What Is A Public Beta? (FAQ)

[Adam Ryland]

This week's release is both a trial version and a public beta. Obviously it's a trial as it allows you to play the game for a limited amount of time in order to decide whether you want to purchase it or not. However, some may not be familiar with the concept of a public beta.

 

Basically, public beta means that we are using the trial period as a sort of "extra testing sessions". Although the game has been thoroughly tested prior to release, the fact remains that several hundred people are likely to download and play the game this week, which instantly equates to several hundred hours of gameplay time - obviously, without having an enormous testing team, this is going to be far more testing time that could be done before.

 

Therefore, by getting people to raise any errors they find, we can fix these before the retail version goes on sale. It's a win-win situation as it means that if and when you pay money for the game you will be getting the most error-free version possible, and it allows GDS to take advantage of the gameplay time that you'd be spending on the trial anyway.

 

If you do find errors this week, please visit the Technical Support forum and (after making sure that it hasn't already been reported) post your information.