true true... i agree... except this is beta... this is an incomplete game... we are testers... we paid to be testers... and i expect this game to blow up at any moment... like that creeper hiding in the corner...
Even Epic games have there flaws... lets think... would you rather have no Minecraft at all? Lets think of what we DO have and not bash on things that dont go as expected. Lets just play
He pointed out something very big that Notch never does...
Release something the start of a work day.
Notch could have put beta out on the 21st, but had it "done" the 20th, and released it the first second of when he started working the next day and spent the day fixing it, THEN moving to other things. But no, he rather release Beta an hour before he's headed home...
Quote from Cryptology »
I skipped all of the replies.
I disagree with Mr. Developer. There are two points to be made here:
-Beta patch was rushed to meet a deadline
-Minecraft is in Beta
Those who actually understand the meaning of those two points, and how they correlate with Minecraft's development will disagree with Mr. Developer.
The fact that Alpha ran better than Beta makes the "It's in beta..." excuse, worthless.
It was rushed for a deadline he made himself. He doesn't have Activision on his ass like other companies.
No doubt you'll skip this reply do, hence your idiotic post.
I would agree with him, except for one word. Beta.
The game isn't complete yet, so bugs are to be expected and if he goes around fixing every little bug now he won't have time for putting together content. He can go back and fix all the bugs once he's implemented most everything. Then he won't have to waste time bug testing every time an update comes out. For all those who say "but we paid." well you did, and you also did knowing full well that the game is not complete and that is partially why you got a discount on it. Basically he's paying you to bug test for him. Now when he comes up with an RC and officially releases Minecraft then and only then will I expect to have all the major bugs worked out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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The only thing I agree with that guy is the fact the beta release was poorly timed. It should have been held over until the beginning of the new year. The rest of it seems like a bunch of twaddle.
It's completely apparent that he's never alpha/beta tested a game. Let's take WoW beta, I tested WoW from when it first went into beta, Blizzard was (even then) a large, respected, well funded game developer with a huge dev team at their disposal. Pretty much every beta update broke the game so badly most testers were unable to play for days after a new beta patch. I alpha'd and beta's Eve Online, same story, the game was pretty much unplayable for 2-3 days after a patch. Every game I've alpha/beta tested was the same.
Even after 6 years at it, when ever Blizzard release a major patch, they have continual rolling restarts of their servers and bug fixes for about a week.
He even manages to complain about having to spend 20 minutes updating the mods on his servers with each patch, what the hell does that have to do with Notch testing his code before releasing it? Notch doesn't even support 3rd party mods.
We're Notch's testing team, that's what we signed up for. If you don't like having to put up with game crippling bugs or having to update non-approved mods, then perhaps alpha/beta testing isn't for you. Maybe you should just not play until the game goes retail, and be thankful you got a discount on the game for pre-ordering. Either that, or chalk it up to experience, wash your hands of the whole thing and GTFO.
/thread. Armitige wins at this thread.
I'm not a Notch Fanboi. I hate the Beta update because my SMP server is jacked. Every player who connects gets overflowed approximately every 30 seconds. I have a decent system and every few seconds I take major FPS hits. Durability is broken. Inv may still be broken. I can't tell because I can't spend enough time online to test much. I run a completely vanilla server (no mods, for you downs kids out there who think Vanilla is only a flavor of icecream), and I only spend 10 seconds updating the server. Save-all, stop, Click MineCraft page, click download, rename file, run file. Easy.
All of that being said: THE GAME IS NOT GOLD. There are hundreds of games out there which have gone Gold with far more flaws in them. Clearly, the greater majority of you haven't been gamers for very long. Either that, or you're just morons. You got the game for less than the cost of a T-Pain album, and T-Pain is far less satisfying than building a lifesized model of a Greek Temple.
You kiddies out there need to realize that this game was offered "as is" and "in development", under the pretense that he would continue to update it. None of you have any right to *****. You came into this knowing the deal. Rather than getting into the game and doing REAL testing and recording your data and sending that data to Notch via his Email, you get onto these forums and cry like a bunch of little babies. It's not justified. It's not clever. It's not funny. It's not productive. It's a waste of webspace.
When you're paying 15 dollars a month for an MMORPG which breaks for entire seasons because the development team has absolutely no interest in addressing glaring bugs, exploits, and balance issues (WoW, anyone?).. THEN you have a right to *****. Until then, start running some legit tests on bugs you find and recording the data and emailing it to Notch's team, or STFU.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You know your worth when your enemies praise your architechure of aggression.
This right here is the entire underlying issue. I know the people who've bought the game are expected to be the beta testers, but in all truth in the matter, what's there to test when the product is faulty from a large issue. It doesn't require a mass test to understand there is something wrong with the game right now. If they had simply delayed their deadline, there wouldn't be a mass issue with frame rate drop.
You can counter with the "we're supposed to test it" line all day, but this problem didn't need to be tested when it was so obvious. Do you need to test if the sky is blue when it's obvious to see that it's not?
Unlike most betas, in which participation is free, we PAY to be in the beta. In my opinion, this entitles us to promises and on-the-spot bug fixes.
You are not paying to play beta. You have pre-ordered the game, at half-price or even more than that, and he just so happens to use the pre-order people as beta testers. You don't have to play the game in beta, I'm sure it's fine with Notch and everyone else that you wait until final release before playing. The transition Notch made from alpha to beta means absolutely nothing. It's just a developer term. It doesn't entitle you to bug-free updates, or better/more features (actually, you should expect less features).
I disagree with Mr. Developer. There are two points to be made here:
-Beta patch was rushed to meet a deadline
-Minecraft is in Beta
Those who actually understand the meaning of those two points, and how they correlate with Minecraft's development will disagree with Mr. Developer.
Betas aren't this rough. I'm sorry if you think they are, but they're not. Show-stopping bugs like those introduced to SMP don't happen in betas. Those are the things that are reserved for pre-alpha and maybe early alpha, when you don't have a proper development cycle set up, when you can still use agile development as an excuse. What we're getting now is just sloppy. This is a beta. All of the software's features are supposed to be implemented and working by this point.
It's nice to think that saying "it's beta" is a catch-all for everything that's wrong with the game, but even betas have standards, and Notch has failed to meet them. That whole "proper development cycle" thing I was talking about? It's pretty obvious Notch doesn't have one of those set up.
People are saying we pre-ordered the game, but I see no easy way or guarantee of getting a refund. If we merely pre-ordered the main game then we should be able to get a full refund easy since we don't even have our product yet. If that is the case, then how do we do that? E-mail him along with the other million e-mails and possibly never receive a reply?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MOD EDIT: Saying this is unnecessary and rude. If people are willing to discuss it, let them discuss it. There's a whole wide world of other topics you could explore and contribute to that you might even be interested in! How exciting!
Fav Mod Edit Eva
I had a huge post. I deleted it because I realized none of the Defense Force would concede even if I somehow got Notch himself to Tweet and say I was absolutely right. They'd be convinced I was |_||3E|21337H4X0|2lololol.
So, I'm gonna just say this.
Who can honestly say that they would have bought this game on release if it wasn't open dev?
1/2 price? Gone. A lot of people bought it because they could justify 10 euros.
All the PC Gamer love? Gone. They'd not hear about it until release, and would probably have scoffed at the final price with the final content.
Free weekend? Gone. How many people here joined because of it?
Half the content you love? Gone. Notch has kept a lot of stuff and put in some stuff because of the community.
And honestly, Minecraft? Quite possibly gone. Without such a huge following, Notch could have easily just wound down and given up. It happens all the time in Indie development. Hell, I had 37 half-finished projects in my game folder when I quit 2D development. You find a bug that annoys the hell out of you, you find someone else is almost done with a similar game, you just lose the passion.
And the whole "you're not paying to play it now" thing is wrong as hell. Because we are, we all are. Don't kid yourself.
We are beta testers. EXPECT BUGS. For fecks sake you lot are stupid. This is what a beta is for, we are not supposed to be playing a bugless version of the game, it isnt supposed to be 100% tested and checked before being given to us because WE ARE THE TESTERS.
Notch doesnt need to buy a mac because 10% of his TESTERS have macs.
Notch doesnt need to test his updates because his TESTERS will test his updates
WE ARE HIS TESTERS YOU IDIOTS.
^^ totally agree, we are the testers it was the point of buying it before release, I don't expect it to be polished in any fashion, but i would also like a bit more, more regularly. I was also disapointed in Beta but who cares its still not finished, i have faith that it will be all it can be by the end of development, so just hold tight minecrafters.
As has been stated multiple times already, this game is in Beta - everyone who plays the game is essentially testing it. Every time bugs show up, people will make noise about it (input) and Notch will end up hearing about that noise (output). Fixes are made, and things work again.
We shouldn't be expecting things to work perfectly every single update.
People are saying we pre-ordered the game, but I see no easy way or guarantee of getting a refund. If we merely pre-ordered the main game then we should be able to get a full refund easy since we don't even have our product yet. If that is the case, then how do we do that? E-mail him along with the other million e-mails and possibly never receive a reply?
You can't get a refund for a product you do not have. The game is in Beta so you don't have the 'main game' like you said. You could always try to get a refund but that is up to you. I mean hell you paid about 15 bucks for a game that was in development. Is 15 dollars so much that it is going to hurt you since you don't have a game as finished as you or others around here think it should be. It will get done when it gets done. Yes the beta was rushed it seems and for whatever reason no testing seems to have been done for the beta release that was why Notch rolled out that next update so soon.
For me I am deployed and I can only really play it offline, I go to MWR to get on the wifi and update it when I notice there is one. But I also keep a backup of every version too since I can only get online so often. So time is a non factor with me. I think a lot more people should feel the same way. Slow down and don't think everything has to be handed to you when you want it. The game will get done when it gets done. It seems Notch has set a tight time schedule for himself if he released the beta so soon and that might be foreshadowing of things to come. I hope its not but whatever.
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Quote from Abnegation »
and would probably have scoffed at the final price with the final content.
Because I'm sure you know exactly what the "final content" will be like when the game is released. /sarcasm
On a more general note, I am having trouble understanding why some people can't seem to grasp the "we are the beta testers" bit. Yes, Notch could be doing a better job both on the development side (as far as prioritizing bugs and managing his time), there is no doubt about that. Does that mean, however, that if a show-stopping bug appears in the beta release, that he either didn't test it or knew about the bug and decided to release it anyway?
Personally, I have made it a point to play for a few hours after each new patch and I have never once experience either extreme lag (playing on fancy + far too) nor this "broken chest" bug. I have played both on my 2 year old, but rather high-end desktop, as well as my low-end business laptop and have never seen either of these issues. Does this just mean I'm lucky? Perhaps, but it would stand to reason that Notch may, then, be lucky too and has also not experienced these bugs.
Instead of flaming and whining, try constructive discussion. Or at least keep all the whining in one thread. As I type this there are no less than 9 threads on the main page all talking about leaf decay and the resulting lag.
And I'm going to throw a creeper at the next person to suggest that Notch should start a beta test.
Also, it's up to the developer to make sure it runs, which is the problem. If devs routinely didn't test code to at least run before sending it out for play testing, they'd be fired.
Game testers test for things like clipping through walls, getting stuck in geometry, being unable to complete quests.
Being able to play the game is a dev test.
To put it plainly:
Do you think Valve types up the code, compiles it, then hands it to testers without checking to see if it kicks up errors?
That would be terribly inefficient, because the testers don't have the ability to see the code racking up errors behind the scenes. The developer does.
---
Whoever responded sarcastically to me:
~$25-30 is a lot to ask for an indie game. And even if Minecraft came with free blowjobs, it would still look like Lego DOOM. It would take a leap of faith to believe it's as addicting as it is when it works.
ssssSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssSSSSSssssssssssssssssss
+ =
I disagree with Mr. Developer. There are two points to be made here:
-Beta patch was rushed to meet a deadline
-Minecraft is in Beta
Those who actually understand the meaning of those two points, and how they correlate with Minecraft's development will disagree with Mr. Developer.
Follow me in a Series of gameplay videos recorded with live commentary, produced by yours truly.
Release something the start of a work day.
Notch could have put beta out on the 21st, but had it "done" the 20th, and released it the first second of when he started working the next day and spent the day fixing it, THEN moving to other things. But no, he rather release Beta an hour before he's headed home...
The fact that Alpha ran better than Beta makes the "It's in beta..." excuse, worthless.
It was rushed for a deadline he made himself. He doesn't have Activision on his ass like other companies.
No doubt you'll skip this reply do, hence your idiotic post.
The game isn't complete yet, so bugs are to be expected and if he goes around fixing every little bug now he won't have time for putting together content. He can go back and fix all the bugs once he's implemented most everything. Then he won't have to waste time bug testing every time an update comes out. For all those who say "but we paid." well you did, and you also did knowing full well that the game is not complete and that is partially why you got a discount on it. Basically he's paying you to bug test for him. Now when he comes up with an RC and officially releases Minecraft then and only then will I expect to have all the major bugs worked out.
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/thread. Armitige wins at this thread.
I'm not a Notch Fanboi. I hate the Beta update because my SMP server is jacked. Every player who connects gets overflowed approximately every 30 seconds. I have a decent system and every few seconds I take major FPS hits. Durability is broken. Inv may still be broken. I can't tell because I can't spend enough time online to test much. I run a completely vanilla server (no mods, for you downs kids out there who think Vanilla is only a flavor of icecream), and I only spend 10 seconds updating the server. Save-all, stop, Click MineCraft page, click download, rename file, run file. Easy.
All of that being said: THE GAME IS NOT GOLD. There are hundreds of games out there which have gone Gold with far more flaws in them. Clearly, the greater majority of you haven't been gamers for very long. Either that, or you're just morons. You got the game for less than the cost of a T-Pain album, and T-Pain is far less satisfying than building a lifesized model of a Greek Temple.
You kiddies out there need to realize that this game was offered "as is" and "in development", under the pretense that he would continue to update it. None of you have any right to *****. You came into this knowing the deal. Rather than getting into the game and doing REAL testing and recording your data and sending that data to Notch via his Email, you get onto these forums and cry like a bunch of little babies. It's not justified. It's not clever. It's not funny. It's not productive. It's a waste of webspace.
When you're paying 15 dollars a month for an MMORPG which breaks for entire seasons because the development team has absolutely no interest in addressing glaring bugs, exploits, and balance issues (WoW, anyone?).. THEN you have a right to *****. Until then, start running some legit tests on bugs you find and recording the data and emailing it to Notch's team, or STFU.
This right here is the entire underlying issue. I know the people who've bought the game are expected to be the beta testers, but in all truth in the matter, what's there to test when the product is faulty from a large issue. It doesn't require a mass test to understand there is something wrong with the game right now. If they had simply delayed their deadline, there wouldn't be a mass issue with frame rate drop.
You can counter with the "we're supposed to test it" line all day, but this problem didn't need to be tested when it was so obvious. Do you need to test if the sky is blue when it's obvious to see that it's not?
You are not paying to play beta. You have pre-ordered the game, at half-price or even more than that, and he just so happens to use the pre-order people as beta testers. You don't have to play the game in beta, I'm sure it's fine with Notch and everyone else that you wait until final release before playing. The transition Notch made from alpha to beta means absolutely nothing. It's just a developer term. It doesn't entitle you to bug-free updates, or better/more features (actually, you should expect less features).
Betas aren't this rough. I'm sorry if you think they are, but they're not. Show-stopping bugs like those introduced to SMP don't happen in betas. Those are the things that are reserved for pre-alpha and maybe early alpha, when you don't have a proper development cycle set up, when you can still use agile development as an excuse. What we're getting now is just sloppy. This is a beta. All of the software's features are supposed to be implemented and working by this point.
It's nice to think that saying "it's beta" is a catch-all for everything that's wrong with the game, but even betas have standards, and Notch has failed to meet them. That whole "proper development cycle" thing I was talking about? It's pretty obvious Notch doesn't have one of those set up.
Fav Mod Edit Eva
So, I'm gonna just say this.
Who can honestly say that they would have bought this game on release if it wasn't open dev?
1/2 price? Gone. A lot of people bought it because they could justify 10 euros.
All the PC Gamer love? Gone. They'd not hear about it until release, and would probably have scoffed at the final price with the final content.
Free weekend? Gone. How many people here joined because of it?
Half the content you love? Gone. Notch has kept a lot of stuff and put in some stuff because of the community.
And honestly, Minecraft? Quite possibly gone. Without such a huge following, Notch could have easily just wound down and given up. It happens all the time in Indie development. Hell, I had 37 half-finished projects in my game folder when I quit 2D development. You find a bug that annoys the hell out of you, you find someone else is almost done with a similar game, you just lose the passion.
And the whole "you're not paying to play it now" thing is wrong as hell. Because we are, we all are. Don't kid yourself.
^^ totally agree, we are the testers it was the point of buying it before release, I don't expect it to be polished in any fashion, but i would also like a bit more, more regularly. I was also disapointed in Beta but who cares its still not finished, i have faith that it will be all it can be by the end of development, so just hold tight minecrafters.
Don't call us idiots when you have no idea how development cycles are supposed to work. This is beta. We are his usability testers, not his QA leads.
We shouldn't be expecting things to work perfectly every single update.
You can't get a refund for a product you do not have. The game is in Beta so you don't have the 'main game' like you said. You could always try to get a refund but that is up to you. I mean hell you paid about 15 bucks for a game that was in development. Is 15 dollars so much that it is going to hurt you since you don't have a game as finished as you or others around here think it should be. It will get done when it gets done. Yes the beta was rushed it seems and for whatever reason no testing seems to have been done for the beta release that was why Notch rolled out that next update so soon.
For me I am deployed and I can only really play it offline, I go to MWR to get on the wifi and update it when I notice there is one. But I also keep a backup of every version too since I can only get online so often. So time is a non factor with me. I think a lot more people should feel the same way. Slow down and don't think everything has to be handed to you when you want it. The game will get done when it gets done. It seems Notch has set a tight time schedule for himself if he released the beta so soon and that might be foreshadowing of things to come. I hope its not but whatever.
Because I'm sure you know exactly what the "final content" will be like when the game is released. /sarcasm
On a more general note, I am having trouble understanding why some people can't seem to grasp the "we are the beta testers" bit. Yes, Notch could be doing a better job both on the development side (as far as prioritizing bugs and managing his time), there is no doubt about that. Does that mean, however, that if a show-stopping bug appears in the beta release, that he either didn't test it or knew about the bug and decided to release it anyway?
Personally, I have made it a point to play for a few hours after each new patch and I have never once experience either extreme lag (playing on fancy + far too) nor this "broken chest" bug. I have played both on my 2 year old, but rather high-end desktop, as well as my low-end business laptop and have never seen either of these issues. Does this just mean I'm lucky? Perhaps, but it would stand to reason that Notch may, then, be lucky too and has also not experienced these bugs.
Instead of flaming and whining, try constructive discussion. Or at least keep all the whining in one thread. As I type this there are no less than 9 threads on the main page all talking about leaf decay and the resulting lag.
And I'm going to throw a creeper at the next person to suggest that Notch should start a beta test.
Also, it's up to the developer to make sure it runs, which is the problem. If devs routinely didn't test code to at least run before sending it out for play testing, they'd be fired.
Game testers test for things like clipping through walls, getting stuck in geometry, being unable to complete quests.
Being able to play the game is a dev test.
To put it plainly:
Do you think Valve types up the code, compiles it, then hands it to testers without checking to see if it kicks up errors?
That would be terribly inefficient, because the testers don't have the ability to see the code racking up errors behind the scenes. The developer does.
---
Whoever responded sarcastically to me:
~$25-30 is a lot to ask for an indie game. And even if Minecraft came with free blowjobs, it would still look like Lego DOOM. It would take a leap of faith to believe it's as addicting as it is when it works.