• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
As far as I remember, there was a quite long beta testing phase running for Warlock.
Surely, the game runs smoothly without any greater bugs or CTDs !

But to be honest, isn´t it also the task of beta testers to give feedback to the game ?
So I wonder how so many things could be go to release without chnages.
  1. You cannot, ever, draw any conclusions about the activities of beta testers from the state of a game.
  2. Moreover, beta testers are never, ever, responsible for the state of a game upon release. The only people who are responsible are those with a stake in the outcome, in other words, those that make money from it and call the shots.
  3. If a beta test goes great, it is to the credit of the developers, who organized a beta test adequate to their needs and were able to deal with the results; Conversely, if it does not, it is to the discredit of the developers. Not the beta testers.
  4. Speculating in public about what beta testers of games noticed/didn't noticed/did/didn't do is not only a spectacular waste of time - it is also unfairly putting the beta testers in an awkward situation, as they are covered by NDAs and cannot respond.
Disclosure: I am not a beta tester of Warlock: MotA but have been of other games, and making threads questioning beta testers' activities is just about as low as it gets. You may not have intended it, but you are effectively shooting accusations at people who a) are not responsible for the things you dislike and b) cannot answer back without risking violating a signed contract.

Didn´t they realized, that the game suffers at so many things, beginning with city spam, very dumb AI, lacking diplomacy options, no summaries ingame and at the end of the game, simple city management without considering the tile fields (i.e. vulcano more frutile than sand giving more food output or similar things) and so on....

In my opinion the game could have been so much better with some more polishing or gamer feedback.
And in my opinion the came could have been so much better with twice the budget. Or with supermen from Alpha Centauri in charge of the programming. Or possibly with slave wages or indentured servants doing the work.

See what I did there? You made the assumption that the things you'd have liked to be better were caused by a lack of gamer feedback or lack of polishing; errors that you think should have been corrected.

But there's no evidence available to us that indicates that this is the cause of the game's deficiencies. We don't know how much feedback they received, we don't know how much polishing was done within the relevant constraints. And constraints are always relevant. You could just as well, as I just did, make the assumption that the development team, working on a bargain rate game, deliberately focused on a narrow set of features and worked on making those perform as well as they could within the budget allocated.

And that is, fundamentally, my assumption. That the goal was to deliver a simple beer & pretzels fantasy wargame in the tradition of Master of Magic using the IP of Majesty developed on a moderately short development cycle and selling at a cheap price point. And if I'm right, then they succeeded spectacularly.

But whether I am right or not, the one thing you should never, ever, do is start topics discussing the participation of beta testers, questioning their actions, about which you know nothing, or blaming them for the state of a game!
 
As you answered me directly, some words to you:

I´ve been beta tester for about 20 games, almost strategy games. Strategy games live of the diversity of their content, of the challenge the game is offering and the depth of the game mechanics!

A good and involved beta tester will always give feedback to the devs also about balancing issues, game mechanics and so on. And my experience showed me, that most developers will hear that and at least change certain things if the feedback of the testers is big enough. I have many examples to proof this.
And normally the contract is lifted after the official release of a game which bounded the testers to not to talk about it!
I don´t blame the testers but still wonder that many things have gone final as they are, because if I would have played the game many hours as beta tester, there would have been elemental game designs and issues to be critized. Maybe they did and the devs didn´t lend them an ear.

After all the product is surely not bad at all, but certain things should be a "must have" for the final product and as you can see with the last patches, they still implement certain things - due to players feedback ?
 
A good and involved beta tester will always give feedback to the devs also about balancing issues, game mechanics and so on. And my experience showed me, that most developers will hear that and at least change certain things if the feedback of the testers is big enough. I have many examples to proof this.
And normally the contract is lifted after the official release of a game which bounded the testers to not to talk about it!
I don´t blame the testers but still wonder that many things have gone final as they are, because if I would have played the game many hours as beta tester, there would have been elemental game designs and issues to be critized. Maybe they did and the devs didn´t lend them an ear.
And maybe the developers did respond and did make significant improvements and the issues you see are the result of those improvements having had less time to be tested. Or it may have been some features were delivered towards the end of the beta test, so there was limited time to get feedback and then respond and test any changes.

In my experience it is normal for an NDA to continue to restrict discussion of what happened in the beta test, or publication of materials provided as part of that beta test even after the product is released.
 
As you answered me directly, some words to you:

I´ve been beta tester for about 20 games, almost strategy games. Strategy games live of the diversity of their content, of the challenge the game is offering and the depth of the game mechanics!
Then you should well know that you don't question what beta testers have been doing in public, and especially not in an accusatory fashion, which is exactly what you did when you posted a thread with the title: "Beta testers - what did they do all the time ?"!