NCSoft is portioning out the Aion beta over weekends, broken up over the course of a few months. If I remember correctly, they did the same thing with Guild Wars and it worked out well for it. However, Guild Wars’ success could be attributed to other factors, like the no subscription fee (you know, something small like that). It makes me wonder, is this the right way to beta?
Traditionally, beta’s have their closed beta period where players are strapped down with an NDA and test the full game out for a period of time (typically months) before open beta and launch. What Aion is doing is having their closed beta over certain weekends, with certain limitations in place. Such as this past weekend’s 1-10 on the Asmodae side (and Elyos, if you hadn’t already leveled up there). This is certainly a good idea, from the developer’s perspective, in testing out a certain range thoroughly, but how is it going to work for the players? I know I’ve already leveled up several characters through the newbie zones, and I can already get through everything in just a few hours without looking at maps or quest text anymore. How will this effect launch, if the players get burnt out on the starting zones before it? This likely won’t be a problem, and I’m certainly over thinking it here, but it just seems that going over these areas is a waste. I’ve played them through on the C-Aion client and they worked fine; I could barely tell that there were many or any changes from it.
The game is still months away from launching (Sept. 22) so there’s plenty of time to test out the later content, when they allow it. I’m guessing that’s their strategy, to have players get the character’s ascended and the basic classes they want to try early on — then do the real testing later on, with launch even further so the initial leveling won’t be as fresh (in memory) and boring. With the exception of open beta’s leveling, of course.
One of the big bonuses I’m seeing to the beta events is media coverage by the gaming sites. Massively in particular. For the past two beta weekends they’ve had quite a few articles being posted during the weekend and immediately after, this past beta weekend especially it seems. Even on this blog (the one you are or are not currently reading) the number of views to Aion related posts is going up quite a bit lately. The hype machine is picking up steam quickly.
Perhaps that’s the biggest bonus of the events — hype. In a traditional beta, without an NDA, the game will pretty much be picked apart by previews and beta reviews before it’s even close to launch — from beginning to end game. Having limited events allows NCSoft to get the parts of the game they want ‘tested’ and previewed by the media, while making sure there’s plenty of game left to be explored and be ‘new’ to the players come launch — should they not see most of that content through a foreign copy, like C-Aion. For a game that’s already been launched elsewhere, that is pretty important.
The last reason I can think of, at the moment, is player burn out. I, like many other players (I’m sure), play a new game like crazy — getting as much time into it as possible — before getting burnt out later on. Staggering the events weeks apart from one another ensures that I don’t get to play it heavily and for a long period of time — taking away the burn out. If done right, they’ll likely keep people interested and bait them into buying a copy at launch or before.
Beta events, a marketing ploy?
