If I were a games designer

 

I’m not.

But if I were.

(But I’m not)

If I were a games designer and I was running an open beta of my latest iteration of my table top skirmish war game I would give access to a very small portion of it. Why?  Well because open betas are not previews of the game.  They serve a purpose.

It’s clear from the (very generous number of) blogs we’ve seen so far that Malifaux 4th edition has some pretty wide reaching comprehensive changes to a number of core aspects of the game. Core aspects. Those are important.

So I would want to test those core aspects first. I’d want the wider public to focus on those central pillars of the edition first and less so on the bit they’re actually clamouring to see: their keywords/factions cards.

What I would do is only give folk enough information to test those core aspects. Maybe only a couple keywords worth of information. Maybe only the old m3e starter sets.  Enough to test the important bits but not ruin the surprise.

Tl;dr open betas are not full previews. They serve a purpose. 

Then again last time they showered everyone everything and I’m not a games designer (As I mentioned)