What's the coolest part about owning games that are still being developed?

AKA Open beta

from GalCiv2 Forums

Alright, while I wait for support to send me the file or whatever to activate GalCiv2 DL on an offline gaming rig, I felt like just starting a thread to get other peoples' opinons.

 

Main topic:

What's the best thing about owning a game that's still in open beta essentially? Galciv2 is still being developed, with updates rather than patches (with patches just doing minor tweaks and bugfixes) being released.

 

My top 5:

 

1. Dev team has the ability to post on forums and get input on the best/worse features they put in.

2. Everyone wins: players get a voice and dev team makes a better game.

3. You never know what the next update full of win will contain.

4. If you are already involved with the forums and the metaverse, you get to be involved with the games developement, also, see #2 for this reason.

5. Better retail for Stardock, since that new great update (like 2.0 for me, I might get TA in the next couple months) could push potential buyers over the edge.

 

What are your top favorites about GalCiv2 still evolving and changing?

 

Thanks,

Scouto2

10,372 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I wouldn't call getting new content a open beta.  Beta is the testing a game for bugs, glitches, errors and what not.  I have called some of the games I have bought open beta but let me assure you it wasn't meant as a compliment.  Games that give away free content are pretty unheard of now.  So this patch is a big kudos to the dev team here at stardock.  I remember waiting for unit and map patches for T.A. back and this was a lot like that.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting NiknudStunod, reply 1
I wouldn't call getting new content a open beta.  Beta is the testing a game for bugs, glitches, errors and what not.  I have called some of the games I have bought open beta but let me assure you it wasn't meant as a compliment.  Games that give away free content are pretty unheard of now.  So this patch is a big kudos to the dev team here at stardock.  I remember waiting for unit and map patches for T.A. back and this was a lot like that.
End of NiknudStunod's quote

yeah I pretty much agree on that one

in my opinion, all the five points the O.P. mentioned have nothing to do with a game still being in development or not but rather with the willingness of stardock to work with its community/fanbase

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, during the TA beta, I had tons of excitement every other week, knowing another race or two was getting added back in with it's new tree to test out.  The trickle effect in that sense was tons of fun ad gave me two weeks to test out the races before moving on to another race.  Or in the case of when Terror Stars came out, time for me to brutalize them and learn every odd thing about them.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, what I mean is, that, I want to know what you all think is the greatest part about owning a game where the developers ACTUALLY listen to the playerbase and are ACTIVE on the forums, and I'm not talking about a little 100 player online game, I mean a big game, like GalCiv 2. That's all.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting scouto2, reply 4
Well, what I mean is, that, I want to know what you all think is the greatest part about owning a game where the developers ACTUALLY listen to the playerbase and are ACTIVE on the forums, and I'm not talking about a little 100 player online game, I mean a big game, like GalCiv 2. That's all.
End of scouto2's quote

it's awesome, but they probably could NOT do that with such a fanbase as "the sims 2" one for example

unless moderators were hired for heavy moderating the forums where dev go

 

while galciv2 is big, it's nowhere near as big as some other games yet ...

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting scouto2, reply 4
Well, what I mean is, that, I want to know what you all think is the greatest part about owning a game where the developers ACTUALLY listen to the playerbase and are ACTIVE on the forums, and I'm not talking about a little 100 player online game, I mean a big game, like GalCiv 2. That's all.
End of scouto2's quote

Well, in that case, it's not so much about while it's being devloped, but post-lauch interaction.  SD has been really good with keeping in touch with thier player base for galciv2 and it's last expansion has been live for months now.  It's this post-lauch support and furthering of bug-fixing that they were talking about at their Impulse launch.  They've allocated resources to keep the game running smooth afterwards.