Edit: Bug in Beta Process - was Beta PWs being used in HoD... SEVERE BUG!!!!!

Kinesia

Someone in our team faced someone using a Beta PW in the real event. This should NOT be possible.

Will message Brigby the picture.

magusnebula

They are available for purchase, I don't see why you couldn't face them.

Laeuftbeidir

magusnebula said:

They are available for purchase, I don't see why you couldn't face them.

If they're available for everyone, I'd agree with you. If not.. Not.

rafalele

Laeuftbeidir said:

magusnebula said:

They are available for purchase, I don't see why you couldn't face them.

If they're available for everyone, I'd agree with you. If not.. Not.

I think it is as when you buy it for cash, you have it before anyone else. In this case just because you are playing a beta event.

Kinesia

I'm told this is "allowed", however it is a HUGE unexpected shock to many people, it was gatewayed by BOTH admittance to the BETA AND Money but was also not made abundantly clear that this would be the case, only hinted at how it would be handled.

People joining betas do not normally get early access to big content in the MAIN game, they get to try them _out_, but not get to beat "normal" users over the head with them in a huge sneak attack in an event that is already having problem.  Letting them be used early outside the Beta is a huge breach of general industry protocol. 

wereotter

Kinesia said:

I'm told this is "allowed", however it is a HUGE unexpected shock to many people, it was gatewayed by BOTH admittance to the BETA AND Money but was also not made abundantly clear that this would be the case, only hinted at how it would be handled.

People joining betas do not normally get early access to big content in the MAIN game, they get to try them _out_, but not get to beat "normal" users over the head with them in a huge sneak attack in an event that is already having problem.  Letting them be used early outside the Beta is a huge breach of general industry protocol. 

The cards we have access to should be the only surprise. The planeswalkers and their abilities were posted in the main forum. 

Kinesia

And to people who don't know better (which is most) it just looks like the exploit for using Legacy cards in Standard has just had an Eldrazi baby.

Whether it was intended or not it _looks_ incredibly bad and was very poorly thought out in terms of customer expectations and reactions.

Laeuftbeidir

@Kinesia

I think you're exaggerating here. I do agree generally with your position, but while you seem to see it as an extreme problem, I don't believe it's nearly as bad. Money had nothing to do with it, by the way. The power level in legacy isn't affected at all by the new walkers. They're good, but not that good, so are the cards.

ManiiNames

I don’t see this as a problem.

Kinesia

Part of the point of beta testing was testing these cards AND planeswalkers not just the event. I expected that _Everything_ was getting tested privately first.

It was labelled as Beta test NOT "Priority access" in primary game, that's what I'm incredibly angry about.

You do not conflate these things. Especially when you've just had a huge bug that let people unexpectedly use cards that weren't meant to be allowed in the main game.

So _initially_ it looked exactly like a bug where now the beta stuff was leaking into the main game, finding out it was intentional made me even angrier though. Because you don't _plan_ to do something that looks exactly like a bug that you just fixed.

I read all the notes and this never appeared to me as a possibility. I thought (due to other betas and things I've done over many years) that the beta people buying stuff would apply AFTER the beta ended, AFTER the testing, AFTER the planeswalkers and cards were all modified and corrected.

This breaks process and policy for beta tests because the entire player base becomes victims of the people in the beta now. The streams are not EVER meant to be mixed like this. This is not how you run something like this at all.

Kinesia

But, ok, this this is a Beta Test of the Beta Testing Process and I would say it currently has huge bugs. The Beta needs to be Sandboxed off from the live game until after the event is live, that is normal industry-wide protocol for a REASON.
The biggest part is that the entire point is testing things before they go live, not making bits and pieces live during the test, that's not fit for purpose. It goes against the whole point.

Kinesia

But just the fact that this is making people think very very seriously about quitting (I know someone who just deleted the game) means it needs looking at _regardless_ of what was said initially or anything else.

Personally this looks to me _exactly_ like the Legacy in Standard bug, the implementation is different, but a few people have access to things others don't and their sudden appearance in games is a huge unexpected surprise. Emotionally it is exactly the same type of advantage and should be treated as the same level of severe bug. (Regardless of if it was planned.)

Kinesia

Part of my anger is from a professional perspective. I am a tester for a large company.

We were promised Beta Testing and I thought the _processes_ for release in the game were finally getting fixed and were going to be up to standard.

Instead we have untested content in live again. That's my personal upset, this a betrayal of the entire POINT. This makes the Beta a lie.


Other people are upset about people yet again having an unexpected advantage, but I'm upset because from a professional perspective this augers BADLY for the future, this is exactly the same undisciplined approach we were hoping was going to be gone forever.

Tremayne

I think I share your frustration but not your anger on the the beta.

i totally agree that the concept of a beta is implemented totally different from what would be considered a common approach.

From the description of the beta, my impression was that the testers would get a special event where they would test out new functionality. The rest of us would then play without interference from the new functionality.

this does not seem to be the case. Now non-beta testers have all the draw-backs without any of the benefits of the new cards/walkers.

Laeuftbeidir

Kinesia said:

Part of my anger is from a professional perspective. I am a tester for a large company.

If your anger is professionally, your tone should be, too. You know, I still basically agree with why you're saying what you're saying, but I can't even remotely agree with your tone and anger,making me want to argue against you.

This is the first beta ever run here.

You have a legitimate critic point, they're expecting feedback - but this kind of ranting won't likely have a productive effect so they can make it better, it's just making it more likely that this was the last time they tried it IMO.

Kinesia

@Laeuftbeidir I totally agree my tone should be better, however in my work I don't have to spend the day hammered by other people's emotions about what is happening. I'm never frontline, so it's weird being that for a _hobby_. I'm sure the actual support are getting it even worse, but I'm not equipped to deal with or filter raw emotion from other people, but their concerns are valid and they aren't here so I am.
If none of that were happening then it would _only_ be my own anger at the broken processes and concepts and that is a colder more structured thing that I could easily discuss calmly, but there is the magma of other people's pain over unexpected chaos flowing through it too and it is harder to steer than the glacier I usually work with.

I really _wish_ it had been a bug and my bug report last night would've been the end of it, but for almost the entire day (what was meant to be a day off) more and more information came up about how deliberate and broken this was and things escalated and escalated.

Some people seemed to expect exactly what was done and think it was all worded clearly but MANY did not expect this at all. For something to be clearly worded 90% of people need to grasp the proper meaning easily, in this case it seems roughly 50% had the correct expectations and they weren't always very nice to the people who were suffering shock and surprise.

There are many many layers of repercussions from this in the game itself and throughout the communities and it _can't_ be divorced from emotion, because it messing with some customers emotions is exactly why there is a problem, if it hadn't then none of this would've come up. (And the companies management of the customer's expectations is actually part of their job when it comes to things like this.)

Rather than a Beta Test of Duel Decks this has ended up being a Beta Test of the Beta Test Process.

Mburn7

I am definitely surprised that the Beta walkers are appearing in events, but that's more because they aren't that good than because we can't use them.  Also, technically there is no money required to play them since they are available for Crystals in the vault.

I mean, the Beta cards are available for use (I'm running one in HoD), so why shouldn't the walkers be?

wereotter

Mburn7 said:

I am definitely surprised that the Beta walkers are appearing in events, but that's more because they aren't that good than because we can't use them.  Also, technically there is no money required to play them since they are available for Crystals in the vault.

I mean, the Beta cards are available for use (I'm running one in HoD), so why shouldn't the walkers be?

I dunno.... I think Nissa is good if you get the cards for her, but you need mostly cards from the event to do well with her. Avenger of Zendikar and Elemental Uprising are good cards for her. I do think, though, she will struggle in Standard events since there aren't any ways to make more animated forest creatures, and the only card I can see that works with her abilities is Zendikar's Roil.

Kinesia

The main point is that (for many of us badly hurt by the Legacy in Standard bug and who aren't in the Beta) this looks EXACTLY like the main thing we were promised would be fixed in 2.9.
We were told it was safe to relax and that there wouldn't be unexpected things in normal events anymore.

The Beta stuff was meant to be tested BEFORE it interacted with live in any way. That is the entire point of a Beta. So, while this isn't an official bug the _Beta_ is bugged because it doesn't meet it's purpose.