The Other Side of the Looking Glass - Friday, March 3, 2006

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Sosuke1 wrote:

Sry Fenshire but your post is pretty worthless. Do your homework before posting!

Sorry, pal.  But before you start calling my post worthless and saying I should do my homework, maybe you should try actually understanding my post first.

I´ll help you out:
Beta Hyperjump has nothing to do with Beta testing at all.

Actually, it does.  Everyone who participated in Beta, as well as the pre-order (who, guess what?  Got to play beta as well), got Beta Hyperjump.

One year MxO for free? Well sure! We played the retail version and named it beta. LOL thats a sure sign you shouldnt be able to wear the clothes.

As I stated very clearly in my post, I was referring to the year of beta that occured BEFORE retail.

Who do you think hosted all the good MxO pages? dojo, archive, rumbaar ? Beta players! And although not every beta player has his own page, the most of them inpinged on the hosters somehow: running missions or maybe just chatting at mara c...

Did I discredit beta players that have become outstanding members of the community?  No, I did not.  However, those players have not done those things expecting anything in return.  Nor, do you see them coming to these forums bragging about their accomplishments.  However, you see plenty of people who were in Beta who complain and whine that the makers of this game do nothing to respect the fact that they were in Beta, or what they have done is not good enough.  The thing I'm saying, there are some truly outstanding members of the Beta community that have made real contributions to this community, then there are the Beta players that believe their status as a Beta player automatically  means that they deserve respect, admiration, and praise for devoting their precious time to a game in it's infant stages.

To that, I say horsecockle.

What about those of us that have been playing Live since day one and have not terminated our service, or taken a break, and continued to provide feedback to this game, creating Player Driven Events, writing stories, and just trying to make this community a better place for all those people who are just looking for something to do?  We don't look for rewards from the MxO team for the efforts that we put into this game, so how do you think it makes us feel when we constantly see these Beta people whining about how their rewards aren't good enough.

I dont understand why you want the clothes? NO buffs, they dont look this good!
The only reason I see is that you just want to take them from us and thats an unbelievable bad  motivation.

For the THIRD time in this thread, I don't want the clothes!  All I want are the female beta glasses for my alt because they're cool and they're black.  I could care less about stepping on the sacred ground of Beta.  But even still, WE, the non-Beta players, are not taking these items AWAY from you.  YOU, the Beta Players, are GIVING them to us.  It's in your hands, ultimately, whether or not non-Beta people get these articles of clothing.

We dont deserve more respect than any other paying member of this game, just because we were beta players.
We should get a little honor for helping this game and/or the community. This little present doesnt make us any stronger, no buffs, its just a little something that reminds us of beta and gives a little community feeling.

I don't disagree with that, but from my point of view, you guys have gotten the honor you deserved for your time in Beta.  You got to play the game before anyone else, you got Hyperjump Beta, you got a nifty outfit, and you got a real kick *CENSORED* closing event (which by the way, many people say was probably the best event Monolith ever put on).  However, they didn't announce the Beta clothes until after the game launched.  And when they announced them, they said very clearly that the clothes would be exclusive for the first few months of the game, then they would become tradeable.  I know everyone is terrified that noobs are going to join the game and wear Beta clothes and say that they were in Beta...  but why would anyone do that?  To get Beta 'status'?  Believe me when I say, from a non-Beta person's point of view, that 'status' you want to hold on to so bad...  to the rest of us, we don't care about it.

All I want are black female glasses.  I don't care if they're Beta, Alpha, Omega, or Centauri.  If making Beta items tradeable is the only way I'll get black glasses for my alt, then I'm going to support this move.

sry for this lyricism, but i feel like you want to run down MxO´s history and thereby mine as well.

I want to run down MxO's history?  Pal, I am a PART of MxO's history!  Why would I want to run it down?  Why would I want to **bleep** on a game that I've spent a good year playing?  Since day one of Live, I have been in this game.  I have never taken a break from it (and when I say break, I mean leave the game for an extended period of time.  Contrary to popular belief, I do eat and sleep and work ).  I helped to create PDEs, I have written many stories for others to enjoy, I've been active in getting involved in other players' stories and RPs, I've won events, I've lost events, I've created a long standing and well-respected faction, I've been active on the Test Server trying to help get it ironed out for Live release, and most importantly, I have always been a positive voice towards this game.  You will never find a post of mine that has bashed SOE or Monolith, or any of the choices they've made.  I've accepted their choices and thought about what I could do with those choices to help make this community a better place.

The question is...  can you say the same?

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Closed Beta (invite only) launched June 1, 2004.Public Beta began October 29, 2004and ended March 15, 2005.No one played Beta for a year, no one even played for five full months unless they were one of the lucky few to be invited at the beginning, in which case it was less than ten months.

I recently celebrated my one year anniversary in MxO.Since the launch of Live, my main RSI PS10N has over 85 days of /play time.Do the math: I’ve spent 85/380 days Jacked In.That’s 22.37% of the whole year, not just waking time or free time.(Contrary to popular belief, I DO NOT eat, sleep or work, but you can find me at Recursion’s Tabor Park West Hardline instead.)

The Beta clothes do mean something.They mean you were in Beta.When they become tradable, they loose their meaning altogether.When there are big parties hosted by the radio stations, the Beta players don their colors and line up for screen shots because it’s a way of saying “I was there, and I’m still here.”As things are now, when I see someone in Beta clothing, I can know with certainty that the player really was really in Beta and it’s a conversation starter.“Do you remember when Sigh kissed the numbered Agent under the Hypersphere Monument when Seraph was there?”When a Beta coat/jacket is worn it shows clearly that the player had something to do with the refinement of the game and I want to know what was special about their Beta experience.“What did YOU do to get the coat?”

I didn’t get a Beta Jacket.Why?Because I didn’t do what was necessary to earn one and so I don’t deserve one.Having millions of $info to buy a copy of one does not mean I deserve one.And if you didn’t do what was necessary to earn the rest of the outfit (i.e. play the game before March 16, 2005) then you don’t deserve them either, regardless of how many millions of $info you can pay an unscrupulous player to make and delete an alt long enough to sell them to you.

I can imagine the future, when everyone and their toon has Beta clothing and there is no way to know who was really there and who is just a poser.Having a Beta player at an event will become meaningless, striking up a conversation about shared experiences will be pointless because the answer might just as well be, “oh, I wasn’t really in Beta, I just paid a few million $info for this.”Following that logic, just go ahead and make the Assassin’s Masks abled to be copied too, since this change is showing that it doesn’t really matter what you earned for doing something someone else didn’t do.“Hey, everyone should have everything regardless of what they did or didn’t do,” is the unfortunate message this decision states.

More times than I can count or remember I’ve been talking with a player who wants to know how I know all the tips, tricks and secrets which I’m happy to share.They want to know how old the faction is and if we have ties to the Legendary characters.The Beta clothing is a good, if not perfect, way to prove the legacy.Truth is already hard to come by in The Matrix, with so many false fronts and deceptive appearances.Why take away the ability to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone was part of that piece of Matrix history?

There is a solution which should please everyone and it has precedent.Beta clothing was given to those who played before first Live and it shows that they actually did.Zion Hardware Requisition or Merovingian's Boon or Glimmer of the Source were given to those who turned in fragments of Neo’s RSI during the Race to Find the One event and shows they did in fact do that.(Some may still have a piece of Neo in their inventory.)Attribute Reconfiguration Hack and Awakening Glasses/Jacket were given to those who made the transition from Monolith to SOE and shows that they really did.Having Corrupt Code or a Flit Gun in your inventory shows that you were there for the Death of the Destroyer; likewise a PDA still lingering shows you were there to confront the Red Eye Agents.Halloween masks show you were there for the Masquerade, Party Hats or Orgasm Cake show you were there for the 2005/2006 holiday season, etc.

So, the proposal…

1) Keep the baseball hat idea, give them to everyone who spent time in the QA Test Server (as planned,) and make them non-tradable so that they become a token of having actually beta-tested CR2.0.Even better, change the logo to read “CR2 Beta” or “QA Test Server”

2) Do NOT make existing Beta clothing tradable, instead introduce a new line ofnon-tradable “CR2.0” or “One Year Anniversary” clothing for everyone who’s account was opened before March 31, 2006. (I suggest a coat since even Beta players don’t all have a coat and the hat is covered already.)This will uphold the tradition of specific token gear to denote participation in a specific event only if you were really there for it.You can almost hear the conversation months from now.“Hey, where did you get that CR2.0 coat?Where can I get one?”;“Sorry man,you had to actually be there to get one, but don’t worry, there will be another event soon and if you’re still here, you’ll get something cool for that.”

When something means something to people, especially when those people are your paying customers, don’t make it meaningless for them.Instead, introduce something that is equally meaningful for all those who participated.My investment in MxO so far is $235 and 85 days of mind-numbing fun and interaction with this great community and if that buys me just one request over the 380 days, it’s this: don’t make the original Beta clothing tradable; let it stand for what it was always meant to stand for “I was there and I’m still here” and maybe we can add “See my CR2.0 / First Anniversary Trench?I was there for that, and I’m still here, too!”

/signed

PS10N, leader ofThe Brethren, one of Recursion’s few remaining Beta Factions still operating under their original name and charter.

P.S. The Beta clothing do have an enhancement of sorts.  I remember being one of the few people who didn't have to run around naked to prevent the Fly Virus from decaying their outfits... because I was wearing my incorruptible Beta clothes.

P.P.S  If this whole thread has been a giant misunderstanding and the Beta Clothes are simply going to become Vendor Tradable, then in the immortal words of Gilda Radner, "Never mind..."

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Chuui wrote:
Actually, preorders got access a special preorder key that gave them access to the beta test.. so as long as they used their preorder key, they got beta clothes. Once the game was released, the retail key had to be input.

They got "in" to beta, but they didn't actually have to play in beta to get the beta clothes. It's a big difference. You aren't a beta player if you didn't actually *play* during beta, invite or not. Thus, it's a pre-order bonus not a beta bonus. If you played in beta and didn't pre-order, you didn't get the beta clothes, so you can't honestly say that those clothes indicate who was and wasn't in beta. All they indicate is who pre-ordered and who didn't.

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