Firaxis Games Public Beta Team

[RogueNine]

Hey, this is great news. Great to see such a positive development occuring. (Even if being Canadian means I can't participate.)

To all the international or young folks, your dissapointment is understandable, but don't dump on Firaxis about it. From the sounds of things Firaxis will be showing these testers new things that they obviously wouldn't want their competition to know. How much would it suck for them for some Beta Tester in Europe or Asia to talk about all their new stuff, and then not be able to prosecute them because of a differing law in another country? Its the way it works. They're not going to get a whole department to study the international rules for a small 25 person beta test. Not very cost effective.

Zouave, there is a difference between sucking up and positive commentary. Since you only ever give negative comments it isn't very surprising that you can't tell the difference. If you don't plan on participating in the beta test stay outa the thread. Accordingly, since I won't be in the test either, this will be MY last post too.

Good job Firaxis, hope that multiplayer addon is coming along nicely.

 

[DrJambo]

This is indeed great news, however the need to restrict it to the US just doesn't make sense! I would loved to have participated in a beta testing group, but unfortunately i live in the UK.

My own credentials as a beta tester speak for themselves being heavily involved in an 8-man beta patch-making team for Shogun Total War: Mongol Invasion!!! The patch modifications we introduced were accepted by the developers and proved to be very successful with the Shogun community and brought life back into the multiplayer community.

If it's to be US only then so be it, definitely a step in the right direction by Firaxsis though.

One word of advice... keep the beta team to as few members as possible. The more members the more individual conflicts as to what improvements should be made to the game. Some people will want to mould the game to their own idealisations as opposed to the real benefit for the community as a whole. Remember if it ain't broken don't fix it

Regards,

DOC

 

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Shaitan


21 is the age of majority for all concerns across the states and territories of the USA. Some (actually most) have a much lower age of majority but 21 is the lowest age that covers everywhere. Since an NDA is required, setting the age limit at 21 guarantees that it will be legally recognizable no matter where it's signed in the USA and territories.

In Sweden 18 would be the limit.

 

[Dark Sheer]

Its 18 in Malaysia as well

However, I believe by putting 21 Firaxis will have all their bases covered. Its sort of like doing a cross border stock offering, you need to consider the law of all the countries involved While you might say they only take from US, US is one country where each state has a different jurisdiction (Sorry about quoting cross border offering, I am a CPA )

And I believe the NDA part is pretty important, I know it too well when performing consulting jobs for my clients

 

[ajohn505]

Great job Firaxis, definately a big step in the right direction. A good departure from the old PR philosophies. Limiting the Beta team to 25 will be a bit of a challenge to get enough good information... hopefully you'll get some diehards to pound on the betas for hour after hour.

I can't wait to see the results... I may finally go back to Civ3 after leaving it to play SMAC (less frustrating) .

 

[Troyens]

Two questions.

What is Firaxis offering for our valuable time? Free games? Cash?

Was Civ III playtested? Considering the large numbers of problems with even such basic things as unit values, number of resources, and Espionage costs, I would think not.

 

[SSK]

Originally posted by Troyens
Two questions.
What is Firaxis offering for our valuable time? Free games? Cash?

I'd assume that they would provide a free copy and free updates of CivIII. Based on the response of the community, it looks as if they won't have to offer much in the way of cash compensation. Everyone including 12-year-old kids from Upper Volta (purposeful exaggeration) wants to do it, and there will be only 25. It's a basic issue of supply and demand

 

[Desert Fox]

Jeff,
This is how I remember Firaxis used to be like. You are asking the community for help testing etc. I helped Tim Train with Alien Crossfire toward the end. Glad to see GREAT attitude about getting "tested" patches and games out. All of my comments were in regards to you not trusting the community for help. Anyways glad to see it! Looking forward to the next patch to smooth out the game! Have a good one!

Desert Fox

 

[Toni Chmielowsk]

I am so disappointed to be excluded from this opportunity to help develop this genre.

I have bought all the Civ games and loved them all.

Firaxis please reconsider !!!!

 

[Trancas]

A very good iniciative. Really a step in the right direction.

Shame it is done AFTER the game.

Still, I hope we benefict from it.

Bruno

 

[m_m_x]

GREAT NEWS!

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Only Americans can be in the public beta team? Surely Britain is part of America, oh please, oh please, oh please.

Tell us WHY?

 

[Panzergranadier]

Dear Zouave,

I´m sorry Zouave. Did I forget to use "in my opinion"?

I´ve been reading the posts in this nice site and a most of the bugs in Civ3 are familiar to me. The point is, once more in my opinion, that Civ3 has the potential, once these minimal bugs are solved, to become a much better game than Civ2 was in it´s time.

I hope we can talk more often.

Your fellow player,

Panzerganadier.

"Panzer rollen in Afrika vor"

 

[Loopy]

I don't see any reason why Firaxis shouldn't allow non-US people to participate provided these potential beta testers are willing to do these five things:

1) Pay for a lawyer in their country to draft a NDA and contract that is defensible in their country.
2) Pay to have the document sent to the US.
3) Pay for Firaxis lawyers to review and revise the NDA and contract.
4) Pay to have the documents sent back to the foreign country.
5) Sign and date the documents and courier over to Firaxis.


Then they should be considered with all the other over 21 USA residents. Of course if they don't make the final cut, they'll be out those expenses. Or they can just participate in forums and be happy with it as is.

 

[dutcheese]

Hi,

I signed an NDA with Activision for beta testing CTP2 and I live in Holland. Requiring an NDA only to be signed by people who live in the US is a bunch of crock.

Beta testing for Activision was great: They faxed me their NDA, they expressed mailed me the beta, they gave me a fully version when game went final, and they gave me a strategy guide too. They were very cool about it.

dutcheese

 

[Cerberus]

Hey Panzergranadier,

You misspelled "grenadier".

As for bugs, see the thread by romelus in this forum. The bugs keep coming.


BTW, since you wrote down "Panzers rollen in Afrika vor" I can't get that World War Two German song out of my head!

 

[Loopy]

Please note that Activision finished 2001 as the #2 independent US video game publisher on console and handheld platforms and the was the fastest growing major publisher overall (from their 2001 Annual Report). They've been around for over 20 years and maintain offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Belgium, The Netherlands, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California. I believe Firaxis is five years old and has a floor of an office building in Maryland.

I don't think Activision is the best company to compare Firaxis to (at least not yet).

 

[Dillo]

25 arent enough. Need more testing than that. and its easily readily available to fireaxis on this site alone, not to mention others.Just another example of poor testing... Most companies hold open beta tests on patches, but I understand that with the crap they been turning out previously, that thwy would be afraid of more uproar, so keep it contained, but altleas include 2-300 people!

 

[Exile_Ian]

You're crazy. You've obviously never been involved with any sort of testing program if you really believe that its sensible to have hundreds of people involved in such a process.

In the case at hand, we're talking about the testing of patches to a single game, and 25 people should be sufficient to provide enough variety of gameplay and platforms. The key thing is that you need to be able to process the amount of feedback from your Beta team. Imagine if 300 people were fervently testing a new patch and provide a couple of emailed responses per day - that's a hell of a lot of information to review!

Given the urgency expressed by many here to make new fixes available, anything that is likely to extend that process is surely unwelcome.

I'm still optimistic that I might get chosen myself (hint hint) and I'd like to think that my contributions will be productive and that my responses will be heard. That wouldn't happen if I was just one of several hundred.

 

[boca]

Does anybody know what is the minimum amount of time that you will have to be willing to commit to this project?

I would love to be involved, but I don't have much time.

Thanks