Kotaku 
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Denver, 2:02 AM
Tue Dec 1
64 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/23/09
10/23/09
In the greek alphabet Alpha comes before Beta. Why has the gaming industry adopted beta as being a first rendition of a game and then move to Alpha when the game code progresses? #archonclassic
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
The term Beta means that for the first time in the game's development there are zero known non-shippable bugs. A shippable bug would be something like a texture flickering on a wall, or maybe a pop in an animation. There may be a few sneaky major bugs left that are difficult to reproduce, which is what the Beta period is designed for. There are both internal and public Beta phases, depending on what type of game is being made. Multiplayer games often release a public beta to help find the difficult to reproduce crashes in online matches, while single player games typically use in-house or outsourced companies to pound on the game for a month or so. 20-40 people play the game for 8 hours a day doing their damndest to break it, to jump into every corner, to find places where they can fall through the world, things like that.
This beta stage is where the most annoying bugs tend to pop up; your once-only crashes, memory stomps, and things that require a lot of digging to figure out what the real cause is. Once these bugs have been fixed and the game's been in Beta with no new non-shippable bugs for an extended period of time, usually a week or so of heavy pounding, the game is declared Final and goes off to Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo (if it's a console game) for final certification where those companies spend a few weeks making sure the game conforms to the console manufacturer's guidelines. No crashes, loading times can't be beyond a certain time limit if there's no interactive material, that all save functions are properly messaged, things like that.
After the game comes back from first-party certification it's considered out of Beta and is now Gold and it'll be on the shelves in a couple months. Of course, if it fails certification it goes back in and the issues are fixed, people get in trouble, release dates slip, and there are tears. But that's the general flow. Pre-production -> Production ->Alpha -> (Possibly Content Lock) -> Beta -> (Console Certification) -> Gold
10/09/09
10/08/09
A very nice concept, spent hours on it.
Glad to see it coming back!
10/08/09
But anyways, I played and liked both... but I think it's Dark something I had on CD.
10/08/09
10/08/09
10/08/09
I remember playing the demo of it, but it sucked: With all the pretty (DOS-era) VGA graphics and stuff, they neglected to make sure the PC would scale in order to run it.
In other words, back on the ATARI 800, an Archon match was often won or lost on micro-second flicks of the wrist on the joystick (especially melee fighters vs phoenix and the like). But on the PC version, the movement was sluggish and slow-responsive. Gave up in frustration before I was able to complete a single match.
If they make sure that that angle is covered ("Speed Uber Alles, will scale back graphics to make sure responsiveness is high"), though, I'll totally be all over this version.
10/08/09
10/08/09
10/08/09
10/08/09
I played so much Archon way back in the day ...
06/23/09
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06/23/09
06/23/09
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Two more coming in a few.
06/23/09
06/23/09
Codes?
06/23/09
06/23/09
I'd kill for a re-release of Wasteland.
06/23/09
06/23/09
For the record, I still own some of those original games and boxes from my youth. My Apple II computer finally stopped working last year after 25 years. It is going to cast me hundreds of dollars to get it fixed. Not sure if I want to go through all that.