On May 19th we held an early private Beta for Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online. While the number of beta testers for this first Beta was relatively small, we were able to come away with some great feedback from the group. The first Beta focused heavily on our core gameplay and technology, allowing our testers to get a feel for the overall Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online experience. As a development team, it was very helpful to watch the play trends of our test group. We tracked and recorded many different statistics throughout the beta period which helped us make decisions about what to focus on for Beta 2.
Some interesting stats from Beta 1:
• The most holes played by a single user over the 12 day Beta period was 367 holes or 20 rounds of golf.
• In total 454 rounds of golf were started and 232 rounds of golf were completed during the Beta period.
• The most holes completed in a single day by a single user was 101 or almost 6 rounds of golf.
• The best score recorded on the leaderboards was a 51.
• The longest drive was 305.52 yards and the longest putt was 35.51 feet.
Community activity was high during the Beta period; our Forums generated 126 topics and 501 posts in 12 days. Most who participated were passionate about the game and seemed to genuinely want to help us track down issues and refine the experience. I can’t thank this group enough as they have provided us with some great insight and helped make the first Beta a success.
As we get ready to launch Beta 2, I just wanted to give you all a quick preview of the updates and features you can expect for the next release. If you haven’t yet signed up for the Beta, visit our website by clicking on the image below:
Signing up is easy and participating in the Beta is a great opportunity to take an active role in the development of an EA SPORTS game. Beta 2, which opens on July 7th, is set to be much larger in size than our initial Beta. We plan to give out around 5,000 Beta invitations to beta candidates who have signed up over the past few weeks. If you’re not chosen to participate in Beta 2, don’t be discouraged. There will be a larger Beta towards the end of the summer and an Open Beta in early fall. In Beta 2, we’ll be introducing a host of new features and new content. Below is a listing of some of what you can expect to see in Beta2:
Career Progression – in the initial Beta, everyone played as Tiger Woods with maxed out skills. In Beta 2, you’ll be able to start your own career as an amateur level golfer and build up your skills over time. With the new career system, you’ll earn money by playing good golf and then you’ll be able to spend that cash to upgrade your skills and improve your game.
Swing Trainer – essential to every professional golfer’s skillset is his or her ability to perfect every element of their swing for each shot type they need to perform while out on the course. Exclusively for Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online, the Swing Trainer breaks down your golf swing into several components based on the different shot types you need to master (full, pitch, chip, putt, etc.). You’ll also be able to unlock new shot types and abilities throughout your career.
Course Mastery – In golf, you compete against the environment and we wanted to capture that unique feeling in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online. Each course has its own characteristics and its own series of challenges that you’ll need to take on to become a Course Legend. As you master each course, you’ll unlock the ability to change the difficulty of that course including more challenging tees and pins, wind speed, fairway/green speeds, etc. Taking on courses with higher difficult settings increases the rewards you’ll earn for scoring well while playing on those courses.
New Courses – In the last Beta, the only playable course was TPC Sawgrass. For Beta 2 we will include both TPC Sawgrass and the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Links as playable courses. There may even be a surprise to come during the Beta on the courses front. Stay tuned for more info!
We plan on releasing some new content and possibly launching an additional feature during the next Beta as well. Since our plan is to create a new content delivery system for Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online, we’ll want to test our ability to dynamically update the game on the fly. Our help/support web portal will also be active during Beta 2 and will contain a game guide as well as answers to frequently asked questions. This portal will be frequently updated with more information throughout the Beta. We’re also introducing a new way for beta testers to submit bugs to us. Instead of relying solely on the forums, we’ll provide a web form that can be accessed both on the site and in the game which allows beta testers to select a bug category and enter details about the issue they encountered. This feature will greatly improve our ability to track and resolve issues during and after the Beta.
Hopefully this quick overview has given you some insight into what to expect from the next Beta. Of course, we’ll still have all of the original features that were included in the previous Beta such as 3-Click, the EA SPORTS Communication Bar (which has been improved and updated), Friends Lists, Leaderboards, Forums, etc. If you would like to be a part of this exciting new Tiger Woods PGA TOUR experience, please sign up now. There are still some open slots for Beta 2.
Hope to see you there!
-Greg