For those of you who have been through a Stardock-run game beta program, welcome back. You know what you're in for so most of this will be just like what you've heard from us before.

But for those of you who haven't ever gone through a Stardock game beta, this post is designed to get your expectations ready.

Sins of a Solar Empire Beta 1 Objectives:

The goal of beta 1 is for us to test out the game engine. How well does it run on a wide range of PCs? How is the perfomance? How is compatibility?

There has been much discussion on galciv2.com by players who note that our games usually require few "patches" to fix major bugs. This is why. We release publicly the games during early beta to nail down these issues long before it hits the shelves. 

These days, many "beta" programs are little more than late-term demos designed with marketing in mind as well as nailing down final balancing issues.  That's not what this beta is for.

There will be at least 3 major beta releases. Possibly 4 depending on how well public feedback is.

There are no NDAs involved. If you don't like what we're doing, tell us.  We do not require NDAs precisely because we don't want you to feel any constraints on giving feedback. 

Most of you have no doubt played games where you later hear the beta testers didn't think the game was ready for release but they were stuck under NDA.  I've never seen an example where the beta testers were wrong.

Beta 1 specifics

In beta 1, it's a single player game. The multiplayer functionality has been disabled. The reason for this is because many game mechanics "work fine" when you're playing against another human on-line. People will work around problematic design decisions. But in the real world, the single player experience has to be good and so we want players to be able to tell us what issues they run into.

Beta 1 only has one of the 3 factions in it. The other two are currently disabled. They'll come in later when we've sorted out things with engine compatibility, performance, etc.

Setting Expectations

Those who were in any of the GalCiv betas know that the early betas for these games aren't very fun. I don't expect Sins to be any different. Think of your favorite PC RTS of all time. Starcraft, Total Annihiation, etc.  Imagine if in Starcraft you ran out of crystals very quickly. Imagine if in TA if the commander didn't have a Dgun how "rushing" might have gone.  It only takes a few little tweaks to turn a classic game into disaster.

That doesn't mean we don't want to get your feedback on game mechanics, but what we mostly need to find out from you for beta 1 is how well the game runs on your computer and how stable it is for you.

If you'd like to see our Galactic Civilizations II beta schedule to see how that went click below:

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=162&aid=64347

Here is what was posted about beta 1 and 2 of Galactic Civilizations II:

March: Beta 1
Goal: Compatibility and performance.  How well does the new 3D engine work? Does it blow up on people? What hardare issues will people have?
Feedback we need: If it doesn't run on your computer or has some problem, we need to know your hardware specifications, what OS you're running, etc.
Feedback we DON'T need: Spelling errors, complaints about missing features, "suggestions" on UI, complaints about game balancing or "that it's not fun" (beta 1 won't be fun, we'll make it our business to ensure it's not fun in order to keep focus on the compatibility and performance ). "This game sucks, where's the starbases? Where are the fleets? I hate to say this but this is a big step backwards from GalCiv 1. Perhaps you should read up on about the differences between 'alphas' and 'betas' and think over your obvious ignorance on basic software development. I'll check back in a few months to see if you'e managed to cobble together a decent game but I won't count on it. In the meantime, I'll be on Usenet and IRC making sure everyone knows you guys suck."

May: Beta 2
Goal: Performance/Compatibility still. But now with the focus moving towards user interface design. Is the UI looking okay? Is it intuitive? Are the basic game mechanics easy to figure out? Can you play the game without needing a manual (the game will have a manual but a well designed game shouldn't need much of one)
Feedback we need: Suggestions/complaints on UI. Crashing issues. Performance and compatibility.
Feedback we DON'T need: Spelling errors, complaints about missing features, , complaints about game balancing or "that it's not fun" (beta 2 should be playable but it won't be balanced yet). "First off, you spelled 'manufacturing' as 'manufaturing'. Secondly, I can't believe that a capital ship only takes 4 months to build but a fighter take 3 months. Hello? Why bother with a fighter?"