I was watching the stream yesterday and noticed Matt talking about the beta team and the trust problem with 500 public beta testers. Well if we avoid using the word beta testing and start using the term early acces. A monthly subscription that will give you access to all the builds that are scheduled for release. These are expiring DLC. And will no longer be accessible when the content launches and you will need to purchase the DLC. Whilst the early access is going on the marketing can do the streams and it doesn't matter anymore if "beta testers" are streaming the content as it is part of the marketing. This way you will have a lot of beta testers and they pay for the extra work that comes with extra beta testers. Just an idea
Didn't he say that part of the problem was that the beta testers are all on PC because you can't roll out console betas without them all having dev kits? That's why the routes generally perform decently on PCs, but the limited console testing has meant absolute chaos on those platforms. Adding even more people to the beta pool who don't have access to a PS5 dev kit isn't going to prevent the same thing happening again as soon as their "fine for release" version crashes headlong into all of Sony's barriers.
I don't think you need dev kits to set up early acces and I think expiring downloads are also a thing on consoles. They would not get a test build but the build we normally get. This a few weeks in advance. What other users will get on release date is that build with a day one patch and not expiring.
DTG develop up until the day before release it seems, so it would indeed be a dev build that beta testers would be getting From the stream last night it also seems that beta testers are adhoc technical advisors as well as people who play the game
Well, DTG did say that they have some forum members and YouTubers on Beta team so not sure whether that changes that statement
Hello. Personally I think you have stated a good idea. Just wanted to point out a few things to add onto your words. Early Access is something that can be created from a developers end. Xbox and PlayStation have Insider Programs which in some aspect is the same thing. I think it would be beneficial for Dovetail to set up Insider Programs for console more often as it seems console have more issues than PC, especially with newer released routes from the 4.26 update. If an Insider Program was created for console, not only would this be very helpful to the developers but it allows the game to grow (depending on how the program is set up). Trust is something to take in mind yes and these programs are also monitored by the console company's. For example, Halo Infinite. I am an insider for that game and have stuck with the rules throughout. There are a set of rules that must be followed and everyone who is accepted is monitored by 343 and Microsoft. Is this something Dovetail should consider doing? Absolutely. Is this something that Dovetail can manage? Most Definitely.
DTG have stated several times its about an even split over PC, PS and Xbox, so more console players overall I think it would be a good idea to have EA for consoles because they're the ones who seem to have more PROBLEMS when things get released, and if EA means more testing on the platforms with known hardware (and in some cases more restrictive processes) that can only be a good thing
