As I mentioned back in December, 2009 looks to be a year with a lot of promise in the MMO space.  And here we are in April and we’re already seeing some of that promise fulfilled.  Chronicles of Spellborn finally launched here in the US, Champions Online has issued a launch date (and it’s soon!) and Free Realms has been in open beta and is launching tomorrow.  And with so many MMO’s right on the cusp of launching, most everyone I know in the MMO space has been bouncing around one beta or another.  It’s been difficult to sit on the sidelines during all this, enduring what is esentially a self-imposed exile, but from what I’ve read recently, I’m still glad to have stuck by the decision I made some time ago to stop participating in MMO betas.  Here’s why.

Blame it on Vanguard
It’s easy to do, and we often do it anyway, (blame Vanguard that is) and it wasn’t really all Vanguard’s fault.  But that was the game when I finally realized a fundamental truth about why I’m playing in an MMO beta.  And the truth of it is that I’m not there to beta test the game.  I’m there to evaluate it.  And they are two completely different things, and your mindset is in two completely different places.  But when I log into a beta, I’m looking at the game as a whole.  And I can tell my logical self that the game isn’t finished and that it’s very unpolished and there are lots of bugs and I’m there to help find and fix them, and sure I can type up my /bug and report about how the spawn rate in the newbie area sucks, but the truth is, once I get there, I spend most of the time playing the game and evaluating it.  And it’s not fair.  It’s not fair to the game, and its certainly not fair to my evaluation of it, but it’s the truth.  And if the game is found wanting, its quite likely I won’t be back.  I played in the Vanguard beta literally 2 weeks before it launched and the game was in such a broken and unfinished state I said there is no way this game will be playable at launch and I checked out and never came back.  And the thing is, I hear the game did get much better, even at launch, and within the months after launch.  I hear positive things about Vanguard all the time now, and know that I owe it to myself to give them a try.  But once bitten twice shy, and it’s unlikely I’ll be back at that shore.  The same was true of Tabula Rasa.  And the original closed beta of Warhammer – before they pulled the plug on the beta for six months and said OMG what the hell we shouldn’t be in beta right now.  They were right, they shouldn’t have been.  The fact of the matter is poor betas have ruined too many MMO’s for me, and I finally decided that if the I was going to spend two weeks or a month evaluating a game, then I owed it to myself, and to the developer, to evaluate the game they launched.

Beta is french for “Free Playable Demo”
The second reason curiously enough stems out of the fact that developers have, by far and large, realized that the above truth for me is actually the truth for most people.  They’re not beta testing any more during beta tests, they’re simply putting something as close to the shipping game as the publisher will allow out there for a few weeks and opening it up to people to test the load on their servers.  But by calling it the beta, and not “Free Playable Demo”, if it breaks or blows up or falls down flat on its face then technically its okay because its the beta.  Only.. the developers know it’s not okay.   They know that they get essentially one shot and if they blow it, those testers are leaving and not coming back to try again at launch.  Which is why so many MMO’s don’t open beta up until so late in the cycle these days, and then the “beta” test is a few short weeks in length and then the game is launched.  Free Realms entered closed beta on Feb. 26, and launched on April 28.  Seriously?  Eight week beta? 

I don’t enjoy hypocrasy in myself much, which is why I decided if I was going to evaluate a game, I’d evaluate the game that was launched.  But I also don’t much enjoy the hypocrasy that is common to most developer’s during beta.  I don’t mind testing a game that is buggy or unstable.  But I don’t enjoy playing a game that is buggy or unstable or, worse, as was the case in Tabula Rasa, a game who’s fundamental mechanics are unfun, and you then taking the time to report these things as such and being told “Yes yes this is the beta we’ll fix all that before we launch”, when the developer knows they are launching in four weeks.

I love these games and I know that when I play them I’m going to be looking at them with a critical eye.   And let me assure you that abstaining from betas is most assuredly difficult, because I’m just as eager as the next person to sample the latest and greatest MMO to come out.   (And occasionally, I still succumb. )  But by far and large, I think I owe it to myself, and to the developer of the game, that when I do sit down to play and group and level and decide the myriad things I like and don’t like about the game, that I do so with the game they were confident enough in to launch.

Besides.. that way I can take the gloves off. Free Realms, here we come!

As always, your comments and thoughts are most welcome.