what will beta 3 be focused on

If beta 3 is multiplayer , some of these issues and im being most pragmatic and frank about it might come up. disclaimer: not my opinion but prediction of opinions.

Nerfing , burffing and overpowerment

Some things will be deemed too micro-intensive because they win you the game more so then proper RTS things

Ways to win that arent really in the spirit of Sins. - cheap tactics that become usual things to do if you want to win

Pirates should be completely nerf..because it cost you a game against someone less skilled then you that you should have won.

Placing bounty takes no skill , doing this culture spam thing takes no skill

Yea agreed its stupid u can just sit back sell all your stuff put as much money on the players head as possible and just watch it go down as he gets owned by the bloody pirates but id like to see multiplayer and the other factions and be able to have a chance to balance all of the teams insted of just being able to see 1 team. Id also like beta 3 maby not be a multiplayer beta but a team balancing beta where u get all 3 teams and get to suggest ways of balancing them and stuf

Who wants vasari to be in beta 3? i know i do we should get a new race after 2 betas  tec is still good but there is only soo much u can do to 1 team and the game machanics are pritty much done so i think its time to get race balancing.  it dosent matter if the vasari havent got as many ships as the tec at this point we can still balance them and it would be fun playing as vasari also you could bring out a vasari only beta which would be cool or a beta with all 3 races which i think u should. If people find out how good the all 3 races play together in the beta more people will probably buy up cos the game is great and sounds fantastic. ill do my fair bit of braging to my friends iv already convinced 3 of my mates to buy up   

The Betas will start to become ineffective unless we receive a new race. You can only do so much to balance a race against itself and pirates.

yes thats what i said i hope we do get vasari or another race in beta 3 which i think we might cos they seem to be posting more images of the other races   lets keep on praying lol
then you can get right into the beta then having input on how to effectivly balance the 3 races which i think is one of the more important things to do. There is no point spending too much time on 1 race thats just stupid. It dosent matter if they arnt balanced the first time they add a new race players can mess arround with diffrent starting criteria (trial and error) to find how best to balance. I would just like emm to confirm if in beta 3 there will or will not be a new race or races. Nice image i love battlestar galactica shame it ends after this next bunch of 22 episodes   

Battlestar Galactica will be surely missed.

i know its soooooooooo gay ahh well i love the space battles with all da pint def and stuf going of it just look soo cool and whats with starbuk coming back lol! i need the vasari to comfort me in these difficult times

Well, it seems to me that at this point, the core mechanics are more or less finished for the game. I remember seeing somewhere one of the devs said that beta 2 wasn't meant to be fun, it was just meant to make sure that the game worked (and I'm assuming not just technically but in a sense that there aren't any units or upgrades that just totally break the gameplay).

So for beta 3, I would expect that the devs will be moving on to making the game fun, making sure things are well balanced (both different races and individual units and upgrades), and possibly adding in some interesting gameplay aspects that we haven't seen yet. I've seen posts where they say they're not sure if they'll put the other races in future betas. I don't see how they can avoid this, unless they have a rather large in house testing department. The different races will have to be balanced against each other eventually. And the more unique the races are going to be, the more balancing it will take.

I would also expect to see some multiplayer in the next beta. I'm very interested to see how the multiplayer works, since the single player seems far too long to work well as a multiplayer game. Even a small system with only 1 star and 20 planets would take hours to finish, especially if the players are evenly matched.

I imagine the devs have quite a bit up their sleeves that they haven't even hinted at yet. Beta 2 has given me a taste of this game, and I just can't get enough now. I'm really looking forward to the next several months as it gets closer and closer to completion.

That was for beta1 they said, beta 2 is where the fun begins

The fun began in beta2, but it doesn't have to stop growing! Beta 3 is primarily to test the technical aspects of multiplayer though we will likely include a number of new elements that will effect singleplayer as well.

I dunno, I thought Beta 1 was pretty fun in it's own right.

more races please....

Will beta 3 be a demo , because I know im not the only one who isnt prepared to falk out the money already,(nearly 3 quaters of a year away) when I have no idea what the game play is like, and to be honest it s going to get boring listening to people complain about certain features and even put me of buying it. If it isnt a demo then will you pease tell me when a demo will come out???

You have to remember soul that this game isn't even finished yet. What would be the point of pushing out a demo of a beta? I don't forsee any sort of demo until after the game goes gold. The reason we're here now so early in the game's life, we're shaping the product we're buying. How's that for incentive on dishing out 5 tokens for this thing?

Its much too early to determine when, or if, a demo will come out. I certainly wouldn't want to release a demo now because the game is likely to change for the better before February and we would be demoing something that is likely not going to be representative of the final product. Remember, at this stage of development of most games you are lucky if you've even seen an exclusive bit of footage of actual gameplay let alone getting to try it out yourself and then have enough time left in development to actually have an impact. I'd also say that most "betas" that are released are actually marketing tools that are released shortly before the actual release and are not actually intended to find and fix anything but minor problems.

This beta was intended for those people who want to help us test the game and who want to help shape it and we've left plenty of time to do it. We recognize that this is probably quite unattractive for a lot of people and potentially hurts our marketing efforts in the short term due to all the requests, complaints, and constant changes but we are convinced that by doing this, the final product (which is when most people get to try a game for the first time) will be incredibly stable and fun and the net gain will be much higher. I've been bitten by too many games that were released buggy and with glaring gameplay problems that any community could have told them needed to be changed. Ofcourse, that is probably your position - you don't want to get bitten in this case - and I don't blame you. However, myself and most of the community here are the type of people who like to proactively do something about not getting bitten. If I can have my say BEFORE the product is done, chances are it will turn out that I didn't waste my money.

Despite all the complaints, bugs and unfinished state of the game, the overwhelming opinion of every private email I've received and every forum (here and on many others) I've read is that Sins is very stable and fun even in its current state and things are only going to get better. Many have gone so far as to say its more stable and more fun than many finished games they've bought. As per human nature, the problems recieve the most attention after the first few days of enthusiasm but most of it is constructive criticism from people who are already enjoying the game and just want to make it great.

Given all this, the probability is that you will enjoy Sins as it is AND you will the oppurtunity to have a say in making in better. If you are still not convinced, Ironclad and the community here are doing their best to make sure the release in February is going to deliver an awesome game and if we release a demo around that time, I hope you'll give it a shot

Well said Blair

Not just the game itself, but the beta is really great. We got no NDA, so it means we can talk and share pictures/videos as we like.
They also listen as an exsamble, we where asking alot for a more blackish skybox (background) and we got it
They do take our ideas/suggestions seriously. Not always they reply, but they read them, thats for sure

I also tryed alot of betas, but none of them have given the user a chance, to put ideas into them.

To be honest, i was abit dissapointed in beta 1, because i thought that was somewhat, final product we where to see. Cause this is my first time on a so early beta, and all other betas are almost finished, as Blair said they only needs some help with bugs.
But as time went on, i realized that this game has much more to it, then we were seeing in beta 1. Beta 2 is total differant, much more fun to play, and i bet it will only get better as time goes on

Oh and if you dont feel like paying for the game right now, im gonna make a gameplay video of this beta 2 after the 9th this month, so you will get a taste of what we are playing atm

Yea this game is better than most games iv played dare i say ..... homeworld 2 i think this game is simple and fun and has a lot more replayability thn home world so well do guys i would have to say more races would be like a birthday pressi  
Maby multiplayer can have only tec cos thats near balanced and single player maby another race but thats just me and my high hopes  

You didn't like Beta 1? Down with the un-believer!

I will agree I am glad it wasn't the finished product, as we were made to believe it was for the proposed August 2007 release.

Your misunderstanding me..
Well the word "dissapointed" might not be the right word. I was abit scared that sins was just what we saw, plus abit more.
Thats because when beta testing other games you see a almost finished product, and comparing the two, didnt give sins justice, as it was an early build.
I did like it however, but i feared it just needed that ekstra plus plus.
Then reading and following it, i learned that sins has more to offer, then meets the eye

ah ok...

*evil eye*

dont you dare give me the evil eye ill give you 2 *evil eyes*

Hey dont get me wrong I really , I mean really like the look of this game. Especially as it is , (in my opinion) going to blow the minds of hard core rts gamers and main stream gamers (aka massive multiplayer gamers) and what I was trying to say maybe not so well, is that why are you making people pre-order the game before they can play the beta, why cant you offer for people to play the beta free , Oh and I am very greatful for all the inside 'goodies' you have give this community. But in concidering this game is kinda the first of its kind baring home world 1 // 2 , its in lets say a very deep ocean which hasnt truely been explored (space rts) yet. So in saying this game is doing alot of great stuff, I dont get why the average has to pay?

Is it funding this long development or what? or is it more sinister and a scheme to make more money? (not meaning to offend any one btw)

ill give you 3 evil eyes *Insert Evil Laugh Here*  


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I think the major disappointment was not being able to see all those cool nifty ships upfront like in the screenshots. I'm waiting for IC to release the zoom hack though.

i like it how only the preorder peeps get to play the betas its like a reward for being loyal to stardock but i would say that cos i have preordered lol all i can say to stardock is keep up the good work   and give us more races lol jk