f13.net

The "new" beta started last week. There was a play session on Wednesday (11/23) and Sunday.

 :nda:

Yeah, I got a 're-invite' to the beta, but haven't checked it out yet.

Is it actually fun this time around? I'm in the process of moving and have my game pc packed up.

We should probably restrict any conversations about the gameplay itself to the beta forums, unless the new NDA allows for such (I haven't read it yet).

It doesn't. The NDA hasn't changed from what I could tell.

haha, if you can't tell me if it's fun or not then I really don't give a shit.

That's pretty much the bottom line. I think I talked about how awful it was in one of the older threads. I doubt that's changed.

I am not refusing to answer the question. I just haven't played the new version yet.

Do people in the Old beta automatically get in the new beta? If so, I guess im in.

Yes, I just logged in, I hadn't fired it up in ages. It's technically a "patch", not a new beta. The old one never stopped AFAIK (though I may be wrong abou that). Though there was a wipe, and you need to uninstall and install clean.

They made it sound like I needed to sign up again in the email, but I haven't tried to log in, so I have no idea.


Wasn't that a helpful, informative post?  :-D

Hmm, I never actually received any email. By chance I looked back into AA about a week or 2 ago to see what had been updated and noticed a post about the upcoming patch... maybe I'm not really supposed to be there, which wouldn't suprise me  :-o

I agree, If the NDA is restrictive enough that you cannot answer "yes" or "no" to the question "Is the game fun?", then I must assume the game is not fun..

I just "upgraded" my old AA beta account with the new reg key in the email. The relevant links are in the email. Idiot-proof for the most part. Just remember that NCSoft uses your master login nickname for your messageboard login, but with a different password. Your message board nickname is NOT your messageboard login name.

If someone can answer the fun question it'd be greatly appreciated.  I want AA to be fun, but I have my doubts after the last round of  :nda: reports.

AFAIK, most NDAs pretty much prohibit discussing anything about the game with people who aren't under the same NDA.  Regardless of how fun the game is or isn't.

It's not like it really matters to anyone outside of the beta until it's released anyway.  I'm sure there'll be ample reviews by that point to let us know whether it's worth the purchase.

Now I'm really confused, I didn't have to do any of this. Anyhow, since my attention span to written material is shlim to none, I just keep my trap shut to stay within :nda:, it's the only way for us tiny-brained types. Therefore, I definately can't answer the fun question.

And since a vast majority of games that hide behind restrictive NDAs suck, I rest my case.. :)

I found the answer... looks like at some point in October, PlayNC.com actually performed some type of update that may have affected some of the beta accounts, requiring them to re-register. Somehow I just made it through unscathed.

Hey if I read your NDA and say "I DO!" will you tell me then?  Maybe put it in the first post of this thread, then we can all join the conversation.  Come on, we won't tell anyone.  Promise.

The vast majority of games suck, and the vast majority of games hide behind restrictive NDAs during beta.  Correlation does not equal causation.   :wink:

Contrariwise, I'd argue that given the similarity between most MMOs in beta, and those same MMOs on release day, and 6 months after release day, that 'how fun the game is', is a perfectly valid question, that does matter before release.  If it's not fun, why bother wasting time looking into it?

In fact, if it's not fun, I have a suggestion.  /bug the lack of fun.  Be verbose, try to detail why it isn't fun... but anytime you do something in a beta game and it isn't fun, let the team know.  I think devs need this... SOE is proof enough that it's hard to tell what's fun and not about your own game.

Alkiera

It's still a good rule of thumb, if the developer is so ashamed of their game, that they will not allow a person to tell me "Yes the game is fun" or "No the game is not fun" until the day the game is released, I must assume they have a REASON for restricting the comments, and the reason is never good.

Trust me, I've been through a million betas, from Lum's site through the long progression to here, and if the developers think that the vast majority of the playerbase are going to excitedly tell you how fun the game is, the NDA will not be an issue.  If the NDA IS and issue, then the game is not worth my time. Fuck calling it a rule of thumb, this should be dubbed Cevik's Law of MMOG Entertainment Value (How to Know You're About To Be Screwed), as it is correct 100% of the time.

Like any of the devs or designers read anything players /bug. Don't waste the skin cells on your finger tips. If they don't realize it's not any fun after playing it themselves then there is no hope for them. Best to kill such a beast quickly and without mercy.

The last person you should ask to build a user friendly interface is the programmer who designed the back end.  In the same idea, I think the last people to know if a game is fun or not are the people who built it.

I used to never understand that but now I do to some degree. A lot of the time, the people doing the heavy lifting working on the game just don't have time to play a lot. The same goes for a lot of software.

In that case what you need is intelligent, trustworthy people who *do* play the game and report back. We have the same problem at my work to some degree - I do the most actual work and I barely ever use the product we make for anything worthwhile.

There's also the fact that if you just spent a year working on the implementation, it's such a relief to see it running that you're not going to be able to evaluate its fun factor with any sort of objectivity.

I'm fortunate in that the primary user of the software I write for work... is me.  When some task bothers me, I create a new script, and automate it.  I don't know how the guy who did what I do before managed to get anything done at all, doing data manipulation by hand.

I do think it would be interesting to find out about the development processes various games went thru...  Exactly why so much that is known to be bad in beta is never fixed.  Sure, there's only so much time...  But it's often hard to figure out what they ARE doing, when they aren't taking the time to fix obvious bugs.

Alkiera

What's the big deal? Apply for the beta and see for yourself, or wait until the NDA is lifted and find out then. It's not like it's a purchasing decision you have to make tonight.

OMG I GOTTA NO NOW!

Some people take things they sign seriously, and I'm quite certain the moderators of this forum do. Don't be a putz.

Not that it REALLY matters, but I've not signed an NDA in years. I always play on accounts that friends have access to.

If you want to have an NDA in place, you should probably be logging the IPs of who accesses which account. If it's wildly different, ban them.

You'll encourage people to create proxies, but only the asian farmers have any skill in that. Proxying 97.0 95.3 +1.5 100.0

So after all of these HUGE BIGTIME LEGAL BREACHES that I've talked about on here, I've not signed shit. Digitallly or otherwise.

Yes people, stop trying to research products you are are interested in purchasing, be good little consumers.

Because you know, making an important decision like "what game should I buy?" requires months, if not YEARS, of prior research and careful deliberation.

Unfortunately, there are few NDA's I've ever seen that allow you to answer that question directly. So you would have to say something like:

"I uninstalled it after one play session, take that for whatever you want."

See, you don't have to break NDA's to answer the question.

EDIT: Since you also cannot purchase the product now, and probably not for another 6 months, whether or not you know if it's fun means exactly jack and shit, other than that you can ignore the hype. Which you should be doing anyway, because we should all know better about MMOG's by now.

This is really stupid, I'm not asking for anyone to break an NDA, a simple:

"I've been playing so much AA beta that I unsubbed WoW"

or

"I dont even have the beta installed anymore"

Would suffice to answer the fun question in a round about way that tells nothing about the game.  I think one would be hard pressed to show how those two comments break the  :nda: yet even that information would be helpful to someone who is just curious if any of the fun has been put back in the game.

That's exactly the attitude that has propelled EA to the top of the game industry.  Thanks for FUCKING UP THE ENTIRE FUCKING INDUSTRY, PRICK!

Quoted for truth.  Don't you people have better things to be doing?   :roll:  Like playing any of the other bajillion games that are out right now, some of which are quite good?  I've got a list of something like five games right now that I definitely want to play but haven't purchased yet because I'm still working on other stuff.  It's MADNESS!

Yeah, but I'm at work.  Whiel I can take 2 mins to post on a message board about how much I want to know what's going on in DDO, I can't exactly fire up a game.  8p

Alkiera

Don't worry, I'll give you a positive or a negative once I load it up tonight. I know curious minds want to know and I'm not one to make people suffer without undo cause.

 :nda:

It was simple yes or no question.  It was borne out of curiousity in the fact that the last go round was indeed a hearty "Not Fun".  No one important gives a flying fuck about this game anymore, it's going to be canceled before release anyways.  It was destined to be a niche player, but the fact that their initial hype phase left the world saying "meh" to the extent that they redesigned the game has killed it for sure.  We are posting on a message board discussing games.  Someone asked a question about a fucking game.  It is not THAT strange that someone asked a fucking question about a fucking game on a fucking message board where we discuss games at work all day.  Get over it.

Also I'd like to know about these BAZILLION games I should be playing..

I dont do console, hell I dont even bother with SP games anymore.  MMO's are pretty much the only thing that piques my interest when it comes to gaming these days for reasons I've tried vainly to articulate in other threads.  When it comes to MMO's there isn't ONE game I should be playing.  AutoAssault promised something different and fun, delivered the same old same old crap, went back for redesign.  Now I'm curious if I should even be thinking about this title or if the devs really have somehow failed to make a game about CARS WITH GUNZ not fun.  In which case I think they need to drink the special kool-aid.

I'm curious what that element is. The only thing MMO's have and do better than other games are the Social aspects. That shouldn't be too hard to articulate.

If not that, then what on earth could it possibly be? What would make you bored with every other genre in gaming?

Just stop trying right there. Because really, that's about the only place you can find fun in video gaming these days.

Fun hasn't gotten through the beta stage in MMOG's yet.

You know - you think to yourself - sex with someone is pretty good. Sex with lots of people at the same time should be more fun right? But somehow you always end up being the bukake target. That's online gaming.

I am never attending a LAN party at your house!

There is a lot of truth in that. Damn.


It also makes me realize that the initial desire and hook never appealed to me in the first place (I don't care for orgies and prefer that outsiders stay the hell out of my fantasies). I'm not sure why I tried to do it with games.

#hate is that way --->

 :hello_kitty:

Because when it works, the social aspects make even a mediocre game into double plus fun goodness.

Well, that and the hugeness of the gameworld (not the playerbase; the massiveness of the playerbase is actually a negative...)

And that most of these beast are about the only RPG we get to play anymore; decent SP and MP rpgs are few and far between.

But mostly, it's the social stuff.

Xilren

Xilren

I love you all, even the pathetically stupid amongst you..

Xilren I agree: The problem you and four friend can be having the time of your life over in some dark corner, but sooner or later you are going to get that scraggly looking guy wandering over to do unmentionable things.

Looking back, my biggest gripes had to do with the social stuff more than anything else. None of that translates into double fun goodness for me. It just makes a mediocre game even more worthless (as far as I'm concerned).

It makes me wonder why the hell I even played these games to begin with. It's one drawing factor is the very thing I could do without more often than not (I'm not talking about griefing either...More like group/raid dependency, player economies, guild politics, etc.. Things of that nature).

It's my fault for playing them and expecting "something else" though. I can't blame developers for that.

There's only one part of the social game that appeals to me, and that's gaining fame or infamy. The rest I could do without.

[edit] This goes without mentioning my general dislike of age 20 and unders and/or internet and gaming culture. Not only can I not play a game with them, but I can't even understand what they're saying half of the time. Even if I did like socializing, mmo's tend to not be the ideal social setting for me.

I enjoy the gamer culture, I get a chuckle from comments like WTFBBQSAUCE?!  I realize that is not something you really say around here but I remember when people first started saying w00p/w00t and pwn and I got a kick out of it then.

I want to play MMO's because I love being able to run around with a bunch of folks I've gamed with for a long time, I'm going back to WoW because despite the fact that their pvp "content" is pathetic I was watching my buddy play at his house over thanksgiving and seeing him with all my old gamer buddies made me nostalgic.  There is still some fun to be had in the BG's (too bad AB replaced WSG, I like CTF much more then whatever you call AB) and random world pvp can be cool.  I doubt it will hold me long but I just like having guild chat, talking smack, cracking random jokes and pwning with impunity.

Does that make me an LCD gamer-type?  If you think that, go fuck yourself.  I also think of books like Nueromancer and Snowcrash when I think of MMO's eventually I'll learn my lesson but in the meantime I still eagerly anticipate the next big thing (that has pvp) even though deep down I know its all vapor-hype and just another diku-clone piece of shit game with some minor innovations slapped on poorly.

If you are, then you must be one of their well rounded/educated ambassadors. At least you're coherent.

I love you, man.  In a completely non-gay way.

Actually, for me it's the exact opposite.  My biggest gripes with MMOs are not the social aspects, as much as (a)the 'My pet rock could master this combat system' issues; (b) the lack of a changing world; (c) Reaching the point where the only way my character can progress with with multi-group, multi-hour raids; and (d) lack of dev attention to fixing fun-killing bugs(mostly SWG).

I like the social aspects of MMOs... That's why I play them.  If I just wanted an RPG system, with dungeons and random items, I could play Diablo, Fate, or Dungeon Siege.  And I do play them from time to time... But I find myself wanting more from a game lately, so I play MMOs.  As a solitary 'hero' in Diablo, there's only one person fighting the enemy, only one person gathering powerful items, etc.  So if I want a sword with given stats, I just have to keep looking for it myself, and hoping it drops.  In a multiplayer environment, the odds of the item I want dropping are the same, but with so many more players, someone is bound to have seen it, and is perhaps selling it.  Thus, social connections (even brief/ephemeral ones, like being buyer and seller on an AH/bazaar item) are made.

Alkiera

Tried out AA Wednesday for about an hour after not looking at it for a few months. I don't think this will break any  :nda: but they definitely improved the graphics. It's a lot prettier and performs a lot better on my Ti4600. Only got to lvl 2 before the play session was over.

I also like the social aspects of MMORPGs, MMO brings a lot of dangerous potential to though. Why I mainly don't play any MMO currently is because there's way to little meaningful ( a totaly useless house which fills no purpose doesn't qualify )  persistent influence to be made on the world.

I dont even have the beta installed anymore.
Now hope I won't get sued. :nda: