Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Beta content: a discussion

At the moment the beta is restricted to one area, the first one in the game. But in the final realease version there should be four areas in total.

Larian argumented so far that they don't want to reveal all secrets and the story in advance. That's perfectly understandable.

BUT my playthrough of the latest beta revealed that quite some quests in the area are bugged, the main quest included. I do wonder if internal playtesting will be enough to find all minor and major quest bugs in the three remaining areas if quest bugs in the first area couldn't be found until now. It's less than 50 days until release and the game is so open and embraces freedom that finding bugs is a hard and time-consuming endeavour and I fear that Larian's team may be not big enough or in the end lack the time for proper quest finding AND solving before the final release.

What do you think? Is it still a good idea to lock 3/4 of the game in the beta? Wouldn't it be more benefitical to both the quality of the game and the reception of the game (and therefore maybe review scores and sales numbers) to open the complete content of the game to actual beta testing?

I mean nobody is forced to play the game in beta. If you don't want to spoil the story and content to you before it's "ready" just wait until final release. But I guess there would me enough people willing to help to find bugs and balancing issues in the whole game and not only in the first quarter. Does the pros outweight the cons or the other way round?

I already expressed my hard concerns about this, some times ago, so I agree 100%
I mean, this game, technically, and questingly, is a litany of bugs, unbalances and inconsistencies, old and new, even if some do get fixed, and the game gets less worst with each beta releases.

So I would say that considering the state of the game, Larian should release the whole game in beta, just so the fans might find the bigger bugs around.
Moreover, Larian probably does have internal beta testers anf bug hunters, but I do have concerns for the later parts of the areas and quests, that won't have been so tested.

That is a concern, but even if the whole game were to be opened up, the game will still end up shipping with some bugs. Less than what it has now, probably, but there still will be bugs.

People keep complaining NOW that they have to restart their saved games after every patch, and that the saved games won't be compatible with the full version. I'm not one of them, but after all these months, and hundreds and hundreds of restarts, I'm burning out on Cyseal, and I basically ignore all the quests Cyseal offers - I skip through the dialogue without really reading it because I've read it so many times before.

If the rest of the game were to be opened up now, and with me knowing that a reset is coming, I don't think I'd go see it. I still want to see fresh experiences in the rest of the game, I don't want everyplace to end up being dulled by familiarity.

Practically speaking, that kind of thing has an issue with the two/three-week patch frequency. Larian would have to choose between making their saved games compatible - limiting the amount of changes they can make, -OR- having a much, much longer time between updates to give players time to play through all the content, because the game is long enough that a person will have trouble completing it in two-three weeks of average play. They wouldn't get a chance to see the later area bugs in much detail anyway because so many people won't be getting there before the next patch and reset hits.

I think we should all be prepared that the rest of game will not be as polished and bug free as the beta area. Sure, we can help the devs to iron out the bugs in overall mechanics of the game and suggest some UI improvements, however I have some serious doubts about later quests consistency bugs and end game balancing.

That is true - no one is forced to play the game in beta. The problem is here that you cannot really avoid getting spoiled by others. There will always be some mindless players who will talk about the game ending everywhere - just think about the global chat!

I would like to give you my personal example. So far, I tried to avoid to play the main story line and just did some play testing of combat and other game mechanics. Nevertheless, I already know that Evelyn is the guilty person. So, if the whole game content were out by know, I am pretty sure I would already know what the Source is. The only way to avoid this would be to never open Larian forums and related pages in the next one and a half month!

The second thing is - players (especially some Steam early access users) do not really like reading. So, if they see the whole game content, they will *forget* that it is still beta and play as if it were the final game release - with all the adverse consequences for the game reputation.

So, I do not think that the whole game access in bate for all players would be a good idea.

What I think could be done, however, is that Larian offers the whole game for testing to some dedicated players and fans under the condition that they are not allowed to talk about the final chapters of the game here on public forums.

Closed beta is not a bad idea if done properly, like those betas where devs gather a wide variety of participants with different pc specs. However, I'm not sure it's fair for the rest of the backers who are eligible for beta.