Auto Assault Beta...

[Lanei]

http://www.autoassault.com/news/2005/04/_auto_assault_b.html

We are pleased to announce that the first wave of Auto Assault beta invitations has been sent. If you didn’t receive an invitation and you applied for the beta, please don’t despair – this is just the muzzle of the chain gun (so to speak) and more invitations will be sent in larger groups over the coming weeks and months.

And I didn't get one.. <whine> wanna play now *stamps foot* </whine>

[WayAbvPar]

Damn...just checked my mail and no dice for me either. Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

[Krakrok]

Someone needs to reload that chain gun because it's shooting blanks.

[Strazos]

Wasn't schild supposed to take care of this for us?

[Hoax]

I know I blame Schild, but the man can't even post irc logs how did you expect him to get you first-wave beta invites?


*added*  Guessing Shockeye didn't get in either.

[Shockeye]

Wasn't schild supposed to take care of this for us?

What makes you so special that schild should take care of anything for you?

[schild]

The first round of all beta tests is friends, family and whoring websites. Like, well, I don't need to point fingers.

We're none of those. Well, maybe friends, but none of the lead developers invited me over for a bagel brunch any time recently.

Edit: Random pool of testers it seems.

[Strazos]

Wasn't schild supposed to take care of this for us?

What makes you so special that schild should take care of anything for you?

Because I'm a swell fucking guy.

[Trippy]

They are still accepting beta signups here:

http://www.plaync.com/aa_beta.html

[Jamiko]

Randomness was my friend this time ... I'm in.

[WayAbvPar]

Randomness was my friend this time ... I'm in.

Please do everything in your extremely limited power to make it not suck, kthx. I really want to like this one.

[Hoax]

Step 1.  Make the mutants sound less retarded and look cool.

Step 2. Make the Human and Mutant special car powers be cool, like the Machine-guy-my-car-turns-into-a-mech power.

Step 3.  Reduce grind

Step 4.  Good guild system

Step 5.  Some kind of cool economy / Car customization thing

Step 6.  Blow stuff up.

[Krakrok]

Randomness was my friend this time ... I'm in.

Do you play Russian Roulette a lot?

This movie seems appropriate.

[Furiously]

Indeed - please make it fun.

[Furiously]

I believe a 2nd wave might have been sent out...

[HRose]

Please do everything in your extremely limited power to make it not suck, kthx. I really want to like this one.

Still believing beta tests matter? :)

[Furiously]

Correction - 3rd wave.

And as for mattering - I'd say they matter big time - if the game is crap in beta. No one will buy it.

[schild]

If the game is crap in beta. No one will buy it.

That's total bullshit and you know it. But undoubtedly very few companies get all the beta members and then some to buy their game. Come to think of it, I don't think any game has had that sort of perfect luck.

[Furiously]

What was I thinking? Word of mouth about WOW sucking in beta killed them.

[schild]

What was I thinking? Word of mouth about WOW sucking in beta killed them.

Afaik, more people played the beta than purchased the game.

Also, way to pick out the one POSSIBLE anomaly, dick.

Edit: I just realized our comments spun off in two directions. Bad Word of Mouth doesn't kill a game as much as bad competition. Horizons still exists, right? Ultima Online is still profitable, right? But look at Matrix Online. The two-headed dragon of WoW and Guild Wars dominated what is actually supposed to be a relatively decent game. Easily better than Horizons. Also, EQII really wasn't as bad as we make it out to be, it was a grindfest sure, but their box price on the $80 collectors edition is down the $30 with the regular edition asking for $15. WoW decimated it. Anyway, yea, bad word of mouth is bad, but it's still press. Incredible competition will do much more.

[Furiously]

Schild, I don't see where I am being a dick here.

Starwars, most people didn't care for it in beta. (I had fun playing an entertainer) But I would say most people in beta felt it was less then expected (I don't know many people that liked the HAM system, well maybe a few rifle players). You can say they had 300,000 players for a few months, they sold it based on the Starwars license alone, and gameplay and word of mouth didn't matter. And maybe for that title it's true, but eventually, after the Starwar's fanbois quit, they were not saying great things to their friends about the game. So ultimately...it's gameplay that matters, not word of mouth.  But you won't have word of mouth without gameplay.

Word of mouth about games is terribly important. (Be it print, web, forums, talking to friends).

If I play in the Matrix beta and say, Meh. I'm not going to buy it, I'm going to suggest my friends not buy it. And they will listen. If I say, GO BUY MATRIX! they will trust me that it is a good game worth spending $19.99 on and buy it.

If I beta'd TSO (The Sims Online) and realized it was a constant grind no matter what. And that it really wasn't the massively multiplayerish, I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to tell my friends it is crap. I think their initial sales and subsequent sales support this.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your logic line Schild. I'm sure Hrose's intent was "Can a beta tester change any of the design of a game?" In that case..Historically, not very much.

[Krakrok]

As long as this thread is up here...

Here are the new videos:
http://www.autoassault.com/downloads/movies.html

In the cinamatic video you see cars change into mechs. Two other things I noticed was in "E3 2005 Gameplay Movie" there are cars driving through each others geometry? And through building geometry? But in "Havok Gameplay Movie" the cars crash into the building pieces and seem to bounce whole sides of buildings based on "physics". Right.

Most of the textures are pretty low quality. The trees pretty much look like crap. The reason is probably framerate though because they have so many objects in game (destroyables).

The "mobs" running around in a few of the shots look pretty dumb.. as in they look like EQ mobs. The idea of EQ style mobs in Auto Assault is very uninspiring. Anything that takes more than 3 shots to kill with the right weapon and stands there flailing it's arms at you while it does damage is an EQ mob.

[WayAbvPar]

Please do everything in your extremely limited power to make it not suck, kthx. I really want to like this one.

Still believing beta tests matter? :)

Ask the guys at Mutable Realms. Although I guess that was more of an alpha.

[Trippy]

What was I thinking? Word of mouth about WOW sucking in beta killed them.

Afaik, more people played the beta than purchased the game.

If you are talking about the WoW Beta they shut down the Open Beta signups after about 500K keys were given out so that added with the existing testers comes nowhere near the 1.5+ million subscribers (not including Korea) they have now.

Edit: I just realized our comments spun off in two directions. Bad Word of Mouth doesn't kill a game as much as bad competition. Horizons still exists, right? Ultima Online is still profitable, right? But look at Matrix Online. The two-headed dragon of WoW and Guild Wars dominated what is actually supposed to be a relatively decent game. Easily better than Horizons. Also, EQII really wasn't as bad as we make it out to be, it was a grindfest sure, but their box price on the $80 collectors edition is down the $30 with the regular edition asking for $15. WoW decimated it. Anyway, yea, bad word of mouth is bad, but it's still press. Incredible competition will do much more.

Bad word of mouth has kept me from playing SWG -- it's the only major North American MMORPG I've never played. Every time I'd get semi-interested in buying it I would go the forums, read all the problems with the game, and totally lose interest again.

[HRose]

Not to derail, just to pinpoint:

Word of mouth about games is terribly important. (Be it print, web, forums, talking to friends).

My comment about the beta phases being pointless was aimed at the development because about the development was the quote I commented.

What was I thinking? Word of mouth about WOW sucking in beta killed them.

It's fun how the actual history is completely irrelevant in a discussion. WoW received a lot of hype. A lot of GOOD hype. Till the last day before release WoW has been praised for the most part. "Word of mouth about WOW sucking in beta" is something that didn't happen in this reality, at least from a general point of view.

If we want to talk about bad hype let's go back at SWG. That was one game that directly suffered from catastrophic beta tests.

[WayAbvPar]

If we want to talk about bad hype let's go back at SWG. That was one game that directly suffered from catastrophic beta tests.

Not as much as the testers themselves suffered.

[Strazos]

If we want to talk about bad hype let's go back at SWG. That was one game that directly suffered from catastrophic beta tests.

Not as much as the testers themselves suffered.

I still bear the scars of that closed beta, as well as the beta CD's.

[Strazos]

Hey, apparently, I got into the beta LAST FRIDAY, and never checked my mail.

I leave on Sunday for a month and a half, DAMNIT!!

[Hoax]

Can I have your stuff?   :-D

[Strazos]

Everything but my Money Hat. 

[WayAbvPar]

Congratulations! You are cordially invited to participate in the Auto Assault
beta test.

Anyone else get this today? Woo-fucking-hoo! I haven't been this fired up about a beta since SWG. God I hope it turns out better than that...

[Trippy]

For those of you who have gotten in, what's the email address they are sending the invites from? I want to make sure my spam filter isn't marking any invite I may have gotten as spam.

[shiznitz]

Was there a second wave because..well...yesterday I got an...ummm.

[Furiously]

For those of you who have gotten in, what's the email address they are sending the invites from? I want to make sure my spam filter isn't marking any invite I may have gotten as spam.

I would make sure support@ncsoft.com wasn't getting blocked.

[Trippy]

I would make sure support@ncsoft.com wasn't getting blocked.

Thanks!