Mass Effect Andromeda Multiplayer Beta (cancelled)

They also said there'd be a tech test...

Since to my knowledge, I'm the only person around here who has mentioned something along these lines, I figured I would respond.

I wasn't intending it to be a slight or insult towards anyone who participated in the test, although going back and reading it again, I definitely understand how it could be perceived as such. I framed my point so bluntly that it came off as me being salty over the test being canceled and lashing out at people who were involved in private tests, which again, was not my intention.

Whenever developers cancel public tests/betas/whatever of their games, and then go on to cite the glowing feedback they received from focus groups and community members behind closed doors as part of their reasoning, it automatically throws up a bunch of red flags for me. I've been through this before in other games, both as someone who was fortunate enough to participate in said private tests and as someone from the outside looking in, and based on that, it hasn't ever really boded well for the final product. So while Bioware's reasoning may be sound from their perspective, and the perspective of most (if not all) of the people in their focus groups, to me, it seems anything but.

Combine that with how... passionate people in the community can be at times. Just look at all the wailing and gnashing of teeth whenever a weapon got rebalanced back in ME3, you would always have a not-insignificant amount of people with their heads in the sand insisting that the Krysae, for example, was perfectly balanced and dindu nuffin. My concern is that, because there's no way to know who was involved with the test, some of these people were participants (and for the record, this would be a concern of mine regardless of whether or not I participated). After all, people like being told that this thing they've been working on is really good. It's simply human nature. It's perfectly understandable that they would get people who would be more inclined to tell them these sorts of things, or perhaps people who would be less inclined to grill them over x y and z.

So yeah. There's my two cents. Maybe I'm just being a belligerent piece of shit for no reason, I don't really have a frame of reference in this case. It just rubs me the wrong way when developers cancel public tests in favor of tests where they have complete control over who takes part, then basically say "we investigated ourselves and cleared us of any wrongdoing." in terms of game balance and design decisions.

George Lucas had total control over the Star Wars prequels and surrounded himself with yes men who were afraid to criticise him, and those turned out great.  The pinnacles not only of Star Wars movies, but of movies and storytelling in general.

I'll email you, send me a pizza roll in the mail!

I can appreciate that. And I expected a larger public beta would still happen, so the announcement surprised me as well.

Apologies for the salt level in my response. I know my general love of the BioWare dudes and dudettes is well-known, but wanted to also express that such a factor - at least for me - didn't affect criticism levels. I love my friends, but if they have a booger hanging out of their nose, I'm gonna bluntly point out that they have a booger hanging out of their nose and that's really unattractive, bro, you should wipe that off or something. Now, it's up to my friend to either take care of the booger before walking around in public or leave it hanging out there sort of flapping back and forth with each breath... but at least I pointed it out. Because that's my bro and I don't want him seen with a booger hanging out of his nose if I can at all prevent it.

I can understand skepticism towards everyone else in the swimming pool doing the same thing. But I will say the feedback I saw going around was solid, in my opinion. It didn't come off as a big fellatio party. For those that actively gave feedback, it seemed to be in a manner to make things better rather than pat them on the back.

My two cents.

I'm annoyed. It's pretty messed up to invite people to a beta test, knowing your most loyal fans will sign up, just to cancel it, and we dont find out directly, but through some random interview, with no official announcement on the beta page or the beacon. Pretty disrespectful if u ask me

I inappropriately chortled at this, not gonna lie.

Honestly.Don't like it.

I was so excited , I was really looking forward to it.Spent like 30 mins at least on my Bioware Beacon profile survey/application trying to prove that I may deserve the chance to participate and offer my constructive criticism.Then after a whilenof silence , I hear about how they organized a showcase of the game to media and YTbers etc and I thought "That means the MP tech test must be round the corner" but obviously...That wasn't the case.I checked and re-checked my emails.Nothing.I log on to my BB profile and noticed the tech test had disappeared so I thought that maybe I didn't get accepted.
After the game went gold ,it dawned to me. It was cancelled.No warning, no official announcement.They just swept it under the rug.

Anyway, I ' confident it will be OK but I didn't think that was a good move.Just like closing the official forums or deciding to make a collector's edition without including the game etc etc

Lesson learned.
I should have seen it coming.