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The folks at FASA know how to run a beta test. It was by far the best beta experience any of us have had. The beta program was organized and the beta community was full of responsible and mature people. It kind of spoiled me. And so did FASA:
Hey Gnome. Eat it!
BTW: I’ll post a pick of the autographed screenshot later.
No TagsThe crew from Escape Station, a site dedicated to providing fun online gaming competitions for people 25 and older, decided to give their take on the Shadowrun beta. Looks like they really enjoyed themselves.
FirstMateBean, one of Escape Station’s founders, asked yours truly to collate a few of his thoughts on Shadowrun for the piece. Here’s what I gave him:
Tags: beta, enragedgnome, escape station, firstmatebean, previewHands down, the hours I’ve spent playing Shadowrun have been the most fun I have had on Live! When I first signed up for the beta, I did not expect to like the game. What I had seen up to that point was a game with Ex-Box quality graphics and gimmicky features that would probably be poorly implemented. I never thought I could have been so wrong. Every element of Shadowrun just feels right. The guns, the powers, the physics — they all feel just how I expect them to feel. More importantly, they are fun. Every game of Shadowrun is laced with moments where my heart is pounding and adrenaline is pouring into my system. Every match is filled with spectacular last second “clutch” saves, intense action, and “ZOMG! That was amazing!” moments. No game has been able to fill that place in my heart since Halo 1.
My favorite aspect of Shadowrun would have to be teamwork. While individual skill is important, a team that works well together can best a more skilled team that doesn’t. Shadowrun really shines when two equally skilled teams meet up in a battle for supremacy. The beta tournament and our previous matches against the Developers gave my team and I lots of chances to experience this first-hand. Some really epic battles took place that will be talked about among friends for a long time to come.
FASA kept their promise, the beta did end with a bang. At 8:00 p.m. EDT the Shadowrun beta ended — several hours earlier than anticipated, sending waves of confusion through the IRC chat FASA had scheduled.
After the initial shock died down, FASA members continued the festivities by taking more questions from the community. A write-up with a list of announcements made during the IRC chat will be available later.
I must say that this has been the best beta I’ve been a part of. It’s sad to see it end, but it was really fun while it lasted. FASA Studios maintains a very close relationship with the testers, and I feel that my contributions have made a lasting effect on the final product. I hope to see you all after the retail release!
Tags: beta, FASAKimona lets us know that the Shadowrun beta for XBOX 360 will end on April 30th. Many testers have been playing the game since the first of the year. What will they do with their lives?
I can say that the Shadowrun beta has been the testing experience I’ve had. FASA has been extremely involved with the beta community. They’ve given away a lot of prizes. They’ve named bots after testers. And I feel that comments that I and the rest of the testers made about the game have influenced it for the better.
So what to play until the launch of Shadowrun (we still don’t have an official release date do we)?
Well, there’s the HALO 3 beta. Forza 2. Command and Conquer 3 seems like fun. A brand new XBOX 360 console is launching next week. And don’t forget about the Spring Dashboard update that is rolling out in two weeks.
Tags: beta, kimonaTheGameFeed.com and PALGN.com.au both take looks at the Shadowrun beta. Overall, their opinions are promising with some reservations. Still good reads if you want to know what others think of the beta.
http://palgn.com.au/
Tags: beta, palgn, preview, the game feedKimona chimed in on the official Shadowrun forums to explain why non-US residents won’t be able to play in the Shadowrun beta. Along the way she stated that there won’t be a second patch to the Shadowrun beta. She also revealed that Shadowrun will have a demo localized for each player. Sorry non-US testers. I guess you’ll have to wait for the demo. But that isn’t too far way is it?
Tags: beta, localization, patchSome folks have been asking if the beta is open to non-US users. I can now give you the short answer: no. Here’s the long answer. Please scan it before pulling out the flamethrower.
Why didn’t we just say so? We had planned to let international players into the beta when we opened the application process. We ended up not being able to do it at launch, but hoped to do it with a patch. Then we weren’t able to do it with a patch, but held off on announcing it till we were certain we couldn’t do it with a second patch. Well, we know now that we won’t be doing a second patch, so we can give you a definite no.
Why can’t we just send out invite codes to people in other countries? Because it won’t work. The beta has to be “signed” for each territory in which we offer it, and it has to be propped up on each territory’s Live Marketplace. This means legal review for each territory, some extra dev work, and extra time in Certification. We weren’t able to do this work. As some of you have seen, if you try to download the beta using a non-US Live Gold membership, you just get an error code.
So if I have a US Live Gold membership, I can get in, no matter where I live? No. We choose folks at random. We assume if you don’t live in the US, you don’t have a US Live Gold membership, and the code won’t work for you. So when we generate a new batch of invitees, we filter out non-US applicants. If you’re one of the few non-US folks we’ve mistakenly sent an invite to, my apologies; hopefully this has explained why your code doesn’t work. And again apologies, but we do not have time to do anything but completely random selection. Fall’s our community manager AND our chief gameplay analysis tester. Respect the Fall.
Why didn’t we put the extra work in to get this done? Time. As most of you know, we had a mad rush to get our beta out because we got knocked into the Stone Age for a week by a windstorm in December, and we were pretty late with our patch because of unexpected voice issues that appeared in Cert (three times). Our Dev and Test teams have been working seven day weeks for about six months now, with mostly 12-16 hour days. Much as we wanted to include everyone, this was just not time we could afford. The beta is for finding and addressing bugs, and the US-only beta has been exceptionally useful in achieving these goals.
Aren’t we interested in testing our networking across large geographic distances? Yes and no. The US-only test has pretty much achieved our network testing goals. While it would have been interesting to see more international connections, it’s not particularly useful in the beta. That’s because the beta’s relatively small. Small # of players + time differences = decent number of games up at 5pm in Seattle, but hardly anybody to play with at 5pm in London. When the game’s released, matchmaking will favor good connectivity, so there shouldn’t be a whole lot of transcontinental matches happening at random.
So does this mean you don’t care about non-US players? If that were true, there wouldn’t be an small army of people in Europe and Asia now rushing to make umpteen different Shadowrun localizations. Mitch, Todd, Stephen and I wouldn’t have taken a week out of our schedules to do the Shadowrun European tour earlier this month. And we wouldn’t be doing localized versions of the demo.
Oh. Did I just say we were doing localized versions of the demo?
I guess I did.
We’re on the final lap, folks. Stay tuned. Come the demo, everyone gets a shot at grenading Fall and making me flee screaming. And you don’t have to do it in English.
-Kimona
Lead Program Manager, FASA Studio
A few beta write-ups trickled in this morning.
Of note:
So, a few terms, dates, and numbers are a little off tilt. However, you should still be able to get an honest review of Shadowrun in its beta state for better or worse.
Tags: bbps, beta, preview, siliconera, vgbloggerDaniel Regnitz over at Xbox Raw has posted a well-written editorial detailing the different techs, magics, and races of Shadowrun. He also gives some details on how certain aspects of the game, like its Karma system, work.
In most circumstances a person can only be resurrected once. However, due to the “Karma” feature that is in place, the losing team gets certain advantages. Bodies will take longer to clear, they’ll be able to get resurrected multiple times, get a defense boost, and more.
In addition, he had a few good things to say about his Shadowrun experience.
Tags: beta, Daniel Regnitz, preview, Xbox RawThe question that is probably burning in most of your minds, as it is the most important one; Is it good!? I can safely assure you that, yes. Yes, it is.
I’ve had [the Shadowrun Beta] since December, it only has two maps, and I still play it almost every night. ShadowRun has its fangs deep, deep in me.
GameInformer got a chance to play a beta build of Shadowrun. They had great things to say about the game. Some thoughts from the article:
Graphically, Shadowrun is quite pretty, and filled with next-gen effects. Metal shines, light blooms and shadows are cast. One of the levels we played was set during the next-gen friendly time of the sun setting, allowing a nice amber tone to wash over everything. Player models look a bit glossy, but it’s nothing anyone will really notice during the chaos. The sound also works out quite well and playing on a 5.1 system will give you an edge, because you will easily hear the chatter of an enemy’s gun behind you.
and
Tags: gameinformer, previewWhen it all boils down to it, Shadowrun’s core game play is very fun. This is one of those games that you and a bunch of your buddies will have a blast just shooting each other in the face with. Fans of the genre will enjoy the game but fans of the series may be a bit disappointed because there are no single-player elements. A big part of the Shadowrun world is the dirty, grimy feel that was created by the giant corporations. And where the hell is the hacking? We need some time in the Matrix. While it’s fun to grab artifacts for the sake of the corporation, it’s hard not to question the games overall longevity at this point. One thing is for sure—shooting SMGs and launching rockets will never get old, but it’s just not the way of a Shadowrunner.
Today the NDA for the Shadowrun beta test was lifted. Testers are now free to talk about the game in public. Some videos are beginning to pop up on YouTube and other places.
Tester S8 Biggs has released a 15-minute long video that takes you from the dashboard right into the gameply. The video, which doesn’t have any audio, does a good job of showing some of Shadowrun’s game features. It’s the best video released thus far (it’s only been less than 24-hours).
Please note that the final art for the game isn’t not in this beta build. If you want to know what Shadowrun will look like, then check out these screenshots or visit the game’s official website.
Check out the video hosted by our friends at Mythica.org: http://useruploads.mythica.org/view/Shadowrun.wmv – 135 MB, 720 x 480, 13:10
Tags: beta, mythica, s8 biggs, video
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