So first time getting a techinal key and can’twait totry the game but i thought i should ask what is the difference between a closed techinaltest, an alpha and a games beta
As i have and am still playing the betas on Dirty bomb, space engineers and dungeon defenders II
Any help understand the differences would be of great help thanks
Mhhh, as far as I understand its like this:
CTT: A few players are invited. Aim is to test the servers, online playability and to let things crash due traffic to see were the weakspots are. Its not actually about bugs and glitches, more about the availability. When the game+servers+shift can handle it they´ll open a Alpha/Beta.
Alpha: More people get involved, tracking minor bugs, unbalanced skills, ect. Basically to find the problems the devs and companies testers did not find.
Beta: Even more people involved/sometimes only Alpha-players involded. By hat point many games already developed a “meta-game” made up the behaviour of the players. This is an important step in a games evolution and most interesting to devs. Further bughunting, glitch-reporting and skill-balancing.
Don´forget about Opened- and Closed Betas/Alphas… its all a mess^^
As far as I see all thee types include tests of how many people the servers can handle. Remember the times Diablo-3 servers got flooded here in Europe or WoW with its great waiting lists… The CTT will show if BB can handle all testers as once and where the system might crash.
All only my experiences^^ I saw another member explainig it very well, but I can´t find the post anymore ToT
Alpha comes before Beta. In my experience as someone who works in R&D, and has been in many tests; this CTT is more akin to a technical Alpha. Like what you were probably doing with Dungeon Defenders 2 up until last month, or so when it went into beta.
You got Alpha and Beta testing mixed up. Alpha happens before beta. Beta is the final testing phase before launch.
no that seems to make a lot of sense but which is first alpha or beta
Uoups, did´nt really cared for a proper line-up there^^ - now corrected 
Ok now i see so once it reaches its beta form and all major bugs and patches are added does it become the full game then ?
It depends on the company. I think it is most likely that Gearbox will still hold most of the content back so we will have new and exciting things to play when the full game comes out. They don’t want people to play through all the content while the game is free and then not buy it.
Think so too^^
Its always different how companies handle these test-phases. And I´m already excited enough for CTT, so I´m completely satisfied in waiting^^
Mhhh, today, with new updates, fixes, buffs and nerfs pre-release I think there is no such thing as “finished game” or “ready game”. Todays industry makes games “ready” for sale. Diablo III was´nt ready two years after release and they still change, fix and rechange things -.-
With 25 characters to play there will be ALOT of balancing, buffing and fixing. Maybe forever^^
But on the other side it means more improvement and slightly new content over time, which is quiet nice^^
that is understandable about the characters as depending on their specs and abilities one would guess that they may end over powered or the opposite too