Perpetual Beta: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

== [[Real Life]] examples ==

** Although, Service Pack 1 fixed a bunch of problems with Vista (which is why most businesses wait for the first Service Pack before adopting a new Microsoft OS).

* This is pretty much the case with ''any'' operating systems keeping up to the evolution of hardware. Sometimes developers can't simply make new drivers for new hardware (i.e. due to change of paradigm in hardware design), which means the developers must alter the core (the "kernel") of the OS itself. This is especially <s> [[Egregious]] </s> noticeable with open source OSes such as [[UNIX|Linux and the BSDs]], that requires you to [[Our Souls Are Different|update what is basically the soul of the system]] (not as painful nor as dangerous as it sounds).

** Debian, a Linux distribution, has an ''unstable'' branch that is ''meant'' to be this. Almost all packages are first uploaded to ''unstable'', which contains the latest bleeding-edge versions of all software, before they enter the ''testing'' distribution, which, in time, becomes the next stable release.

** Minecraft left Beta and went into its first "finished" version on November 18, 2011, and it is ''still'' getting updates. Since the full release we have gotten Jungles, ocelots and cats, a new AI system with loads of new behaviors,[[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|creepers being afraid of cats]], a new type of golem, new blocks and items, upside down stairs and slabs and even a doubled build height and the ability to have ''thousands'' of different block and item types from mods. Mojang is gearing up to make life easier for modders and players who use mods.

** And the game is even buggier than before.

** For example, powerhouse ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' still receives periodic patches that can, in some cases, dramatically alter the entire game. Every single class has been renovated multiple times, entire concepts have been introduced, tinkered with and in some cases finally abandoned if they didn't work right. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' right now, pre-Cataclysm (which will completely renovate the ''entire game''... ''again'') is practically unrecognizable from its original launch, even ignoring two expansion packs' worth of new content.

** And [[Multi User Dungeon|MUDs]] before them; since they're free to play, they could openly admit they're a perpetual work in progress.

* Every sports game, but particularly wrestling is one of these because they often are titled for the year after they are released, but by that year, many people who were present in the company during the development stage are no longer there, yet are still in the game, and people who've joined since aren't in the game. As a result they usually represent a brief period of time where anything could have changed. ''WCW Thunder'' and ''WWF/E Smackdown: Just Bring It'' are particularly notable examples of this.

* ''[[The Sims]] 3'' is ''very'' guilty of this. Bugs are endemic to the game, and they range from "amusing" to "[[Game Breaking Bug]]"—some of the most notable ones are "hotspot" nightclubs that are deserted, the mutilation of the Photography skill and an inventory bug that eventually froze the game. Players have to constantly check the site for patches and pray that the patch will fix their particular batch of problems. Unfortunately, each patch tends to cause almost as many problems as it fixes, and that's before the newest expansion pack arrives to wreak havoc on your game. The developers seem to be playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with every new installment. By the way, if you think you can dodge the problems by avoiding the patches, you can't - each new expansion pack requires you to update to the latest version of the game. And heaven help you if you have custom content installed.

* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' was first released with great fanfare, with the game scoring very well with most reviewers. However, the developer Obsidian, [[Knights of the Old Republic|as they are known to do,]] did not run proper debug routines. The game on release was so crash-prone as to be unplayable at times, a problem that still persists in some parts (the final battle sequence come to mind) after ''four'' major patches. That's not even getting into the faction paths cut off by bugs or scorpions that get stuck in the ground due to clipping errors.

** With ''Ultimate Edition'' announced and all DLC released, support for ''New Vegas'' is essentially over, leaving multitudes of unfixed glitched, ranging from crash-to-desktop game breakers to bookkeeping annoyances (Why are the three helmets from ''Lonesome Road'' the only "Heavy" headgear in the game? When [[Powered Armor|Power Helmets]] are "Light?").

* [[Arcen Games]] actually build their business model about this, but their site makes sure buyers know what they're in for. Games at release was feature-complete, fully playable and almost bugless. However, the company knows they could do a lot more and continues development for as long as community interest persists, constantly adding beta updates and periodically pulling back to clean out bugs and release a stable update. This has actually worked very well for them, [[AI War Fleet Command]] has been operating like this for years, with occasional larger chunks of new content released as paid expansion packs to keep the company going.

* ''[[RHDE]]'' is open source. Even after the game goes gold as part of a collaborative homebrew multicart scheduled for sometime in 2014, a second version has been planned with a bigger memory to hold the features that didn't fit.

 

== Fictional examples ==

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]

[[Category:Perpetual Beta]]