CoH2 Beta

Question.. How long does it take to implement changes following an Alpha or Beta test. Seems to me if reverse engineer this, we can figure closer to a real date . No?

That's like asking "how long does it take to redecorate a house once you've decided you don't like how it looks" or "how long is a piece of rope?" There are no answers to these kinds of questions because they are different in every situation.

Less than 1 month of beta, when coh2 comes out it's gonna be unplayable: unoptimazed(graphically), bugs, desgin-flaws, fail balance, fail gameplay design...

What a mess.

I don't think you optimize graphics during beta.

I don't get the impatience honestly. The game will come out, and every week it is pushed back I see as one more week for them to work on it. Honestly the optimal thing for me would be if they pushed it back to April or May, and had the Beta for late February or March.

CoH have been played since 2006, giving it a few more months is something I wouldn't mind at all. Though I can see that it stings to not get a game when you were promised; hey, that's life.

That's like asking "how long does it take to redecorate a house once you've decided you don't like how it looks" or "how long is a piece of rope?" There are no answers to these kinds of questions because they are different in every situation.

I always understood it to be around 30 dayish. It cant be open ended, otherwise the game would never come out. Thats what updates and such are for. I was unfortunate not to play the Aplha, but i could deal fine with a few bugs and balance issues to have something in my hands.. A delay would be ok with me, but give us the beta to play the shit out off.. Seems to me that, that would allow for a better game on launch. No?

I wouldn't be surprised if Sega grabs the game and says: Guys, this is great, but we can do more. Here's more money, push back the release date, make it awesome.

Then the CoH2.org community would go up in flames screaming "WHY!?" and Sega would please us saying: All CoH2 pre-orders will include exclusive access to the Rome 2 Beta, and an exclusive unit. Then we all go "Awwwwwwwww yeeeeh!"

And then Sega will go: "Playa wantz observer mode,replay toolz, modding tools? Playa get observer mode, replay toolz and modding tools."

And we all go like: "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"

...and then I woke up.

I like this. Nice observation from a man rooted in reality!

That's like asking "how long does it take to redecorate a house once you've decided you don't like how it looks" or "how long is a piece of rope?" There are no answers to these kinds of questions because they are different in every situation.

You will likely discover that CrabFries -(an unfortunate nomenclature, to put it at its highest)- is an undergraduate in philosophy....just sayin'......

You will likely discover that CrabFries -(an unfortunate nomenclature, to put it at its highest)- is an undergraduate in philosophy....just sayin'......

LMAO!! Have you ever had the CrabFries? My unfortunate nomenclature, Thats funny! This place is full of Professors.

LMAO!! Have you ever had the CrabFries?

Happily not. (Are we travelling down the grits road, perchance?)

My unfortunate nomenclature. Thats funny!

Never heard an STD described thus, but there's always a first time, I suppose.

This place is full of Professors

I highly doubt you have to possess a tertiary degree, in order to contract such an unfortuate ailment.

I don't think you optimize graphics during beta.

You'd be surprised! They CAN optimize graphics during a Beta, after all, open and closed Betas may also help the developers receive A LOT on info on the machines used by their userbase, instead of just the inhouse/outsourced machines. Its just, they won't fix models and units, they usually optimize stuff that's under the hood: memory allocation and the such.

Kinda what the Steam survey does already... lolz

as long as it's released sometime by the end of 2013, im a happy man

I don't think you optimize graphics during beta.

I don't get the impatience honestly. The game will come out, and every week it is pushed back I see as one more week for them to work on it. Honestly the optimal thing for me would be if they pushed it back to April or May, and had the Beta for late February or March.

CoH have been played since 2006, giving it a few more months is something I wouldn't mind at all. Though I can see that it stings to not get a game when you were promised; hey, that's life.

Yes you do optimize graphics during a beta...

Maybe YOU don't get the impatience, but I've been waiting for this game for years, i've played way too much vCoH, I'm now sick of it because a very large number of reasons, some of them: drophacking, you get a retard like that like every 3 or 4 games(if you are lucky), buggy AI pathing (incredibly frustrating), stale sniper based gameplay, friends don't play anymore...etc etc I'd be the first to complain and moan if the game comes out unpolished(it will), but I'd rather have it unpolished than nothing.

I'm just as anxious as anyone to see Beta start. I don't necessarily think that Relic/Sega should get a pass for the lack of communication over the past 2-3 weeks, but I do understand their predicament.

It seems to me the most critical moment to have a community manager in place is during the Beta phase of a game. This is self evident in that the CM provides community feedback to the developer (Relic) that would be critical in helping with designing a satisfactory finished product. Currently, as we all know SEGA has no CM for the CoH2 community.

With SEGA now in charge of filling that position, it will take more time than just a week or 2. Even if Bobby(Lynx) is the obvious choice a company such as SEGA must follow protocol in filling any position. I remember working for a large well known employer. This company had hiring protocol's like I am speaking of. Even when it was a complete slam dunk for a certain applicant to get a job, this company still had to post the job and hold for 10 days before a hiring decision could occur. And this was just the internal website. I'm sure with external applicants the wait would have been longer.

If SEGA has a similar stance on hiring, it might mean upwards of a month before the position is filled. The job has to be posted. Their is most likely a waiting period to allow candidates ample time to apply. Job interviews must occur and schedules arranged for those interviews to happen. Background checks have to occur. Job offers made and salary negotiations as well.

And even after a hire is completed, onboarding for the newly hired employee also must occur. Depending on the company this might also take several weeks/months.

In other words, I can see why its taking as long as it has as it only been about 2.5 weeks since SEGA'S aquistion. And its probably gonna take longer than we'd all like it to.

I guess we just continue to hang in there.

I'm just as anxious as anyone to see Beta start. I don't necessarily think that Relic/Sega should get a pass for the lack of communication over the past 2-3 weeks, but I do understand their predicament.

It seems to me the most critical moment to have a community manager in place is during the Beta phase of a game. This is self evident in that the CM provides community feedback to the developer (Relic) that would be critical in helping with designing a satisfactory finished product. Currently, as we all know SEGA has no CM for the CoH2 community.

With SEGA now in charge of filling that position, it will take more time than just a week or 2. Even if Bobby(Lynx) is the obvious choice a company such as SEGA must follow protocol in filling any position. I remember working for a large well known employer. This company had hiring protocol's like I am speaking of. Even when it was a complete slam dunk for a certain applicant to get a job, this company still had to post the job and hold for 10 days before a hiring decision could occur. And this was just the internal website. I'm sure with external applicants the wait would have been longer.

If SEGA has a similar stance on hiring, it might mean upwards of a month before the position is filled. The job has to be posted. Their is most likely a waiting period to allow candidates ample time to apply. Job interviews must occur and schedules arranged for those interviews to happen. Background checks have to occur. Job offers made and salary negotiations as well.

And even after a hire is completed, onboarding for the newly hired employee also must occur. Depending on the company this might also take several weeks/months.

In other words, I can see why its taking as long as it has as it only been about 2.5 weeks since SEGA'S aquistion. And its probably gonna take longer than we'd all like it to.

I guess we just continue to hang in there.

Intelligent post. This is quite likely to actually happen, tbh. Damn bureucracy these days.. 'ruining' everything.

I would hope that any early BETA gets passed on (via SEGA) to the Creative assembly team for them to have a play around with and give their views on it. I think I heard somewhere that they were looking at creating a new DoW game (perhaps Creative assembly would be heading this project??) and that Relic and CA could do well to share a lot of ideas with each other and give feedback on each others works. Although I am aware of the recent arguments against sharing and outsourcing parts of game production -a la Colonial Marines- so maybe they would choose otherwise. Either way, no matter how long BETA takes we (as a community and future consumers of the CoH brand) could not be in a better position.
3-4 weeks ago there was no solid information available to us on the future of THQ, Relic or CoH by proxy and now we know that Sega are behind it. So now ,although we do not know any more about BETA dates, we do know that Relic has a support base and at least the financial assets it needs to get the job done (including post release updates) so I say chill out, we're in a better position than we were and so are Relic.

Having said that, I'm sure Relic are aware that I'm off work next week so we'll probably be seeing BETA around then. (NOTE: this is not official news)

Don't really know but I believe it's safe to assume the majority of games on bnet 2.0 are custom games.

that does not mean much... first you are speculating ... and even if your speculation is correct...

many players engage in a custom match type that does not report on build order or any other form of match statistics so that their "play styles" are not being revealed to the public.
technically it is a "custom match" but in effect it is a competitive 1v1 game.
Peepmode is also a very popular custom match type that , in effect, is a competitive 1v1 game.

just get into sc2 and watch the "hours played" for all the custom maps... sc2, not unlike coh, is mainly played with mods/custom games.

just get into sc2 and watch the "hours played" for all the custom maps... sc2, not unlike coh, is mainly played with mods/custom games.

and that won't tell you how many games are played through the match maker.
also 'mainly played' does not really say much.
i guess its anything over 50%.

Ladies... Stop bickering. It's doing my head in, plus it's counter-productive to boot.

OT: Are we still bound b the NDA that we agreed to for the Alpha or not? (I thought it would only apply to the Alpha and that a seperate NDA would have to be agreed to for BETA participation?)

If that is the case, what does everybody speculation will have undergone the biggest alteration in the Alpha/Beta transition?

read the NDA again.

my guess is that it's somewhere between 70-80%, just a guess though, might be more... doesn't matter anyway, cause it doesn't say anything about the quality of the game. i, for one, love all the sc2 custom maps and almost entirely stopped playing regular SC2.

I've no doubt your copy of SC2 would be the only thing you took with you if you had to catch the last rocket off earth during the apocalypse, but that's not what this thread is about... its about CoH2 Beta, so take it the PM's.. hearing abpout it is getting really boring

Getting back on topic, today i pre-ordered CoH2 and was told the Beta was already released (i assume it must be a closed beta not made open to the public if this is true?) and that the release date was set for March 12th