Private subforum for beta testers?

Nevertheless there should be an official forum for all betatesters for troubleshooting, bug reporting, official announcements, general feedback about gameplay/interface... To handle the access restrictions this can only be done at the official forums, because there has every betatester already entered his mail.
Sadly the official forums are horrible from a technical and design point of view.

I get what you're saying but I still feel it's better to try and pull together instead of splitting the communities.

Just because a player is good doesn't mean a less good player can't discover something interesting or a possible bug that the good player may have missed. If people on this forum doesn't read the posts in the official forum and vice versa the beta will be poorer for it.

If it doesn't work out and discussions are ruined we can always come here, but I think we should try to stick together to make CoH2 as good as possible.

But not all the discussion will be about bugs. I expect a lot of discussions on gameplay/features will end up having to wade through newb opinion #17 because they don't know who Seb etc is and keep picking arguments with them. Maybe it won't be as bad in the first beta stage.

Also I find the official forums to have a horrible posting/quoting setup to begin with.

Well no disagreement on the official forums being terrible in terms of actual capabilities. But i imagine that will be rectified before the beta begins.

Well no disagreement on the official forums being terrible in terms of actual capabilities. But i imagine that will be rectified before the beta begins.

Would be nice but I think you're awfully optimistic, a bit like the German army in the summer of 1941. I can't really see the forums changing.

It makes sense to subdivide the beta community for the purposes of discussion. The two communities will provide distinctly different feedback. The official forum will be completely useless for purposes of discussing balance and game mechanic issues.

I'm reading the beta is up and going now but not official info. Just the CoH website forum. People seem to think it's true and it could be. They will start small and slowly expand to other show keys as the system tolerates.

It seems that the only thread about a beta is from Company of Heroes: Online Beta.
As for the private beta tester forums, it is a good idea to have that only for top players. Discussion and feedback will be a lot better.

Regardless, a JV should be created between Relic/THQ and CHO2.org it would make sense on so many levels. I'm not sure what the current dialog is between the 3 but it should be opened up and allowed to move forward.

Wait wait wait people. We are talking about the first closed beta here with only the people who got the code, aren't we?!

I don't have any numbers how many people got that code, but I think there won't be too many of them around. So managing them will be rather easy (so no "17 pages of newb-ness").

For the semi-closed pre-order beta, I don't think we need one and only one place to discuss because this second beta won't make such a big difference balance/gameplaywise as the first.

Then finally to my last point. Ask yourself this pls: do you want that more people play CoH2 than CoH1? If the answer is yes, then you have to accept that new players will try this game. Even players that haven't played CoH1 or maybe any other RTS game at all.
Those players will ask newb question because they are, by definition, newb. Which isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is that a community can act all snobby and elitist and say: "you unworthy pricks have nothing to say here, let the grown ups talk and be quite".
This I find highly questionable. Sure, if guys from Reborn and WMD (chosen randomly) talk about the different building orders from a pro-gamer point of view, a post about how "über the T34 is and how nothing can counter it ever!!!1!" is annoying and makes it harder to communicate. You have to remember, though, that not every player is a 5-year vet of CoH. Relic can't only bet on those die hard fans for their community (especially not when we want CoH2 be more famous and e-sporty) and their game. And honestly, I could use some fresh faces around here...

So let's use newb opinions for what they are: first impressions by unclouded eyes. Those views are valuable because we won't get back to that point. We will always compare everything in CoH2 to Coh1 ("the resource system was way better in Coh1!" "I can't ketten push, Coh2 sucks! The rifle vs. volks mechanic was better than the gren vs. conscript mechanic! etc. etc.), newbs won't and therefore help us to get a new view on Coh2.

Greets
Schepp himself

Private subforum should be easy to handle.

Then finally to my last point. Ask yourself this pls: do you want that more people play CoH2 than CoH1? If the answer is yes, then you have to accept that new players will try this game. Even players that haven't played CoH1 or maybe any other RTS game at all.
Those players will ask newb question because they are, by definition, newb. Which isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is that a community can act all snobby and elitist and say: "you unworthy pricks have nothing to say here, let the grown ups talk and be quite".

Right right and right, and exactly why there should be some kind of separate forum, i.e. here.

Unless Relic really doesn't feel like having someone gather up the feedback and forward it where necessary

Though I'm sure Marcus would do that for them anyway

This conversation is becoming exactly the type of conversation that it would be beneficial to avoid. Most of us here plainly see that feedback from expert players is far more valuable than feedback from people that are first trying the game. This point should not be up for debate, it is a given.

Instead of having said expert players (all of which have received keys, as brokered by coh2.org) argue their points with said noobs, or have their points buried in dozens of posts by noobs, we all agree that it would be beneficial, for the sake of the quality of the game, to have a special place for their valuable feedback. This is how 2.602, the best and most balanced CoH patch ever, was achieved. I sincerely hope that Relic and THQ will facilitate this for Company of Heroes 2 and its future patches as well.

2.602 was based on countless hours of experience with the previous version.

CoH2 is a new game with new game mechanics. None of us are CoH2 experts at the moment. It will take a while to get to know all the nuances and viable strategies of CoH2.

I also believe/hope that due to the way the closed beta keys have been distributed that there won't be many noob whiners in the closed beta.

While I agree that a combined discussion is not beneficial and inefficient, I don't think it's cool to create an image that there is on the one side the low newb folks and on the other side the venerable experts. To prevent mixing up of different needs of discussion ("OMG, why is the MG so overpowered??!?!" and "the MG build time may be 5 seconds too long, due to...") we could use the different forums (COH2.org and the official forum) or create a well moderated subforum for newb-question as well as an expert discussion. If you delete/redirect (and explain why) unfitting posts, there shouldn't be too much irritation on both sides.

Greets
Schepp himself

It's obvious that a game, that is lower in quality will also get a smaller player base in the end. You can involve a million of "noobs" into the closed beta and give their opinions on the game the same value as the opinions of experts, and in the end, when the quality of the game rather sucks, you still won't get more players to play the game.. because it is just not that entertaining, balanced, or whatever.

So, by giving those "noobs" the option to directly influence the outcome of the game, you will make the game definitely not better, or possibly even worse. Only by giving those guys, that definitely have insight in the mechanics of the game the possibility to directly influence the game, and only them, you will be able to improve the game. So they don't have to "fight" with noobs about "why are there no two king tigers allowed in one game, it sucks that you cannot replace him if you lose it". And so, they have more time to play the game and give constructive feedback, discuss about it with other players that also know what they are talking about and so on. This will improve the quality of the game by A LOT.

And a better game will get more players.

Once the time is over in which you could really change basic ideas and mechanics of the game, "noobs" are totally welcome, because those new players will then start to grow up a big player base and a big community.

I'm pretty sure tho that Relic will make the right decision about it.

A private beta is just not meant to attract new players. It is there to give new players a more polished (and less frustrating) product.

It's obvious that a game, that is lower in quality will also get a smaller player base in the end. You can involve a million of "noobs" into the closed beta and give their opinions on the game the same value as the opinions of experts, and in the end, when the quality of the game rather sucks, you still won't get more players to play the game.. because it is just not that entertaining, balanced, or whatever.

So, by giving those "noobs" the option to directly influence the outcome of the game, you will make the game definitely not better, or possibly even worse. Only by giving those guys, that definitely have insight in the mechanics of the game the possibility to directly influence the game, and only them, you will be able to improve the game. So they don't have to "fight" with noobs about "why are there no two king tigers allowed in one game, it sucks that you cannot replace him if you lose it". And so, they have more time to play the game and give constructive feedback, discuss about it with other players that also know what they are talking about and so on. This will improve the quality of the game by A LOT.

And a better game will get more players.

Once the time is over in which you could really change basic ideas and mechanics of the game, "noobs" are totally welcome, because those new players will then start to grow up a big player base and a big community.

I'm pretty sure tho that Relic will make the right decision about it.

I don't think Relic will be influenced by the ramblings or randomnoob123 compared to the feedback they will receive from known CoH experts. Anyone with a closed beta key can register and express themselves in the official forums anyway so that argument is invalid.

I just feel it's better to share all information in one place. That's all.

I don't think Relic will be influenced by the ramblings or randomnoob123 compared to the feedback they will receive from known CoH experts. Anyone with a closed beta key can register and express themselves in the official forums anyway so that argument is invalid.

I just feel it's better to share all information in one place. That's all.

That's not the point, of course those who are playing this part of the beta must be allowed to talk about it. Just that there has to be a place for those experts to talk about it on their own, as well. So they (and Relic) don't have to deal with those things stated above.

It's obvious that a game, that is lower in quality will also get a smaller player base in the end. You can involve a million of "noobs" into the closed beta and give their opinions on the game the same value as the opinions of experts, and in the end, when the quality of the game rather sucks, you still won't get more players to play the game.. because it is just not that entertaining, balanced, or whatever.

So, by giving those "noobs" the option to directly influence the outcome of the game, you will make the game definitely not better, or possibly even worse. Only by giving those guys, that definitely have insight in the mechanics of the game the possibility to directly influence the game, and only them, you will be able to improve the game. So they don't have to "fight" with noobs about "why are there no two king tigers allowed in one game, it sucks that you cannot replace him if you lose it". And so, they have more time to play the game and give constructive feedback, discuss about it with other players that also know what they are talking about and so on. This will improve the quality of the game by A LOT.

And a better game will get more players.

Once the time is over in which you could really change basic ideas and mechanics of the game, "noobs" are totally welcome, because those new players will then start to grow up a big player base and a big community.

I'm pretty sure tho that Relic will make the right decision about it.

I have to disagree with you here. The highest priority should be making the game playable and enjoyable for everyone. People wont stop playing coh2 due to bad balance (people played how long with op roos?), they will stop playing due to installation problems (confusing errorcodes anyone), patch marathons, crash reports, NAT errors, bugged statistics, bad matchmaking or laggy netcode. 95% of the players wont understand the game balance that much, that they can judge about it.
If you want a high quality game with a huge playerbase, you need a superb technical backbone first, after that enjoyable gameplay and at the end good balancing.

Just compare the technical basis of vcoh with other popular games from 2011/12. Even with awesome balance the playerbase wouldn't rise significantly.

I have to disagree with you here. The highest priority should be making the game playable and enjoyable for everyone. People wont stop playing coh2 due to bad balance (people played how long with op roos?), they will stop playing due to installation problems (confusing errorcodes anyone), patch marathons, crash reports, NAT errors, bugged statistics, bad matchmaking or laggy netcode. 95% of the players wont understand the game balance that much, that they can judge about it.
If you want a high quality game with a huge playerbase, you need a superb technical backbone first, after that enjoyable gameplay and at the end good balancing.

Just compare the technical basis of vcoh with other popular games from 2011/12. Even with awesome balance the playerbase wouldn't rise significantly.

Yep, but I guess that's not the point of the first closed beta in the first place, is it? It would be dumb to make a closed beta with limited players to find as many bugs and errors as possible. That's what the second beta is (from my point of view) for.

But I guess the decision is made already anyways..

I wouldn't have a problem if the beta tester subforum was visible to other people on a "read only" basis. If people not playing in the beta are posting and distracting those who potentially have a direct influence on the finished product, that is a problem.

Derp I forgot there will be a NDA, it's gonna be private access for sure.