Open beta releases could have suicide procedures built in -- self-termination after a certain date, after a certain number of hours or frames etc. etc. Considering that codebreakers like nothing more than a challenge, the encryption in IL2 stood up pretty well and securing a beta is a much easier job. Plus it could be radically stripped down, omitting much of the actual content.
It's a good idea if you ask me, though whether it's worth the hassle is anybody's guess -- testers would need to work on reproducing problems reliably and make sure they're not logging duplicate bugs etc.
Team Daidalos has demonstrated that community involvement needn't compromise either quality or 1C's commercial interests.
dduff
|