Quote: Originally posted by udm_mike on 6/09/2010Isn't this what beta testing was invented for? If they were minor tweaks, I'd agree with you. But the results we're seeing would have been information readily available to them with even the most rudimentary pre-release testing. Which, from all accounts, is about the nicest thing you could call the testing they did.
We? The results I've seen personally in Smith are not at all wildly out of whack.
As for whether the things people are ******** about would have been fine-tuned better with more extensive beta testing... probably. But seble apparently didn't have the resources to do a full, multi-season beta, with a team of dedicated testers focusing on specific issues -- which is what it would have taken.
So, instead, we get a live launch with a product that about 95% to where seble wants it, and because of the code re-write seble is now able to react quickly once the 5% becomes apparent through game-play, rather than having those issues drag out through multiple seasons.
Does that make us beta testers? Not really.
Does that make the hysterical public freakouts we're seeing from the likes of mmt and sully justified? Not hardly.