New D&D online details

[Mr. Natural]

I know Gaim Mastr will be interested to read up on the upcoming D&D online.
This year marks the beginning of several beta stages.
http://www.ddo.com/index.php

[Gaim Mastr]

Thanks for the info !!


However, I find this statement to be nothing less than abhorrent...

Beta 2 is the meat of our closed Beta – by this stage, the game will be playable, maybe even shippable.

Just another clear showing that game companies have come accept the aspect of shipping unfinished products to gamers. To even consider ANY beta testing stage to be "shippable" just disgusts me beyond belief !! :mad:

It's why WoW and so many other MMOGs are buggy messes when they're released. Game industry mentality has degraded into "ship unfinished.... fix bugs and problems afterwards".

[Drewby]

I am trying to be an optomistic one here, but I think that they meant shippable as in being that the game content is complete. Hopefully, the extra testing will fix the problems that they have and not try to throw in more crap at the last minute.

Anyway, I haven't been watching this one too harshly, but I will keep an eye on it now that we can watch their progress. I love DnD, but it is too hard to get the group together at the same time on the same night on a regular basis to stay involved. Maybe this one will turn out good, and we can really get back into the grind of things. Even so, I doubt it will meet the expectations of pen and paper gamers.

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

Thanks for the info !!


However, I find this statement to be nothing less than abhorrent...



Just another clear showing that game companies have come accept the aspect of shipping unfinished products to gamers. To even consider ANY beta testing stage to be "shippable" just disgusts me beyond belief !! :mad:

It's why WoW and so many other MMOGs are buggy messes when they're released. Game industry mentality has degraded into "ship unfinished.... fix bugs and problems afterwards".

Um....if they have their ship criteria met by Beta 2 then it's done.

[Gaim Mastr]

I'm only concerned with the criteria of a properly tested and finalized product.

And I stand by my frustration with any notion that a Beta 2 phase is worthy of being shipped to store shelves at full retail cost to the paying consumers, when they already know that the game will require a Beta 3 phase. And all of that is sans any RCs to follow the Betas.

Software should be shipped only when it's finalized, not while it's still undergoing QA testing.



EDIT: However, make no mistake, I sure do hope that I was wrong and jumped to the wrong conclusions about her statement. I'm really hoping that DDO is a good product. My inner-geek is longing for a proper D&D fix. :lol:

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

I'm only concerned with the criteria of a properly tested and finalized product.

EDIT: However, make no mistake, I sure do hope that I was wrong and jumped to the wrong conclusions about her statement. I'm really hoping that DDO is a good product. My inner-geek is longing for a proper D&D fix. :lol:

They set ship criteria prior to entering any beta phase, they use that to determine when to ship it. The quality of the product has nothing to do about when it's shipped, but rather, who determined that it should be shipped.

If they have "show stopping" bugs at launch, the Q&A and project managers should have their heads caved in. They are the ones who give final "sign off" on the project state, and generally are the one's who define the test passes and ship criteria. They defined crappy test passes which didn't find the bugs or decided that the bugs were low impact and could / would be addressed after launch.

And believe me i'm looking for a D&D fix probably on the scale that you are. I'm watching the "wife" play Neverwinter and just weeping quietly that there wasn't "more" there.