27 replies to this topic

[wyver1]

So I was thing, I'm an avid Minecraft player/fan and well seeing how Notch put out a Beta for everyone to play while he updates the game as time goes on seems like a good idea to me
Fans get to play the game as "testers" and Adhesive Games can look at players responses and add stuff as they develop the game for its world wide release.

What do you guys/gals things about this_

seeing as the game looks like you can play it now, I for one would be keen top play a beta working with the awesome dudes at Adhesive making HAWKEN feel like a true game that we all have help during the developing


to make it really effective the PC community would be the best place for this to happen!

[clownfart]

The thing that sucks about betas (or can be good in some eyes), is that it turns into a feature request period. Instead of actually finding bugs, people think of it as a time to request changes to the game.

I'd love to play the game as early as possible, so I'm for a beta period. It's clearly playable already. One of my favorite things in games is finding bugs in maps, though I'm not quite familiar with Unreal games.

I think a closed beta would be best, and should be kept small and manageable for the team.

[Lev_Astov]

I would definitely partake if a playable beta were made available, but I would just as soon do without it in this case.  I would much prefer the devs focus all their effort on polishing this game to a glorious shine!

[lavalamp1138]

While it really is an ingenious concept, I'm not sure it would work with a game such as Hawken. What I mean by this is, if Adhesive Games intends to pursue their interest in bringing Hawken to the PS3 and Xbox 360, they'll need a publisher. Publishers would be reluctant to back an unfinished product due to the uncertainty as to whether or not it would actually be financially viable in its current state, promptly preventing its release on the consoles. This, in turn, means that a large part of the game's potential consumer base would be cut off. I say we let Adhesive Games complete Hawken, acquire a publisher, and release it on every platform they can. That way, everyone wins!

[Qwet]

i am going to have to agree with lava here.

[3leggedFreak]

lavalamp1138 said:

I say we let Adhesive Games complete Hawken, acquire a publisher, and release it on every platform they can. That way, everyone wins!

Except if one or more platforms get screwed! :]

[lavalamp1138]

3leggedFreak said:

lavalamp1138 said:

I say we let Adhesive Games complete Hawken, acquire a publisher, and release it on every platform they can. That way, everyone wins!

Except if one or more platforms get screwed! :]

Well at that point, it's out of Adhesive Games' hands. Instead, only the parent company of the platform in-question is to blame. So long as Adhesive Games and their potential publisher do everything in their power to make it happen, we won't ever be in a position to cry foul.

[OdysseusVA]

A publisher isn't absolutely needed. Look at TimeGate Studios and what they've done with Section 8: Prejudice. Self-financed/published and hitting all three platforms.

[lavalamp1138]

OdysseusVA said:

A publisher isn't absolutely needed. Look at TimeGate Studios and what they've done with Section 8: Prejudice. Self-financed/published and hitting all three platforms.

That is an excellent point. However, a team such as TimeGate Studios differs from Adhesive Games in many areas. TimeGate's ability to self-publish its IP stems from having already proven itself as a financially viable company. After having worked with many large publishers in the past (Ubisoft Entertainment, Take 2 Interactive, Atari, and others), they now possess the necessary credentials to work directly with Microsoft and Sony. Conversely, Adhesive Games is a fresh indie team that has yet to make a name for itself. While their title, Hawken, may look absolutely incredible, they don't have the necessary track record to put it on the consoles' digital distribution services by themselves.

To cite an example, there is another new indie team on the block called SuperGiant Games. While their team consists of people from MIT, people who worked on the Command & Conquer franchise at Electronic Arts, and the former editor-in-chief at Gamespot, they weren't able to self-publish their game onto the consoles because they had yet to make a game themselves. Instead, this talented team had to secure Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment as their publisher in order to release their title, Bastion, on these platforms. Still, there is defintely a great deal of merit to your post, my friend. I thank you for bringing up such a good discussion point.

[RedVan]

I'd rather the dev team stick to what they're trying to make and just release it, rather than a continual development method.

During a normal beta, bugs will be found, and things will be balanced.  No need to extend a "beta" to be years.

[Littledog1]

I would like to see some sort of closed beta were people could sign up for.

[Irrelevant]

Nope, there are people who spend 50-60 bucks on a game, play it for 10-20 hours and then move on, when you give people a chance to do this for free you lose customers.

[SPIGOT]

I think it would ruin the appeal if we start off playing on some crappy glitchy version, as opposed to starting with a finished product.

[colR]

Not going to respond to this because, while I would love to get my hands on a playable beta and would be quite happy to pre-purchase in order to do so, I'd prefer it came about as an organic part of the development process, rather than because the devs felt they had to due to community pressure. I'm categorically *not* suggesting that that's why this poll was started, just that unless the question comes from the devs themselves I'm not comfortable answering it. Hope that makes sense.

[vesper1]

ColOfNature said:

Not going to respond to this because, while I would love to get my hands on a playable beta and would be quite happy to pre-purchase in order to do so, I'd prefer it came about as an organic part of the development process, rather than because the devs felt they had to due to community pressure. I'm categorically *not* suggesting that that's why this poll was started, just that unless the question comes from the devs themselves I'm not comfortable answering it. Hope that makes sense.

What he said :-)

Also, I think there's going to be a beta, but taking into account the location of the dev team, I don't think they have to force themselves too much to find people eager to give it a shot locally ;-)

Having said that, I sure hope it's going to run smoothly over the interwebs and people in Europe will host servers... or else! ;-)

[Zero]

I myself, would like a beta period. Nothing special, I would just like to see the game, help find any bugs and balance issues, and be done with it. Nothing more than a week or two at most, this isn't a gigantic game with a million different possibilities in it.

[Skulo]

I agree with a closed Beta

and don't even start with the minecraft crap around here

[KingLordOfMaster]

A closed beta for unknown time and then an Open beta (mainly for stress testing) worth of 1-2 months but that'd be about it.

[Israels_Son]

Hey Vespa,

I like the Kurita Pic.. brings back memories hahah

Hey... whatever they do.. just hurry it up!!  

There hasn't been a "decent" mech game since EA screwed up with Battletech.

Patiently waiting..

IS

[Ganthir]

Beta testing is usually a good idea for finding bugs and imbalances in the game before initial release, I don't see too many downsides to that.