@xdilligafx1974 said in I Find This Very Sad:
@carcinogenetxc
After hearing / reading this sentiment more than a few times on here, I guess I'm going to be the one to speak out for the other side of this.
For the last several years, there has been a serious shift in what a "Beta" has become. A Beta used to be another form of testing used by a company to further their grasp on what is working and what still needs more work. Unfortunately, this has slowly shifted from that form to a much more polished Demo that's been used to showcase the best of the game in order to help sell / market the game just before it's release.
With Sea of Thieves, Rare is going with the more traditional "Beta" in this instance and not the more modern "Demo." Personally, I think it's a sound decision even though there's more than a few modern players who have a slightly different mindset.
On a related note, Rare has stated several times this is going to be a game as a service which means there will be a steady stream of content, even after release. Which might explain why certain features are not in the current build and why the Pioneer Program isn't being disbanded anytime soon... They're needed to test and give feedback on (currently) not-yet implemented features and systems that are being designed for future releases.
Hopefully, this can explain why this week what you're playing is not a fully developed game and is, in fact, an actual Beta.
No, I think that's what game developers tell us when their game's content and motives behind betas are questioned (IE: the NMS excuse rhetoric).
Unfortunately for Rare, much of their player base, and gamers in general aren't idiots. Manipulating a definition to suit your needs as a developer, so you aren't looked at as a false prophet bearing fallacies, doesn't change the legitimate definition of what a beta for an upcoming game is or should be.
This is a tech demo. We have been equipped with a wide variety of gear and clothing we did not have to purchase (one could assume this is to place new players ahead of the learning curve so they don't feel lost) while content has been tailored down and hidden behind a wall so we can't experience the game in full... or half...
The game as it stands, combined with the content from the alpha (NDA no longer applicable) doesn't appear to hold nearly enough content to satiate your casual player audience. So while the claim is to "stress test servers", you're not even going to need to bolster them for a massive wave of players, as I'm seeing a lot of the same sentiment the OP expressed here, expressed elsewhere. Hell, half the twitch streamers holding the major positions on the site said "This game has potential, but it's missing a lot..." With 60k+ people watching someone who is likely a major influence on their game purchases, that alone should tell Rare that they made a huge mistake in not showing a stronger hand. For many, this is their first glimpse of SoT, and it's not looking good.