I first read about D&DB on dnd.wizards.com and fully expected to have to wait about a month at least before the beta would go live. This is normally why they put up email address fields on those pages: Because people forget about it after some time if nothing happens and want to be reminded when the time comes.
But D&DB beta phase one went live only about a week after the first announcement. I would guess, that this was not originally planned. WotC got a lot of flak for the announcement, so they surely felt pressured to show the public something. Curse on the other hand had likely been working on this tool for quite some time already. The original plan might have been to test the tool as a whole later, but since the compendium and listing was fully functional already, there was the possibility to split the beta into phases with the working parts as phase one, which is what they did.
Opening the beta that soon had the benefit of shutting up many of the doubters, since D&DB shows a lot of promise even in the first stage. It also has the benefit for the developers to receive early input from the community. But on the other side there is the disadvantage of momentum loss. Although Curse had been far into the development of the other phases already, they were not ready yet. If my interpretation of the events is correct and they did in fact not originally plan to have different phases, it was a guessing game what will be ready "soon" enough to count as phase two. BadEye told us, that phases two and three will most likely release in short succession, which is further evidence of a plan to release D&DB as a whole rather than in phases.
I believe that the phased release of D&DB is already a compromise between the need to show something and the need to have a fully working useful tool. Releasing phase two too early would compromise the reason why phase one was released in the first place: To show that Curse is capable of developing an official digital companion for D&D and that it will not be another failure. Phase two must be polished and fully working to further that goal and not lose sympathy. The lost momentum due to the felt delay after the quick release of phase one is a minor drawback in that greater context.
TL;DR: There are bigger boats to miss than this one.
I believe the answer is not to criticize the lengthy release of Phase 2, but to be thankful for the existing access to Phase 1. It is easy to justify feelings of entitlement by citing hype, lack of testing content, or state/progress of final product, but keep in mind that this service has yet been of no charge, and is under no obligation to meet a user-defined beta schedule.
I am not one to blindly wave the flag of development nor cheerlead their whims. What I am observing is a company working hard to complete a project with set criteria, while end-users demand more testable content with faster release. None of the content requires public testing, and the quality standards for testing release is determined by project leads, not the tester. Please keep a broader perspective of not only what this process actually entails and how businesses operate, but how many end-users truly react when "testing" a product that may not be fully ready.
Cease and desist order received and understood! ;-)
I first read about D&DB on dnd.wizards.com and fully expected to have to wait about a month at least before the beta would go live. This is normally why they put up email address fields on those pages: Because people forget about it after some time if nothing happens and want to be reminded when the time comes.
But D&DB beta phase one went live only about a week after the first announcement. I would guess, that this was not originally planned. WotC got a lot of flak for the announcement, so they surely felt pressured to show the public something. Curse on the other hand had likely been working on this tool for quite some time already. The original plan might have been to test the tool as a whole later, but since the compendium and listing was fully functional already, there was the possibility to split the beta into phases with the working parts as phase one, which is what they did.
Opening the beta that soon had the benefit of shutting up many of the doubters, since D&DB shows a lot of promise even in the first stage. It also has the benefit for the developers to receive early input from the community. But on the other side there is the disadvantage of momentum loss. Although Curse had been far into the development of the other phases already, they were not ready yet. If my interpretation of the events is correct and they did in fact not originally plan to have different phases, it was a guessing game what will be ready "soon" enough to count as phase two. BadEye told us, that phases two and three will most likely release in short succession, which is further evidence of a plan to release D&DB as a whole rather than in phases.
I believe that the phased release of D&DB is already a compromise between the need to show something and the need to have a fully working useful tool. Releasing phase two too early would compromise the reason why phase one was released in the first place: To show that Curse is capable of developing an official digital companion for D&D and that it will not be another failure. Phase two must be polished and fully working to further that goal and not lose sympathy. The lost momentum due to the felt delay after the quick release of phase one is a minor drawback in that greater context.
TL;DR: There are bigger boats to miss than this one.
I believe the answer is not to criticize the lengthy release of Phase 2, but to be thankful for the existing access to Phase 1. It is easy to justify feelings of entitlement by citing hype, lack of testing content, or state/progress of final product, but keep in mind that this service has yet been of no charge, and is under no obligation to meet a user-defined beta schedule.
I am not one to blindly wave the flag of development nor cheerlead their whims. What I am observing is a company working hard to complete a project with set criteria, while end-users demand more testable content with faster release. None of the content requires public testing, and the quality standards for testing release is determined by project leads, not the tester. Please keep a broader perspective of not only what this process actually entails and how businesses operate, but how many end-users truly react when "testing" a product that may not be fully ready.
Just lo link this:
http://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/beta-testing-feedback/3125-beta-report-first-60-days?comment=38