Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Mechwarrior Online Open Beta

Mechwarrior fans rejoice. MWO is finally in open beta. Interest players can sign up at their website here: http://mwomercs.com/signup?utm_source=mainMENU With Hawken also on the horizon, mech fans have a lot to look forward to. These games are also free to play.

Beta's have started to become a sort of demo for testers, as well as for YouTubers to get the word out. This is different from the days when beta was held to test the game before launch. Such testing is now reserved for closed beta. This is especially so for free-to-play games, where it is not uncommon for a player's progress to be carried from beta into the complete game, giving them a head start. But then again, anyone who is interested in the game would have joined in the open beta anyway. I guess free-to-play games can take this route because they are going to get into the hands of gamers free anyway, so there's no worry of letting players play too much and as a result, they don't buy the game.

There generally shouldn't be an issue in this shift of focus of the beta test, except when a game developer decide to use the beta as it was originally meant to be - as a test for bugs in the game. What is also often seen among gamers is whining and crying about not being able to get into beta. Gamers now see beta as a chance to play the game before anybody else, often overlooking the true purpose. As a result, when things don't work as they should in such cases, there are actually some who will go out of their way to bash the game and paint it in a negative light. So while it is true that most developers have now polished up their game, do note that there will be bugs. So have fun, but don't let the presence of bugs affect your impression of the game.

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