Perpetual Beta: Difference between revisions

* 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.

** Notch he has stated that he wants to include a variety of base features, then release a finished game and essentially turn it over to the modding community. With Mojang announcing their next game, Scrolls, and ''Minecraft'' quickly reaching beta 2.0 status, some fans have speculated that this will happen sooner rather than later.

** Minecraft left Beta and went into its first "finished" version on November 18th, 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 [[Multi User Dungeon|MUDs]] before them; since they're free to play, they could openly admit they're a perpetual work in progress.

** ''[[Eve Online]]'' features an interesting variation on this. Aside from taking game-changing patches and enormous content additions [[Up to Eleven]] the developer runs a test server available to all subscribers and actively encourages players to help them beta-test the next patch, making the test server a literal [[Perpetual Beta]]. This comes partly due to their development strategy, which treats the game as a constantly-evolving entity rather than a 'box' that will eventually be replaced by another box.

** Most localized Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese [[Free to Play]] MMOs tend to stagnate at the Open Beta phase long after the parent version has officially gone gold. This could be due to publisher policy, however.

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' is still in ''alpha'', and the [[Good Bad Bugs|bugs are considered all part of the game]], which includes [[Hammerspace|Quantum Stockpiling]] and [[Chunky Salsa Rule|the Atom-Smasher]], and other bugs can be used to engineer unique traps, such as the combination of magma and the (now fixed) low boiling point of water to create a Dwarven Microwave. The typical DF release cycle is a major update with lots of new features and usually an equal number of bugs, followed by a flurry of bugfixes and minor additions and a long and more or less stable period while its creator works on the next bunch of new stuff.

** Unlike most of the examples on this page, there's a clearly-defined list of development goals on the game's website. It's just that [[Word of God]] estimates that achieving all of them, in addition to anything the userbase think up that Toady One deems sufficiently cool ([[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|in the highly unlikely event he hadn't already thought of it]]), is probably going to take ''anything up to twenty years''.

* [[This Very Wiki]] ([[The Other Wiki|and others]]) for that matter. Pages are never really 'finished' and there are always new features and changes being made.

** Facebook itself is being continually renovated over time. Every time they substantially overhaul one of their core features there will be thousands of people complaining about it - all of whom have forgotten about the whole thing a week or two later. This has happened so many times as to be a [[Running Gag]].

* [[Google]]'s mail service, GMail, was in "beta" for so many years that, when it finally got to an official version, an experimental tool was eventually introduced for the sole purpose of restoring the "Beta" to the logo.

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]''. ''[[Neverwinter Nights]] 1'' has lots of patches, but by the time they released ''[[Neverwinter Nights]] 2'' (with fugly memory leaks), it still drooled. Community extension packs provided lots of content and scripting the original developers should have done, and engine was a bit lame -- as in "implementing flying via walking without ''visibly'' touching ground" (thus flyers set off [[Pressure Plate]] traps). That's not even starting on its setting, a dumbed down caricature of [[Forgotten Realms|the original]].

* ''[[Furcadia]]'' is in perpetual ''Alpha'', according to its designers. It's still good enough to work.

* ''[[Playstation Home]]'' has been in open beta for ''over two years''. [[Penny Arcade]] once spent a podcast talking about how the program will never, ever leave beta so that it will be impossible to criticize; "I mean, come on guys, it's just a beta."

* Most Linux distributions have the option to use "bleeding edge" repositories, ensuring the latest untested software is used for updates as soon as its available.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'' had to be patched almost immediately after its release, and issues are still ongoing. Several quests have only recently been made accessible, and combat is still being tweaked. One major fan bugbear is the cameo of the Warden's love interest in the previous game - Leliana and Zevran either act as if the Warden is dead (even if they survived), or fail to acknowledge their relationship with the Warden (for example, Zevran will accept Isabela's offer of sex, which he is not supposed to do if he's involved or in mourning). Developers claim that this issue is too deeply embedded to be resolved any time soon, and [[DLC]] tends to cause its own set of problems, so players remain braced for more bugs.

** 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?").

* Many people accuse Valve of doing this for the Cold Stream DLC for ''[[Left 4 Dead 2]]''. The campaign was released in March of 2011 in its beta stage and it slowly changed based on feedback from the players. Towards the end of the summer season, Valve started to add campaigns from ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' to the DLC for people to beta test. As of this edit, it is March 2012. A whole year later and the whole DLC package is still in the beta stage, causing people to think the DLC will never truly be "finished". This is despite the fact that Valve is doing extensive bug tests to make sure not only the DLC package will run smoothly, but that it will also run on the Xbox360 without issues and Valve also has to go through Microsoft's authentication process, which is why Valve chose to have the DLC have everything at once instead of releasing it over multiple patches.

* [[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.

=== Fictional examples: ===

{{reflist}}