Subjective or Darth?: Obvious Beta

To Battosaijoe: the lines may need to be clarified, but what you describe is actually precisely what they (intend to) say. If a game cannot feasibly be completed (without cheatmode), regardless of WHY it cannot be completed, then it is an Obvious Beta. If it has a Game-Breaking Bug that doesn't stop you from playing the game normally, then it is NOT an Obvious Beta.

So whether or not the game has Game Breaking Bugs is not relevant. The question is, can the game be completed?

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Spark 9,

I think that sounds pretty good. I can understand the Game-Breaking Bug issue, but looking at a couple of examples on that page, it seems to me that many of them are from games that would certainly not fit the Obvious Beta name (Twilight Princess and Ocarina Of Time for example). Now, those might not be very good examples of the Game-Breaking Bug trope, but I think they at least help to show that having a Game-Breaking Bug should not be included as a qualification for being an Obvious Beta unless the game is impossible to complete without cheating.

Dr Starky, I might be able to see what you mean about trivia. I wonder if the stuff on the page about the various kind of stages of software production might belong somewhere else. I think they are useful, but I am not sure they are necessary for this specific trope page. Of course, I could be wrong and I welcome any comments people might have on that.

edited 27th Apr '11 2:24:41 PM by LouieW

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

So, given the criteria above, should Windows ME and Vista (its first revisions) be allowed in? If the answer is yes, then yeah, I think the in-criteria is solid enough.

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?

Silent Reverence, I may be mistaken, but I think that at least Windows ME meets the "it is widely panned by the media for being buggy" standard and thus would fit the trope. I wonder if that is a bit too subjective though.

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

• I would say Vista meets it under the same media criteria as ME (and I say that as someone who has pretty happily used Vista since release).
• The thing to remember about Game Breaking Bugs and Unwinnable by Mistake is that they sound worse than they are, because they refer to situations and not the entire game. You would think these things would be caught in beta, but it may take a tricky set of circumstances to break the game or get into an unwinnable situation, which might be missed in beta. Thus, they're not indicators of an Obvious Beta on their own.
• Trope vs Trivia: The problem is that the draft definition is defined by two out-of-game criteria (critical reception and Word of God) or one gameplay criteria (uncompleteability); also, the name is clearly an out-of-game situation. If we could define it purely in terms of gameplay it wouldn't be trivia, but we can't. I could see splitting off a YMMV (Suspected Beta) version that includes both press and fan examples. The question is, if we did that would Obvious Beta still be an appropriate name when the sole criteria is "the game can't be completed"? [edit] If not, then we might as well just keep this trope and make it YMMV, since that's how it's being used already.
• Subjectivity: The problem is the "buggy-ness" subjective threshold is being judged by level of press coverage...which also has a subjective threshold. When this is the only criteria used, I say it's a clear subjective trope.

edited 31st Jul '11 10:40:58 PM by jerodast

Crowner-hooking was requested. I haven't been following this debate, so someone else will need to add the appropriate options.

Added an option to make it trivia.

shimaspawn> It's shown up in a couple of freeware games I played when I was younger. I'm just saying that when we're making standards we should have a way to differentiate between the two.

Why? freeware even has an option of simply not being "1.0" until it's ready - thus admitting it IS beta. If it claims it's 1.0 it's supposed to work. Take Vega Strike, for example - it's not even 0.6... yet AFAIK has only 1 truly Big Ugly Bug (turrets) now.

Spark 9> If it has a Game-Breaking Bug that doesn't stop you from playing the game normally, then it is NOT an Obvious Beta.

I think it's good, if we emphasize "normally", that is, it's Obvious Beta if the game experience is warped on a large scale by the bug(s), as opposed to having to do a workaround in a specific situation or something like this. E.g. Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace counts, among other things, because you can't trade while SUPPOSED TO - though still can play on, since there are missions and random encounters.

Louie W.>if [...]
Louie W.> * it cannot feasibly be completed without cheating
Louie W.> But not merely if
Louie W.> * [...] Unwinnable By Mistake

Uh...

edited 9th Aug '11 8:57:55 PM by TBeholder

...And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense - R.W.Wood

The difference is that Unwinnable by Mistake means a game can become unwinnable if you perform certain actions, but these can be very unusual or unlikely actions simply as long as the programmer hasn't thought of them. If a game can't be feasibly completed without cheating, that means the game can become unwinnable very easily. It's a difference in degree.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Okay, so we have a clear and stable crowner outcome that we want an objective definition. There's one at the top of the page, shall we take it from there?

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Sounds good. Make a sandbox page to flesh it out.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Bumping this to get it resolved.

I just did a massive natter sweep of the examples, which should make the cleanup easier.

Bump. Is this resolved?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I cannot find if the solution (make objective) was implemented in the page history. Was this done?

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I think the definition is objective enough. The wicks and the examples I didn't check, though.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

OK, so now I have tweaked the description and examples a bit to remove all the subjective parts and watchlisted it to keep it clean.

Guess we are done here. Lock-hollering.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman