One of the things that has been driving Demigod beta testers crazy is that they aren't used to how Stardock does betas. A lot of them came from the Gas Powered Games community so they don't realize that Stardock betas tend to be very primitive.
With Elemental, we may drive the point home by having the first beta of the game only use the cloth map instead of the actual game engine for game play. The idea is, if it's a good game, it should be reasonably fun even without fancy graphics. Then for once we could get people to fixate on the key features of the game rather than piddly details.
The other benefit it would have is if we could make the whole game play on the cloth map too, people with insanely low end systems could actually play the game. Imagine people playing Elemental on a netbook for instance?
So that's what's going through our crazy minds today.
a beta without graphs is rather an alpha no ? call it a beta primitv ? okay
(our customers would not accept a beta with cutted features, but we do enterprise softwares, not games )
Anyway, you're totally right, the initiative sounds good to me since your primary concern should be the game mechanisms, not the graphics (im sure your cloth map still looks better than dom3 default ones, yet I spend hours on dom3 )
what are the conditions to participate beta testing ? must pre order the game ?
For the full public beta, yes, you must pre-order. But Stardock usually has a window of several days after a beta release to let folks finally decide to pay and join.
Elemental is also possibly going to have an invitation-only pre-beta (alpha, whatever). Brad discussed it briefly in this journal thread.
thanks for the answer
I think I'll have to wait the release then, I rarely buy a game until I've played the demo (moreover when its to do something which is my job)
This game looks promising, do a great job !
Fiscal caution is always respectable. But I encourage you to keep an eye on the boards here during the first days of Beta 1. If you like the impression you get of the game at that point, I think it would be awesome to have a working tester put spare time into the volunteer effort here.
Since one of my most eagerly expected game of 2009 is Solium Infernum, I can tell for sure fancy graphics are the lowest of my priorities.
A beta is whatever stage in development is after alpha... it doesn't actually suggest anything about its content.
I'd like my money just be taken. so that way I won't risk being overdrawn or something for it later. I don't think it will be a problem, because I tend to be pretty good with money, but I was concerned because I think every credit card I own expires before 2/2010. So they had better "lock it down" before then, because I will have a new card number. Luckily I know it will be 'locked' for the beta.
That's the planned date for RTM, but you'll get billed for the game when the public beta is released in a few months.
You shouldn't have a new card number just because you got a new expiration date. Or maybe that's yet another reason to appreciate my credit union?
Start with the cloth and let us take it for a test drive and then get the testers comments and issues. graphics are all fine and awesome for the finished product.
Getting the game mechanics done right before applying dazzeling and hypnotizing graphics.. me like.
Man, I preordered Elemental yesterday...
Looking forward to beta testing. I love the idea of only going with the cloth first. Smart move...
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