I was just wondering if EA was going to go that route? Players could sign up and play the new Beta of SC long before it's release. There was public invites everywhere, and in EA's VIP news letter for that game.
I am hoping in Aug. not only will we see the first trailer..(I hope) and fansites get to go see how things work in the game..and report back! but the public gets to beta test since it is already announced. Like they did for SC.
Comments
So.. probably not
Yeah, when I listened to the conference, I thought maybe those people..cough, cough, Curtis and others would be the ones beta testing and in the 'inner' circle.
Curtis is a fun guy to watch..he's so hyper..but I'm not sure I want him telling EA what he thinks all the fans want in TS4. :shock:
After all, he has never asked a hard question, he has always said, great, great, awesome..just like Ryan.. :shock:
ETA: What I fear is the fansites they picked aren't real down on TS3 and lap up everything about it..aka..Curtis and others..and if they influence what goes into TS4 then we get TS3.102 instead of a return to Sims 2 style gameplay and fun! Just more rpging and collecting and focus gets off the Sim and back on to the 'casual' game mode of TS3. :x
That said, I believe a game of this magnitudes would need a solid fortnight playtesting to really thrash those bugs out. Different testers would take different paths (for me, playing generationally often uncovers a lot of issues, some issues don't begin to occur until after a certain amount of gameplay (chat jump bug in TS2 anyone? Disappearing tombstones, unlinked family trees/genetics, pregnancy choking death). Routing issues are more likely to be found after a longer play test period too. Annoying stuff could be nipped in the bud quicker in addition. The weighting of how long it takes to do things in Sims 3 is pretty poor IMO. This is much less fun for me.
I wouldn't be surprised, but will be disappointed if they don't do an open beta (2 days with extremely short notice is not enough!)
Tweet me @samwitts2