Closed Beta FAQ for Path of Exile: The Awakening

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DarkHeart69 wrote:

Ziggy, Zeno, and Mathil are the most played streamer, have the most experience with variations of builds, and probably have the million views. You should let them in off of this fact alone to help balance those passive gems. There feedback is worth more than your average player. Some people say it is unfair, but they have the same goal of growing the player base that GGG has and that would be the purpose of this tree change.

If the goal is growing the player base, the feedback of new players is infinitely more valuable than experienced players.

Letting streamers in on the strength of being streamers is utterly ludicrous, and continues to reaffirm my ever-growing disgust in "betas" that aren't betas. As soon as you let people into a beta on the strength of a marketing ploy, whether for free advertising via popular streamers or through increasing cross-promotion through beta-key giveaways, the beta is no longer a beta, but a soft release. Let's stop calling it what it's not and call it what it is; a marketing release.

Poe used to be the exception to the rule with the new beta paradigm; upcoming builds were very hushed and the releases were hype as hell. A beta completely ruins that; the expansion will be known before it's out, the same as every other major game in the modern era.

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How are accounts selected? How often are people added?

Rather than adding people in infrequent waves, we will be adding people steadily using the infamous Beta Key Timer (see "Torture Devices Through the Ages") that everyone enjoyed so much in 2011. Every five minutes, the timer will select a new account from the signed up pool and will grant it access to the Beta.

We will speed up the timer over the course of the Beta as necessary to ramp up the population of testers.

Does this "counter" starts with the Beta or earlier?

This thread is just unreal. The myopia involved on the part of so many posters is just frustrating to read for me, and I'm not even a part of GGG.

Testing is good.

GGG has released crazy unbalanced stuff in the past (invasion bosses when that league started anyone?) and gotten flamed (sometimes rightly so) for not having more thorough testing. So, now they're learning from that given the a) massive content and b) fundamental changes to the netcode and skill tree involved here.

Part of testing is setting up a structure to make sure you control how, when, and how much data you get. It doesn't take 20,000 people to find out if something major is off/wrong/etc. Once the first 500 have played a little bit, you let another 500 in (making numbers up for illustrative purposes), because odds are good you're moving from major to moderate issues. Then let another 500 in, because we're moving on to smaller issues and less clear cut issues (is this boss too hard? is a subjective question). Wash, rinse, repeat until desired results are achieved.

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The issue of 'fairness' in determining who gets in seems to have come up a lot. I have four pretty titles (well, 3, the CB supporter title looked better before the CB was added) under my name, so what's 'fair' in determining if I get in?

Many people seem to be approaching this from a quid pro quo mentality: the more they put in, the more they should get. Perhaps there is something to that. You could have 1 entry per 1,000 hours played, or 1 entry per 50 character levels, or some other weighted way of using RNG to select the Beta Testers. However, GGG chose the egalitarian (with minor mods) route. Everyone (again, minor exceptions) has an equal chance of getting in.

Now, regarding those exceptions. The only two I saw were 1) Alpha Testers, and 2) Streamers with tons of views. Unlike the original Beta Testers (of which I am one), the Alpha Testers were purposefully selected by GGG to test the game in the past. To acknowledge those people and the reason you asked them to test the first time is a good thing. All I did was give them $15 3 years ago (well, a little under), why would that merit special treatment? Oh and to whoever said that half don't even know if they are anymore, get a clue. One person asked, and that person does know. See all those accounts that say 'Alpha Member'? They're the Alpha Testers! Don't have that on your account? You're not one!

Anyone that has an issue with streamers that have huge followings getting in needs to perform a reality check. Those guys generate tons of free publicity and advertising for GGG. GGG would be monumentally stupid NOT to give those guys access. I never watch streams (and only sometimes watch ZiggyD vids), so I have no idea how large a population this is, but since most people can only name like maybe 5 total, get over it.

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To folks saying they will use multiple accounts to try to get in: grow the hell up. Seriously. Now. Not only is that EXPLICITLY against the rules that Chris posted, it's also juvenile and extraordinarily selfish.

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To folks bitching and whining about what to do in the interim: play the game! Chris even said they're heavily discussing what to do with the live game while the test is going on. If you hate the base game that much (why are you here?), then do what some people have said: go play something else. Come back when The Awakening is released. No game expects 100% fidelity. GGG won't be going to divorce court if you play another game. It's good to vary up what you do, so I'm not sure why people think this is a threat.

To the handful of folks that have said they won't give money again based on this: don't let the door hit your asses on the way out. People that try to use their wallet to try to hold GGG hostage to their agenda are not the people this game needs, we're better off without you.

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To folks saying that only 'pro' players (or whatever nonsense) should get in: get over yourselves. Please. As others have pointed out, there actually are levels below 70, and some people actually enjoy playing them. Crazy, isn't it? Someone above said "all anyone does is rush through the content to get to mapping" (or something equally myopic). I know plenty of folks that don't play that way at all. Some folks play until early maps. Some folks play until the end of Merciless. Some folks sometimes only play to the end of normal before making a new char (though, I think that last group needs altaholics anonymous). Each and every one of those folks is a valid player and GGG would be remiss is not considering their playing experience as well as the experiences of those that can smoke Uber Atziri with their eyes closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

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To folks saying that new players can't provide worthy feedback: you need to get over yourselves too. I've been playing almost three years now. That means I've had that much time to built up biases regarding this game and how I think it should work. It's the lense through which I view the game, and it will affect everything I experience and saw regarding this game. New players don't have that. They don't know the tree, or the monsters, or the quests, etc, as well as I do, which means they'll bring a much fresher perspective to those things than I will. GGG needs that fresh perspective. Perpetual games like this one need new players to survive. GGG, as far as I know, is not working on anything else, which means they need people playing (and paying for) PoE. Folks quit games all the time. They've gotten their fill, something else is shinier, they don't have time anymore, whatever. GGG must replace those people in order to survive as a company. Which means they need to make sure the game is easy enough to get hooked on that people stay. I have no goddamned clue if it is, I'm hooked already and have been here far too long to be able to really assess that.

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I think that's it for now. But an overarching message in this post is: you salty olks need to take a step back and think about what is good for GGG and Path of Exile, not what is good for you.

I guess GGG wants me to watch the new content in stream instead of play it, if there even is new content in the beta.

To the complainers. Poe takes a step back to ensure the quality of content with a CBT and people are upset ? Its mindblowing. I rather have all the content in the right place when its launched and wait abit longer. Im really fine with that. So many games get thrown out there in a very bad state.
Glad GGG takes this approche.

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Hartsai wrote:

I guess GGG wants me to watch the new content in stream instead of play it, if there even is new content in the beta.

They want you to play the tested and fixed version of the expansion. [Removed by Support]

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Archwizard wrote:

I think that's it for now. But an overarching message in this post is: you salty olks need to take a step back and think about what is good for GGG and Path of Exile, not what is good for you.

No, we don't.

PoE hasn't needed a "closed" beta for any previous content update, and the releases have been excellent across the board. The throwback from stuff that is overpowered on release is extremely minimal, and if anything has added more positives than negatives to the overall story of the game (remembering back to pre-nerf frozen sky or op corrupting blood mobs is part of the poe vernacular.

I see nothing but negative from having any sort of "closed" beta that doesn't include an NDA. It means that some people get to experience content, while other people get to watch other people experience content. It sucks.

Poe has, thus far, existed as a company that has somehow existed outside of the current game paradigm. They have integrity where other game companies have lacked; the changing beta paradigm was one such area. No more.

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Spysong192 wrote:

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Hartsai wrote:

I guess GGG wants me to watch the new content in stream instead of play it, if there even is new content in the beta.

They want you to play the tested and fixed version of the expansion. Or if you´re choose as tester you need to test. I doubt you even know what that means.

It´s very hard to get for creatures of your kind, i know.

If they want people to play it themselves, why they agree that its ok to stream it? You know, people do watch those streams. I know i will play the fixed game, but I dont think I would be as excited about it after watching it on stream? Or are you saying that I should not watch any PoE stream for 6-8 weeks?

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Will desync be fixed during the Closed Beta?

Probably. Our new Deterministic Lockstep Mode will not be available on the first day, but we expect to add it within the first few weeks of the Beta. We're very interested in feedback related to this mode.

This the GREATEST news ever for PoE. Although I think that it will take a while to be stably implemented, it is the right road!

http://gafferongames.com/networked-physics/the-physics-simulation/
http://gafferongames.com/networked-physics/deterministic-lockstep/