I've haven't understood the need for silence on recent expansions. All it seems to be is a period of time where a few people know which items to stockpile for cheap on Live so they can sell them for 10x the price on launch day back to the people they just bought them from.
NDAs are pretty much Standard Operating Procedure in the software industry, or any content production industry for that matter. The company simply wants to control the information being given out, since it's likely details of the expansion will change before launch, and they want to avoid disappointing people because a 'promised' feature did not make it into the final release due to tech glitches.
It is unfortunate that some people may use this advance knowledge to their advantage, but that's just the way things work.
Last edited by Jiraiyaisnolia; Jun 25 2012 at 09:51 PM.
Rather than looking for conditions that get one *into* a beta program, it is easier to look for things that will keep people *out* of programs. Getting disciplined on the forums is one such way to be kept out, for instance. Breaking a previous NDA is another.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a list of people Turbine wants to invite into betas (good history of filing usable bug reports?), but I've no idea who might be on such a list.
And that gives Turbine all the time they need to call anticimex for all the bugs found, right?
This is how it works, they have a team of about 100 beta testers, and they open beta testing up for these testers one week after the expansion goes live..... Wait somethi.... No that’s rite.
Oh no sorry we are all the beta testers and we just pre ordered the beta pack expansion.
Happy bug hunting guys
Expansion Betas last a few months normally. Not weeks. It's usually by invitation only, starting with small groups and growing larger as we approach launch. usually these groups are invited based on a number of factors including whether or not they pre-purchased the expansion.
Yep, we close off the Bullroarer forums as we prepare for beta.[/QUOTE]
im gonna cry if i dont get in... what are my chances if i pay 70 $ out of my wallet to get in?
IF you paid 70 - You have a chance to get into beta
IF you paid 50 - You have a chance to get into beta
IF you paid 40 - You have a chance to get into beta
IF you paid 0 - You have a slightly less chance to get into beta
What is a beta server do you know it? not sure you know it?
Beta is wre player come to test what is incoming futur were dev can figure out how mechanic or changes works.
Why is secret?
Because as beta is said all can change and do not want people think that game will be like that . They will be testing thousand of mecanic and workshop with players.
Second is that some just play beta before deciding to buy it or not .
Do you feel frustrated not knowing what exactly will come?
write up suggestion that could help dev to get new ideas and play less and goo have some real life ...
Why even doing beta there is soo much bugs in live server ?
Easy 1st reason beta tester most of the time do not really tell all to dev what they saw as an iissue.
2nd some issue are still ????? for dev and still looking solving it in futur and do not want make us wait too much.
Conclusion :
1 st hope that you will be maybe one day taken for it
2nd go have some real life waiting if you are bored
3rd turbine get some new beta tester to avoid soo much bugs "surprises" whe come live.
Didn't the beta for RoI start around July 25th last year? I'd guess somewhere around mid July for the beta to start. I can't wait for people to start breaking their NDAs.
Yes we do. In fact, soon is an understatement. I think we've passed into Incredisoon™ territory.
While you burn at the stake, I dance with the flames. I take what you love and leave you in tears. I am relentless, unpredictable, and waiting for your last breath.
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Originally Posted by TheNightAngel
Sapience, will you inform the public when the beta starts? Or will our only indication be an invitation email
We'll let everyone know when beta has started, those invited will get an email.
We're also working on some beta key giveaways for later in beta so everyone can get a shot. If you wanted to maximize your odds there, I'd suggest liking our Facebook page and following us on Twitter. As that will give you three possible ways to win.
Rick Heaton, Community Manager, The Lord of the Rings Online.
Didn't the beta for RoI start around July 25th last year? I'd guess somewhere around mid July for the beta to start. I can't wait for people to start breaking their NDAs.
It started earlier than that....and then shut down for about 3 weeks while Turbine weeded out those that immediately went public in violation of the NDA.
People who break NDA are doing neither themselves nor anyone else a favor.
If I worked for Turbine and saw what you wrote, I'd flag your account to NOT EVER be put in a beta program. Stating that you're just waiting for people to break NDA is really a "red flag" warning.
We'll let everyone know when beta has started, those invited will get an email.
We're also working on some beta key giveaways for later in beta so everyone can get a shot. If you wanted to maximize your odds there, I'd suggest liking our Facebook page and following us on Twitter. As that will give you three possible ways to win.
Hmmm... Well since I won't touch Facebook (privacy policies, etc.) and don't follow Twitter (there's enough inanity in life without limiting it to 140 characters)...
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Originally Posted by PerfectApproach
Yes we do. In fact, soon is an understatement. I think we've passed into Incredisoon™ territory.
It still amuses me how long it took people to realize that while not specific dates, all of those descriptions have very clear relationships to each other and that there is a discernible time frame explained there.
Rick Heaton, Community Manager, The Lord of the Rings Online.
It still amuses me how long it took people to realize that while not specific dates, all of those descriptions have very clear relationships to each other and that there is a discernible time frame explained there.
Any chance someone could post the contents of the "How soon is "Soon™"?" page linked, please? I can't access the page due to the ongoing redirect loop forum bug (sorry for off-topic...)
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Capkatt Stinkspit - a Warleader fetching sticks
Cardhad of erm Somewhere - a Warden doin.. uh.. what? where?
Any chance someone could post the contents of the "How soon is "Soon™"?" page linked, please? I can't access the page due to the ongoing redirect loop forum bug (sorry for off-topic...)
The particularly buggy version OS/360 was in the late 1960s or early 1970s. IBM has spent a long time and a lot of money working on how to produce good software....and they're very good at it, but--like everyone else--not perfect.
Sometimes their solutions work but leave something to be desired. I found a bug in the COBOL II compiler that IBM "solved" by changing the manual to say that you couldn't *do* that. Ask your z/OS buddies about extending a spanned KSDS VSAM record in COBOL.
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
ROLF !!!
I wonder how many folks on this forum actually know COBOL as anything other than the Planet humans left (along with Lorn Green) to colonize Earth when threatened by the Cylons
VSAM indeed !
Bill Magill - Mac Player - Old Timers Guild- Gladden - The restrictions on signatures keep getting more and more absurd
Hmmm... Well since I won't touch Facebook (privacy policies, etc.) and don't follow Twitter (there's enough inanity in life without limiting it to 140 characters)...
Obligatory: You don't have to actually USE the services to get the information there. Just bookmark the two pages.
Also, get off my lawn.
Elendilmir: Arda Shrugged - Crickhollow: The Colonists
I wonder how many folks on this forum actually know COBOL as anything other than the Planet humans left (along with Lorn Green) to colonize Earth when threatened by the Cylons
VSAM indeed !
Sorry, no COBOL on z/OS, but on MPE and Itanium. Contact with z only in z/Linux. But I prefer more modern stuff nowadays, like the new Cobol named after coffee :-)
It started earlier than that....and then shut down for about 3 weeks while Turbine weeded out those that immediately went public in violation of the NDA.
People who break NDA are doing neither themselves nor anyone else a favor.
If I worked for Turbine and saw what you wrote, I'd flag your account to NOT EVER be put in a beta program. Stating that you're just waiting for people to break NDA is really a "red flag" warning.
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
I agree, if you sign an NDA you don't break it (unless ofc of keeping your NDA would cause bodily harm or death to someone else... a highly unlikely scenario in this case). So yes, NDA = don't break... even if you're promised shinies
I've haven't understood the need for silence on recent expansions. All it seems to be is a period of time where a few people know which items to stockpile for cheap on Live so they can sell them for 10x the price on launch day back to the people they just bought them from.
That's one of the reasons right there. It screws up the current game economy badly if everyone knows that in three months a certain item will lose all value. Sure maybe some in beta are cheating by using this knowledge but I think most do not. There are changes made though when the expansions go live that weren't in beta, and I suspect some of that may be to prevent the insider trading.
However there are other reasons too. What you see in beta is not finished yet. There are people there who don't understand this and from day one will start whining about how there are bugs in beta. Or some feature is now how they like it so they will start complaining about how the developer is out of touch, etc. But those things change over time during beta; bugs get fixed and features evolve. If there were no NDA those players would be on Live forums quickly drumming up angry protests. A protest within the beta group is much easier to listen and respond to than an angry mob from outside. Instead the product when introduced to the larger player base is mostly finished and looks vastly better than the initial beta release.
Developers also want to have a dialogue with the beta testers, asking them how they perceive a certain change and so forth. They are much more communicative in beta than they are in the full forums. Removing the NDA means that this casual discussion with players goes out the window and the devs have to go back to being defensive, carefully scrutinizing every word they say, etc.
Finally a big reason for NDA I think is that people do want to have suprises still. We don't want to know everything that's going to happen in advance. No spoilers.
Sorry, no COBOL on z/OS, but on MPE and Itanium. Contact with z only in z/Linux. But I prefer more modern stuff nowadays, like the new Cobol named after coffee :-)
I've encountered MPE on projects converting FROM it to HP/UX.
Quick...What do you call Object Oriented COBOL?
(ADD 1 TO COBOL.)
Of course, a REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in ANY language. I used to write some decent FORTRAN programs in COBOL, but that was a long time ago. (For real fun, somewhere around the house I have the assembly listing and output of an ALC program to do all solutions to the Soma Cube. Writing recursive code in ALC under IBM DOS--the mainframe DOS, that is--is loads of fun...)
I wonder how many folks on this forum actually know COBOL as anything other than the Planet humans left (along with Lorn Green) to colonize Earth when threatened by the Cylons
VSAM indeed !
Some of remember Lorne Green far enough back to call the show you're referring to as "Ponderosa in Space".
Additionally, depending on the severity of your beta rules violation, your live account could receive disciplinary action, up to and including a permanent LIFETIME ban from the beta AND LIVE servers.
Or Sapience could lick your hand and pour lye on it....
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Originally Posted by whheydt
Some of remember Lorne Green far enough back to call the show you're referring to as "Ponderosa in Space".
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
Actually it was Kobol in the show.
And yes some of us remember the Ponderosa in Space and the irony of Lorne selling alpo with the trademark, "That's a hundred and five to you and me!"
Rick Heaton, Community Manager, The Lord of the Rings Online.
Hmmm... Well since I won't touch Facebook (privacy policies, etc.) and don't follow Twitter (there's enough inanity in life without limiting it to 140 characters)...
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
I just use a VM that is refreshed every time I reboot it. Privacy policies? Bah! They'll never have any meaningful info on me! Takes a little bit of time to set up, but requires 0 maintenance.
Edit: also is PERFECT for online banking and other sensitive sites.
Last edited by astronomerwithagun; Jun 28 2012 at 12:19 PM.
Some of remember Lorne Green far enough back to call the show you're referring to as "Ponderosa in Space".
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
Indeed and though I might be a few years younger than you … I remember Bonanza when it was *only* in B&W and I liked the 70s Battlestar Galactica much better than Sci-Fi's 00s version. And yeah I do remember COmmon Business Oriented Language and learning the fine art of keypunching.
I just use a VM that is refreshed every time I reboot it. Privacy policies? Bah! They'll never have any meaningful info on me! Takes a little bit of time to set up, but requires 0 maintenance.
Edit: also is PERFECT for online banking and other sensitive sites.
Virtual Machine. A sotware program that emulates a PC within the OS. Any programs running within the VM only have access to the resources within the VM, and not resources of the PC itself, including direct access to the hardware running it.
It is possible to comfigure a VM to act like a clean install every time it reboots. This is useful for testing, or as others have noted, for removng any traces of tracking data on the VM.
Windows 7 Business and Ultimate, for example, have a downloadable componant called Windows XP Mode, that emulates a PC running a fully licensed copy of WinXP Pro.
Virtual Machine. A sotware program that emulates a PC within the OS. Any programs running within the VM only have access to the resources within the VM, and not resources of the PC itself, including direct access to the hardware running it.
It is possible to comfigure a VM to act like a clean install every time it reboots. This is useful for testing, or as others have noted, for removng any traces of tracking data on the VM.
Windows 7 Business and Ultimate, for example, have a downloadable componant called Windows XP Mode, that emulates a PC running a fully licensed copy of WinXP Pro.
Any chance someone could post the contents of the "How soon is "Soon™"?" page linked, please? I can't access the page due to the ongoing redirect loop forum bug (sorry for off-topic...)
When you have this issue with a page, logging out from the forum will allow you to read it.
Expansion Betas last a few months normally. Not weeks. It's usually by invitation only, starting with small groups and growing larger as we approach launch. usually these groups are invited based on a number of factors including whether or not they pre-purchased the expansion.
Yep, we close off the Bullroarer forums as we prepare for beta.
It is admirable that Turbine would continue to promote the new product, however consider the option of accepting those who have not pre-purchased the expansion: the more people that you can expose to and get excited about the new product, the more you will sell.
It is admirable that Turbine would continue to promote the new product, however consider the option of accepting those who have not pre-purchased the expansion: the more people that you can expose to and get excited about the new product, the more you will sell.
The more WB will earn money and the more sad peoples they will have soon on the forums. If they invite those who didn't pre-ordered their Expansion yet, it would be unfair to those who have the faith in Turbine and bought it and remember, the Beta isn't a early look at RoR. Its testing RoR and helping Turbine to have a better Expansion.
The more WB will earn money and the more sad peoples they will have soon on the forums. If they invite those who didn't pre-ordered their Expansion yet, it would be unfair to those who have the faith in Turbine and bought it and remember, the Beta isn't a early look at RoR. Its testing RoR and helping Turbine to have a better Expansion.
Wha? Companies are not charities: they need to make money for obvious reasons. Unfair? Just because someone has pre-ordered the expansion does not mean they are more loyal than anyone else. The beta is an early look at RoR; a reward for beta testing.
Wha? Companies are not charities: they need to make money for obvious reasons. Unfair? Just because someone has pre-ordered the expansion does not mean they are more loyal than anyone else. The beta is an early look at RoR; a reward for beta testing.
The way you are saying "Give them a early look so they can decide to buy it" is a way to only come to consider whether your buying it or not. Thats nothing testing for Turbine, just for yourself.
The main reward isn't a early look, its a Expansion where the most game breaker bugs are out of (Of course only if they fix those).
I didn't say anything that those who don't pre-order aren't loyal enough like the others. I said those who pre-ordered have the faith in the Expansion. Of course there are some who haven't got enough money yet to buy it and planning to do it later.
It is admirable that Turbine would continue to promote the new product, however consider the option of accepting those who have not pre-purchased the expansion: the more people that you can expose to and get excited about the new product, the more you will sell.
Those who are in beta can not talk about beta. You can not even tell others that you are in the beta, unless you are invited and decline the invite. So any advertisement from people in beta would only occur very late in the process after the NDA is removed.
The number of people invited to the beta will be relatively small, not in large enough numbers to have a noticeable effect on revenue.
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