pz501
Posts: 180
Joined: 10/1/2003 From: Southern Pennsylvania Status: offline
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Larry, This sounds like a great idea (open beta), as long as everybody realizes that some aspects of the design are, and must be, locked. Otherwise Ralph would be overwhelmed with requests and demands for different features. On the positive side, you move the testing and input away from a small, select group and open it up for examination by the end users. Not meaning to criticize, but I'm sure we've all seen examples of games being released after a ton of development that just made you wonder who tested this? And how did they overlook x,y, or z? Again, I'm not throwing stones - I have no idea who's doing what, and how the testing process is run, obviously. I don't know who the controller is so far as open betas or NDA's are concerned, but I'd sign on to any petition being made to whomever that might be. As you point out the WiTP-AE beta updates are a one man show, and he updates the .exe quite regularly taking user comments into account. This hasn't hurt that design one bit, and has improved it greatly. As you also say, another benefit of an open beta would be for scenario designers to gauge the public reaction to their efforts, and make changes and improvements if those are of any merit. Anyway, I love your ideas (hope you didn't violate any rules by saying too much), and I'd sure like to see them implemented.
< Message edited by pz501 -- 11/7/2015 8:00:52 PM >
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