Team Fortress 2 closed beta created for balancing purposes

Valve, in its never-ending quest to support Team Fortress 2 until the End Times, has opened a closed beta for its team-based shooter. Secluded from normal play, this beta uses specially selected clans and competitive players to test new TF2 features before they go live.

"The TF2 Beta is something we've just started running," said Valve's Robin Walker to Shacknews. "It's aimed at filling a hole in TF2's iterative development model."

"To iterate effectively, we need to be able to measure the impact of our changes," he said. "Up until now we've been successful at measuring that impact on the non-competitive TF2 community, because we have good internal proxies for it--the TF2 team itself, plus other internal and external playtesters."

"Our proxies for the high end competitive play aren't as good, and that's lead to us making some design decisions that have hurt it."

Walker also emphasized that casual players haven't lost any stock here; rather, the beta has been created in hopes of balancing tweaks for both casual and competitive players.

More through the link.