Blair Fraser said...
...Remember, at this stage of development of most games you are lucky if you've even seen an exclusive bit of footage of actual gameplay let alone getting to try it out yourself and then have enough time left in development to actually have an impact. I'd also say that most "betas" that are released are actually marketing tools that are released shortly before the actual release and are not actually intended to find and fix anything but minor problems.
This beta was intended for those people who want to help us test the game and who want to help shape it and we've left plenty of time to do it. We recognize that this is probably quite unattractive for a lot of people and potentially hurts our marketing efforts in the short term due to all the requests, complaints, and constant changes but we are convinced that by doing this, the final product (which is when most people get to try a game for the first time) will be incredibly stable and fun and the net gain will be much higher. I've been bitten by too many games that were released buggy and with glaring gameplay problems that any community could have told them needed to be changed. Ofcourse, that is probably your position - you don't want to get bitten in this case - and I don't blame you. However, myself and most of the community here are the type of people who like to proactively do something about not getting bitten. If I can have my say BEFORE the product is done, chances are it will turn out that I didn't waste my money....
I just wanted to praise you for this way of thinking. It's a rare thing today to find developers and or designers that believes and follows this "dogma". I clearly see comparisons to what you said in the MMORPG development space. I've played too many "betas" that should probably still have been in the pre-beta development phase, because the game was lacking in features and polish, and too often it seems little gets done during these phases as well, beyond the odd bug fix.
I wish more companies would adopt your (Starock/Ironclad) way of developing games, not necessarily letting players play barebone betas, but by putting more thought, heart, and effort in to their products, instead of just trying to whore a quick buck from their playerbase.
Stardock and Ironclad stands head and shoulders above, dare I say most, other companies in my book. So I believe a salute is definitely in order. Keep up the good work.
