anyone find the beta weekend to be a bad idea?

[vazar_da_priest]

i feel like putting the over 1 million beta participants into one weekend session was really dumb

everything is way too overpopulated and laggy

[Joshmaul]

I actually think that was the idea. To see how far the servers could go. The weekend betas have oft been described as "stress tests".

[imamagemk]

they prob trying to see if servers are ready to handle it for release

[Sills]

No i dont think it was a bad idea at all. In fact, this was their intention. This is what its called a "stress test". they want to make sure their servers can handle the traffic.

[ruinshin]

i feel like putting the over 1 million beta participants into one weekend session was really dumb

everything is way too overpopulated and laggy

I am calling myself done until later in the day....but for all day yesterday (well over 10 hours) and all day today, I had no lag, almost no overpopulation issues, and I was constantly at or above 30 FPS, breaking into the hundreds in personal story missions.

I had NO issues, and considering the amount of people around me, I think it was great. It did its job.

I am going to attempt a beta video review here tonight, depending on how the rest of the day goes.

[Purple Spy]

the regular testers are there to test the content.

We are there to test the really obscure bugs that only pop up with massive populations, and, as the name implies, to STRESS TEST.

[starkey]

why its called a stress test beta too see how far the servers can be pushed, common sense really?

[Jalek]

why its called a stress test beta too see how far the servers can be pushed, common sense really?

Didn't notice a single bit of lag and I'm playing US servers from Australia. Also I think that's the point of a stress test.

[Trollsbane]

It was a stress test. =p
And no. I've heard many more people say they enjoyed it and it changed their opinion from not playing to playing, than I have heard the opposite. Many people report no lag at all, even across the pond. I think it was a good idea because it's one of those games you have to actually play some in order to really understand it.

[Thunder]

Fantastic idea, the only time I had population queue and lag was when I played on the English PvP server, the US server I had played on Friday was offline first thing today so I tried the English server to do 5-10 levels on an Agent before heading back to my SW. The server I was on from the US was "FULL" but had no lag, no crashes, no queues. Glad they allowed this, want 15th to roll on fast now!

[RenegadeXan]

The point is to make server get stressed as much as possible , as most ppl already said.

You should EXPECT cashes and lag if you don't it means they are doing a good job. I haven't had the chance to try beta but I believe i's not any worse then blizzard and their big content patches on Tuesday. Server downs for hours on LIVE servers.

[revasky]

Currently playing on Iron Citadel with no lag and almost no people.

[endersown]

I think it was/is a fantastic idea. It allows everyone to stress test the game. For the developers, I know they are getting an insane amount of absolutely crucial data for launch. For me, I was able to figure out before spending $60+monthly fees on the game that it's not worth my time to buy the game until I get a newer computer that can handle it. Mine's running on almost 5 year old graphics card and it has a hard time with WoW a lot of the time, so I wasn't sure it could handle ToR. Now I know for sure and can start saving up for a new build. For that reason alone, I'm way way happy that the beta weekend has taken place.

[Deleted]

Played on one of the most populated servers and had under 60 ms at all times. In WoW I have between 50-200 ms.
The server had a lag spike every hour or so but that's it.

[Munkey]

This is the very purpose of beta, to test for bugs so they may be filtered out for official release.
And besides blizzard have done this for years.
Don't expect a smooth running game just because you are one of the very few people that get to play the beta version.
Personally I would love to play the beta myself so that I can run my own tests and submit them to blizzard. These days all I hear from beta testers are their concerns about how many big numbers should be appearing on their screen, or just pvp for hours on end and give no feedback afterwards.

[Daedelus]

well done OP for COMPLETELY missing the point of this weekend test....

I've been playing on a west coast US server from the UK and have had no lag at all, apart from one or two occasions.

I've had a couple of crashes and a couple of times when I've had to alt+f4, and had to queue a couple of times for 10 minutes but other than that, no real problems at all.

I think they have been faking the FULL status on servers just to test their queuing system. Seems like a pretty successful test so far.

[Ishu]

Pick a server that's not at "Full" status and you won't have those problems. It really is your own fault for picking a server with a queue on it.

[Eggoman]

From the Devs point of view and getting ready for the release it was a good idea. I've had a fine time in Beta but I've also heard some complaints.

[Teriz]

I'm really amazed at how many people take a beta test to be a demo of the final game.

[Deleted]

It was a stress test. =p
And no. I've heard many more people say they enjoyed it and it changed their opinion from not playing to playing, than I have heard the opposite. Many people report no lag at all, even across the pond. I think it was a good idea because it's one of those games you have to actually play some in order to really understand it.

Had no lag at all, although I was one of a number of people that resorted to going on a foreign language server(ie. not english) as all the English ones were full and had massive queues.

I really liked the way there are forms popping up in game now and again asking you for feedback. As of late developers treat (open)betas as a demo that you get to play after preordering and I have been left struggling to find a proper place to give my feedback.

All too often players abuse their beta access and use it purely to preview the game, as opposed to helping the developers improve the game.

---------- Post added 2011-11-27 at 02:24 AM ----------

I'm really amazed at how many people take a beta test to be a demo of the final game.

This is as much developers/publishers fault as anything. If it is bolted on to preorders it gives people the impression it is early access. Coupled with players being given no clear idea of where to raise issues and suggestions.

It should be common sense that a beta is meant for ironing out issues before the game is launched but when some developers package it in the same manner as their other preorder perks it isn't exactly surprising that players think they are just getting early access.