. For one, I would possibly end up playing for fun and not really testing. Ok, just playing the game is likely the real motivation to sign up for most testers, but there's risk to only detect the obvious flaws.
Then if I stumbled across some bug (or rather unbalancing issue, whatever) 'by accident', I'd probably get mad in case it would not get fixed. At least some issues of C3C have been reported by testers and still nothing happened. I can imagine the disenchanting bitterness of those testers.

[anarres]

I never had enough time to get in to the testing properly, which was a real shame.

For someone who only got to play a couple of times a week it was a real hasstle to have to install 2 or maybe 3 patches just to play the latest version (and often you couldn't play the games from one version to another).

[Matrix]

I really enjoyed the beta testing period of Conquests! :) It was a privilege being able to play the game well before all others, it was fun having direct contact with the programmers and the fact that you have some influence on the making of the game, even though it is very small, is also cool to realise.

And the free autographed copy was nice too. :D

[Sir Eric]

I'ld love to beta test but I doubt I could afford the time to put in a real substantial effort.

Does anyone know the projected release date?

[yndy]

I applied for betatesting on C3C but of course they never selected me. Why would they get a guy living in Romania? I'd do the same on C4 but I bet the results would be the same.

[Hygro]

quote:Originally posted by col


There were quite a few well known people involved. Trip was one iirc. Warpstorm too. Even Anarres made it I think.
And me and Matrix and many others we know from around the forums.

Yes, I'd love to test again. Testing was cooler than the final product, even if the final product was better.

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by yndy

Why would they get a guy living in Romania?

Because you may be the best Romanian Civ player in the world, so they'd be afraid of having such a well-educated guy on board, while they could just give a ticket to a 15-year old American guy whose only ambition is to play the game before its release. You know, they'd prefer shipping the game without knowing its flaws, at least they could sleep well then... [crazyeye]

[Darkness]

Nah, I'll probably wait until it's released. I have very little time for playing civ as it is, so spending that little time testing an even more buggy game, wile any suggestions I might have will probably be ignored, is not very appealing to me

[yndy]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

quote:Originally posted by yndy

Why would they get a guy living in Romania?

Because you may be the best Romanian Civ player in the world, so they'd be afraid of having such a well-educated guy on board, while they could just give a ticket to a 15-year old American guy whose only ambition is to play the game before its release. You know, they'd prefer shipping the game without knowing its flaws, at least they could sleep well then... [crazyeye]


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[Col.Tarleton]

Firaxis is a business and as such they're in it for the dosh.There is no way I'd participate in unpaid work after the way they treated Sullla.

[Matrix]

quote:Originally posted by Col.Tarleton

Firaxis is a business and as such they're in it for the dosh.
Well, whaddayaknow: a British socialist! ;)
quote:Originally posted by Col.Tarleton

There is no way I'd participate in unpaid work after the way they treated Sullla.
[???] Could you please update me?

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by Matrix

[???] Could you please update me?

Sure.

Sullla is a RBCiv member who spent a lot of time playing RBCiv Epics and writing good spoilers about them. To see them, just follow my link and you'll be able to arrive at his site. He was heavily engaged in the C3C beta testing, and we can probably thank him because C3C would perhaps have been worse otherwise. Sullla is a nice folk, and is fond of Civ3 ; so he wrote a lot about C3C's new features AND his beta testing story. He put the whole on his site, but had to delete the part about the beta testing because Firaxis and all thought it was against the rules. So he did (but because I was following it, I was able to read the whole, and it was really interesting, and it didn't show Firaxis in a worse way than what they showed with the patching process...). That's the last time he updated his site, and soon afterwards no one heard of him... until recently when he wrote about "why C3C went wrong", on which I more or so agree with him.

[anarres]

Sulla was a little naughty and talked about the beta testing on his website, which was against the NDA he signed.

Firaxis (or was it Breakaway or Atari?) demanded he take it down, and he got pissed off.

FWIW I agree they treated him badly, but he clearly broke the NDA, and he must have known he was breaking it. The NDA was a document that had to be hand-signed before anyone could join the test, and it was very comprehensive.

[Col.Tarleton]

Well said,Krys,in fact Firaxis hinted that they might sue him if he didn't delete the section on beta testing from his site.Some tossers from CFC also turned on him.He has dissapeared from the civ world and I can hardly blame him.
You'd think that Firaxis was doing people a favour by letting them beta test instead of the other way round.
Having enthusiastic free labour must have saved them a fortune,the ungratefull bastards.

[Matrix]

quote:Originally posted by Col.Tarleton

Having enthusiastic free labour must have saved them a fortune,the ungratefull bastards.
Well, I think it's more a trade: we test their game for free and therefore be the first to be able to play it and to give your opinion about it/to give feedback. That's particulary the reason I'd like to be a CIV beta tester: I get to have influence on what the game will look like.

As for sulla: he was a fine beta tester indeed. A kind person too for what I can recall. But that NDA is there for a reason. It's not that storytelling about the beta testing period may not be negative, it's just not allowed to do. And being BreakAway Games means you gotta draw a line somewhere to what is allowed and what isn't.
I'd describe the situation as...unfortunate. Sulla's response is understandable, but BreakAway's/Firaxis' too.

[Col.Tarleton]

I haven't read the Non Disclosure Agreement but I suspect it's one of those catch-all agreements beloved of Yankee corporate lawyers.I expect it was designed to stop disclosure of the game play during beta testing to stop competitors from jumping on the band wagon.
Sullla disclosed his experiences of beta testing the day before the game went on sale.He is an excellent writer and his description of the procees was first class.Technically he broke the agreement but that was all.
I also read the conversation between Soren (some sort of big wheel in the Firaxis organisation)and Sullla.
Soren said that they (I?)would not probably prosecute but it would be best that Sullla deleted the offending article from his web site.
Sullla reluctantly agreed as he was only a student at Maryland University and could not afford a law suit.
So there you have it,Big business bullies University Student for no other reason than they could.

[Socrates]

From my poiny of view, Sullla's report made justice to Firaxis. We could see that Firaxis and BreakAway was listening to beta testers and changing stuff at a high speed. Of course Sullla is a top player and so had a pretty well idea of what should be included or changed ; so they couldn't please him 100%. But I think Sullla was content of the experience, and felt having helped the team. Though I think BreakAway did a mediocre job for C3C (or maybe they couldn't do much better, so Civ4 being rewritten from scratch is just plain good news ?), that report showed that beta testing was worth it, and that the designers could agree with players on various stuff.

Firaxis's decision to delete the report is just about money and one of the worst of America's sins : the lawyer army. I guess Call to Power wasn't that fictionnal after all. [lol]

[anarres]

At the end of the day Sulla broke the terms of the NDA, quite flagrantly and with intent.

The second I saw his site I realised that he would be a call from the Firaxis laywers, and anyone else who had been on the beta would have also realised this.

I don't understand the anger at Firaxis' response, by Sulla or anyone else. The very fact that Soren spent time to talk to Sulla is an indication that Sulla was appreciated and valued by Firaxis. If not he would have had the standard "cease and desist" letter + threats to prosecute and no contact with Soren at all. Soren (IIRC) was/is the head Civ programmer atm, and his time isn't given to just anyone, especially someone that Firaxis is trying to fuck over and doesn't give a shit about.

As to Sulla's disappearance, that confuses me more than ever! Not that I ever personally knew Sulla, so I can't guess his motivations, but it was very sad to see someone disappear because of this, especially when the outcome could have been predicted before the episode began.

Now, if you want to talk about the NDA being bullshit I agree 100%. I also think they totally fucked up the outsourcing to Breakaway (since when wasn't it a fuck up to outsource! duh!). Just don't confuse the issues: Sulla must have known he was doing something very clearly illeagal, and this is a seperate argument to whether the NDA was too restrictive in the first place.

edit: This sounds harsher than I meant it! I have nothing at all against Sulla - IMO he handled it very well (much better than some who have had run-ins with Firaxis ;)). My only point is that I don't understand what he expected to happen.

[Justus II]

Like Krys, I also had a chance to read Sulla's site before it was taken down (Lucky to be online that night, I guess, I think it was down within 24 hours). Very good writeups of some test games, and quite interesting discussion of some of the overall decision-making on some of the changes. I didn't 'know' Sulla, but had read several of his earlier game reports.

I never saw the NDA, but from reading other people's posts at that time, I'd agree it was clear to everyone that that type of discussion would not have been allowed. The one thing that immediately struck me, however, and one of the reasons I can understand Firaxis wanting the information removed, was that several points in Sulla's beta-test reports referred to features/situations that were eventually removed from the release version. For example, I remember him discussing starting with a GL in Middle Ages, which he used to rush Holy Roman Empire. I remember him even stating that some of these things could be changed by release, (and in fact he had lobbied that they would be, IIRC), but of course MANY posters didn't take the time to make those distinctions. I remember a lot of discussion, bug reports, and general gnashing of teeth by people who were either complaining about a feature they didn't like (which ended up not being in C3C after all), or who were early purchasers of C3C, and were disappointed because they couldn't do something Sulla had, since it wasn't there. So I can see where it would be in Firaxis' interest NOT to open up so much potential confusion during the initial release.

I would have liked to see some of that discussion made public later, maybe after a set period of time, as I really thought it was interesting to look into the balance discussions, etc. Maybe soemthing like that could have been arranged, hosted at Civ3.com like a Developer's update or something. Regardless, Sulla's site turned out to be neither the time nor place for it. :(

[Loulong]

I want to test it (and mostly for option 3).
If anybody can get me on board the next one, please do so !!!!!!!

[Ginger_Ale]

Does anyone know if they will have a beta test for public?

I would, I guess, though I doubt I'd be allowed - hopefully they will iron out the game so patches won't have to be as critical.

[col]

Get yourself on to Chieftess' Christmas card list ;)