Yes and no.
It was a suggestion to have a separate forum to make the finished betas easier to identify and hopefully get more feedback for them if required. But yes, the full game is required to be beta tested on the forums one way or the other 
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Hmmm… i have the impression that certain “fans” or readers seem to think that Hosted Games is (i use the term " is" because Hosted Games should be a brand in singular term) producing low-quality online story?
I have to disagree with that, because the 2 online stories which capture my imagination recently and whose 2 stories which i most cherish are from Hosted Games. “Vampire House” and “The Great Tournament”…
I did notice there were / are grammatical mistakes occasionally, but these didn’t affect the overall presentation at all. What is most important for a Good story-telling is its essence of imagination that can “lure” readers into its realm of fantasy… i suspect that sometimes, during the course of writing/typing the story our mind is / was wandering so fast that we really don’t have time to come out with the correct “words” or grammar to describe the happenings in our world, the thing is …if we slow down and start to reconsider a word, these imagination plus happenings will fly away , and lost forever…
So i can understand , and respect the authors from the Hosted Games who manage to come out with the “wave” of imagination that lure my mind into it…when one is fully mesmerised by the story telling of a realm, does “language” or even “words” really matter? There are some philosophies who suggest that the usage of “words” or “language” is actually “primitive” as compare to the “image” that appear in our mind, when we truly love someone or trust someone, do we need “words” to describe how we love or trust that person ? one hint of smirk, smile and wink is enough for us to understand what is truly happening… For a good story to totally bind us to its happening, we don’t really need to read it word by word or consider its grammar at all, because the events of the story will be transform into action that flow so fast that with a mere peek of certain words will enable us to imagine the happenings of the story, i feel that if we really read a book/ story word by word and considering its grammar , it will totally takes away the joy of imagination or the joy of essence from the story…
Hence, i believe that any form of stricter moderation regarding the English words or grammar will only take away the good/excellent/authentic imagination of a good author because he/she will be overburden with constant moderation of his/her own writing/typing… needless to say the flow of mind for an author will be bind/slow down and hence the quality of his/ her master work will be affected
I think as long as an author is able to bring his/her readers into a realm of exciting imagination, that is good enough, readers don’t have to consider the story with word by word cross examination… we just need to let the action flow in our mind, form the events which we see it fit and just enjoy the realm of imagination…we don’t need every words in the book or every good grammar to constantly tell us what is actually happening inside the imaginative world
By the way, as i mention before… Vampire House and The Great Tournament are my best online stories thus far, i am not sure whether their grammatical errors deserve the attention, but these 2 stories manage to capture the best imagination of a reader like me with its lovable stories where i actually “care” for the characters inside …
I can only imagine that if their grammatical errors had been “filter” by further moderation, the pace of the stories may had been affected and the authors may lost track to some of the wonderful things in his/her mind
Haven’t really got anything new to say, but that last post kinda made me think of Noam Chomsky and the idea that different languages alter our perception on reality, hence why certain concepts have specific words in certain languages and not others(German being an obvious example) so I think language can be important in a game as Mara said she uses Spanish metaphors and such, not too familiar with Spanish but in that case, yeah I doubt many strictly English speakers would get them, simply because our language doesn’t allow for it.
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Yupe i agree on your point there…
and i want to take example of a scene where a protagonist think (in his mind ) where he loves a girl and hence he rush out to catch her immediately , because he is worry about her safety…
Now, i understand that there can be multiple writing / descriptions using a good english grammar/text regarding it… but for an author with a poorer control of english, maybe he/she couldn’t find the suitable words and grammar to fully “perfected” the scene… should we require all authors to apply a good flowery English with good grammar to describe it? We already understand the exact scene and feeling of the protagonist at that point… so we can just imagine the scene in our mind, based on our own adaptation towards it… a too overly detail of the scene with “perfect” words will only limit our perception towards the whole scene…
anyway, what i am trying to say was, we shouldn’t over moderate / filter the story of an author with poorer command of English… If the author’s story is not accepted by all, the rating will be able to justify it… and we can always visit the forum and read what was that story all about… Good story will of course be discuss here and gain its own attention/discussion
That’s not what I was suggesting, and I’m not in favor of over-moderation of hosted games either 
Basically the author is still in control of what changes they choose to make. I think the point being made is it would be nice to have a way to help authors correct things like this:
The Ordeal of bagging a room behind, you finaly get some much needed time to take a breather. Your mind calm and the rush fading, you ponder upon the situation. A look around you shows an array of emotions, from angry pupils rushing to embrace thier freedom to saddned faces of the ones saying goodbyes to thier falimies before starting a new phase away from them.
You now finally asses your own emotions, you feel,
Ok so: Ordeal, bagging, finaly, thier (x2), saddned, falimies, “ponder upon”, freedom"," and feel":"
That’s a number of spelling and grammar issues for a single section of text. They could be fixed without changing the intent of the author.
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Oh… In that case I agree with you:-)
It is meant to help them as well … So it will be a good idea:-)
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Well, it’s not “completely impossible” to quantify. It would actually be pretty easy to quantify. However, it would require either more policing by CoG (unlikely to be worth their time) or just the honors system. Anyway, it could be required that, let’s say, 10 beta testers review a game. And that’s actually too low, but it’s just a completely arbitrary number that just popped into my head.
I mean, “beta testing” doesn’t mean anything if 3 people looked over portions of the game. There needs to be some bare minimum level of feedback to make it actually productive. I think we’ve all read HGs and wondered, “how many people actually looked at this before it was published?”
And I’m speaking from experience. Someone may have referenced me earlier (although they didn’t mention me by name), but I had about 80-90 beta testers for CCH Part 1 and STILL dozens of errors were present in the published game. And yes, it was embarrassing. I’m just saying that a handful of beta testers just won’t be able to accomplish much in terms of quality control.
And here’s an idea, moderators, could we add a “Final Beta Testing” category on the forums? It could be an easy place for writers to post their requests for final beta testers, especially if their WiPs haven’t been very busy. Also, it would allow forum users to easily search for authors who are asking for final level beta testing.
It can sometimes be hard to differentiate between threads asking for “ongoing beta testing” versus “final beta testing.” Some folks like giving ongoing feedback in a WiP thread, but I’m sure there are many other forum users who would much prefer to just review the final product and find typos, suggest minor tweaks, and get to read a pretty much finished game.
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Here we disagree - beta testing will make or break a game - that is true but quantity of “testers” is a less-than-optimum measure. The quality and backgrounds of the testers matter more then anything. If one of your testers is a professional editor and he/she provides grammar feedback, that one tester can count as 50 casual readers who are only in the beta to read the game for free,
This is a great idea but it runs the danger of fracturing the community’s beta testing into two or more statuses. It is bad enough that there is “official” beta testers (beta-tester-extraordinaire) and the rest of the masses but if you purposefully divide the public testing then you run the risk of further stratification.
I believe this is more an issue of the author/developer not knowing how to conduct testing. Most people have no idea how to form an effective test or how to run multiple tests except through experience. Educating the developer/author should be a priority here.
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But would that really increase the quality of beta testing? I think not. More people doesn’t mean better testing, it just means more people. Look at the open betas, tons of people read them, but authors usually prefer to go to private beta testing in the late stages of their projects, mainly because the quality and commitment of the testers is much higher. Of course a low number doesn’t work. But as you said, 80 beta testers and still dozens of errors. Wouldn’t be much better if you had 30 beta testers working really hard to help you? As @Eiwynn said:
I was trying to express that reality, sorry if I didn’t made my point completely clear.
I don’t know if that is a good solution. Would people really be more willing to help? Or would it just attract even more lurkers? And if you make it a restricted forum (only to beta testers extraordinaire or something like that) it would eliminate the possible contribution from other people.
@adrao’s solution seems better. Creating an unofficial and highly committed group of testers that would work mainly in private beta testing, in order to go through the different games at their later stages. I am not a native English speaker, but I would be very willing to join a group of that kind, pitching in to the best of my abilities in as many areas as possible.
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Agreed that there are no perfect fixes, but you know I’m in Camp HG Could Use Some Tightening Up.
Or Camp HGCUSTU. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
I think offering a “Final Beta Testing” Category could possibly help match writers needing final beta testers with forum users who are willing to perform final beta testing. I’m trying to be pragmatic - it wouldn’t require any extra work by CoG, it would take virtually no time or money to implement, and it uses resources we already have. It would just provide a ‘place’ to help writers and testers better find each other.
Educating writers on how to organize beta testing, while a good idea, is not something that can be implemented overnight. Someone has to do the education. And the writers have to be willing to let themselves be educated.
EDITED TO ADD:
And @ruhenri, our comments posted at the same time.
Regarding this:
@adrao’s solution seems better. Creating an unofficial and highly committed group of testers that would work mainly in private beta testing, in order to go through the different games at their later stages. I am not a native English speaker, but I would be very willing to join a group of that kind, pitching in to the best of my abilities in as many areas as possible.
Where are these testers going to come from? Yes there are loads of talented, creative people on the forum, but the one resource few of them have is time. Most of them are working on their own stories too. I just don’t see how anyone would collect such a Dream Team to actually consistently test proposed HG games. But maybe I’m wrong and such a group is possible.
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There are other things which will come up as well. Many people get burned out beta-testing a game and I’m not just talking CoG (The AAA industry is really bad with this). Whether large or small, most people only will stick around to a certain point, and then leave.
And even if they aren’t burned out, there is a good chance a beta-tester may not find additional errors, especially in material they’ve been over 2-3 times, and their brain starts automatically filtering certain things out.
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That only will cause a new segregation of beta testers. And the authors saying sorry you aren’t a good tester where is you beta extraordinary title. I only accept criticism from them" (real life response)
I love testing games and I should not be so bad because people still asking me for help. But I can’t testing new games I would because the toxic people. Each critical thinking. Ends in an up roar calling me mean things. I had to explain twenty times in a row No I am not a troll. I am tired of it. I have seen being published games with fails Epic in plot and concept knowing they will sell terrible. But What I have to suffering a public hanging around for show the problems?
It is even funnier when I am one private tester for years of the author I am supposedly trolling.
This forum is becoming increasingly more toxic. Toxic is not good for testing purposes.
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Just to make something clear, I was NOT suggesting a new type of “badge” (like the "Beta Tester Extraordinaire) or anything for certain beta testers. I was suggesting a forum Category called Final Beta Testing. I don’t see how that would fragment anything, but since at least two people have said it could, I wanted to respond to that.
It would just make calls for final beta testers more “clickable” and easier to find. Isn’t that the point of categories - to help make certain topics easier to find?
And I guess I’ll leave it at this - I think the most pragmatic “fix” is to use existing resources (writers, testers) and try to help them better find each other, and perhaps to educate writers on how to get the most help from testers.
I don’t know that it’s realistic to expect a surge of committed beta testers to appear out of nowhere, and we already know that neither the writers nor CoG can afford professional editing. So we work with what we have.
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Heh, the battle cry of the indie dev…you have to make do with what you have (I mean this in a good way).
Sometimes I do miss features which could also make beta-testing easier.
sighs I know when it comes to CoG stuff, what I would really like is a save feature, at least if beta-testing. I understand their reasoning for the final product not having a save feature (for most games) even if I don’t agree with it.
But if I’m trying multiple branches/multiple paths, especially on a large work, I don’t want to have to slog through 15-20 minutes to test each choice half-way in a game. At least when it is released on Steam, I can do the whole copy/paste/replace thing for the choices.
Of course, a major change/fix will necessitate starting from the beginning, and there is nothing wrong with it. However, if one can minimize the time to start over, though, then a beta tester will be more effective.
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That could be great if is closed to people who has signed on or for regulars. People who replies and give real feedback. And not well I did not say anything about it because I don’t want discourage You. Or the infamous It is ok I had good time.
A group that has fun but doesn’t spam over and over pics of a stupid girl fdom a tv show calling dumb other people trying to share its opinions.
And certainly not people asking same over and over, and over againm when the same wip title says Yes there is certain error or the public link is closed.
I certainly would participate on more wips If that’s a thing. Nowadays I only post in thread I know the author and have their permission. Each time I tried otherwise. I end trolled.
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@ruhenri, @Eric_Moser, I think what you are both talking about isn’t really different. My “club of writers” could exist within this new tab that Eric proposes, which we could just make available to members of the forums who distinguish themselves from providing very good advice (I know I’ve had a few people in TW who provided very good feedback, while there are certainly many “lurkers” -nothing even that wrong, it is all a community, and lurkers can suddenly become very active and the fade back into lurking). Essentially, this tab could be (stress on that) private (as in, only open to “members of the club”) and constitute an official final level of scrutiny.
And, also to stress, I am not saying that this final check should be a form of censorship (as an author, you get the feedback, and you ignore it at your own peril…) If an author gets extensive help during the beta testing process, I think it would be appreciated? (I mean, I am of the opinion that I cannot get enough help, so I would be happy to know that a group of committed authors/great reviewers give me advice, point out typos, help me with grammar, etc). So, essentially this “Forum Category” that Eric proposed could be private (I think it would be better that way, along the lines of what @poison_mara just posted while I was writing this), and open only to CoG authors AND members of the community known to give good and constructive criticism. That would then be an “extra beta” part of the process. I would LOVE to have that for my own games, and would love to test the finished games of others (normal WIPS still have a place, to allow authors to get feedback while writing the game, etc… I also love my normal WIPs!)
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That’s something for Choice of Games to decide, not the moderators. We don’t have the ability to add new categories to the forum.
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Jason just added a new category specifically for #hosted-games-betas, so when your game is complete and you’re ready for that final step, you can submit it to us, and put in the dedicated category. As production can take a while, and it’s entirely possible to continue beta testing through most of it, up basically until the final week or so, this will mean that it will be clearly marked as in final beta while it’s pending assets and release.
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Does this mean a public beta for a completed and submitted work is necessary, or can use that sub-forum to coordinate private betas and limited run betas as well?