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Hello there,

Seeing how many topics about different variants of "why im not invited" pop-up lately, I want to make one thing clear; alpha tests (no matter of what game) aren't as much fun as it seems for the people "outside".

Alpha-stage builds of the game clients are almost always heavily lacking content, buggy, unstable, unoptimized, lacking graphical bells'n'whistles. List goes on. They are meant for testing and searching for bugs, minor and major, not having tons of fun. Sure, being an alpha tester is an honour and being hyped for a new, promising game is normal, but from my own experience I know that a vast majority of people crying for an invite usually get annoyed/bored and stop contributing after a day or two. And this annoys me.

Let me give you an example; as a member of Combat Testing (on-line community cooperating with some game studios, including EA related ones) I was one of the first ~500 people on the planet (outside DICE) to lay my hands on Battlefield: Bad Company 2. We had access to an late-alpha build and our own dedicated server (passworded ofc) up around the clock. Was it fun from a gamer perspective? Nope, it wasn't. It was searching for holes in the map with entire teams walking across it side by side, trying to reproduce crashes step by step to report when they occur, fighting with hellish frame-rate issues, reinstalling drivers every 2 days and tons of other activities that I wouldn't call "playing the game".

Yeah, it was satisfying in a wicked kind of way, even tho we knew that we are basically working for DICE for free, but we were all members of CT; hence people who know how this type of testing looks like and what to expect. The truth is that majority of game companies use the terms "BETA" and "testing" for pure marketing purposes (ie. "beta" translates to "free 2 weeks trial pre-launch"), and because of that a LOT of people imagine fully working and polished products. It's not appropriate.

So, if after reading this with understanding you still want to join the alpha so bad that it needs its own topic I hope you will get invited

Regards,
n

Hi...

Good words. Thanks. I appreciate your work I understood and... just want to try out, how it is smelling. And I think more players in/out more experience and the game start (I hope) faster.

No offense.

Regards

Sorry for my English

col_Kurtz, on 02 March 2012 - 01:48 AM, said:

Hey, hey. It's not about me or how CT-related people are awesome because they format their systems 5 times a week during testing. I just want some of the folks on this forums to understand what they are asking for. I've seen it a lot of times already, guys going like "omg invite me please", and asked few days later why aren't they logging in saying something like "it freezes my PC and it's boring". But you are right - more people = more potential dedicated testers (not to mention more PC configs).

Your english is fine and no offense taken Cheers o/

n0way, on 02 March 2012 - 01:56 AM, said:

As I said - wrote. I understood very well and clear your intention mate I can imagine this boring "job": Jesus, at last, I can play and...     BSOD on my screen
Now I can imagine how it`s looks.
Thanks.

So I gathered from your post, alpha tests are buggy and not fun. Thanks bro.

Laughter, on 02 March 2012 - 02:10 AM, said:

Alpha tests are fun for people who enjoy testing WIP products (like me), but usually not very fun to play, yes. Now tell me; you managed to get this 2 informations from my post, what value your post has?

Oh, and I'm not your bro, bro  

n0way, on 02 March 2012 - 02:24 AM, said:

I forgot to mention how annoyed I was when I invited some 1PAD guys to the sueprtest and they logged in only when a new patch was released, or when a lot of leaked stuff was posted on your news website , I really loved spending my free time cleaning that up bro  

Anyway I'm not going to bring back the past, onwards to the future... WoWP.

I don't think SHE "laughter" is yer bro either (says female in Gender)  



On Topic: You are right. Been there, done that, many times (Crimson skies, Mechcommander, Mechwarrior, and some other odd niche games) and actually, in a perverse way alpha tesing can be fun....sometimes though, after the game is finished and you have seen nothing but this game in various stages of development, well, you need a vacation!

Sooooo, be chilly is what our intrepid Alpha tester is trying to say, those of us not in the testing yet are not missing out all that much, and besides, it will soon be a better build with more testers and more function! Yippeee!



Oh, and neither noway nor laughter are my bro.

Laughter, on 02 March 2012 - 02:43 AM, said:

Yeah, but I'm not the people who you invited or who leaked the changelogs; this people no longer have ST access, and - as far as I know - one guy got banned. And what? It makes me responsible because I'm a member or was the CL? I don't think so, but if it will make you feel better - sorry for that.

On a side note - lets not bring this old 1PAD vs PTS crap here. Truth be told, I'm sick of it.

Sgt_Bones, on 02 March 2012 - 02:47 AM, said:

He is a guy, we kinda "know" each other from WoT for around 2 years by now.

Woah, noway, you not see smileyface???? I know who Laughter is! LOL!!  You could have picked up on it and said "I ain't yer bro, Sis!"

Oh well, you lost yer chance!

Sgt_Bones, on 02 March 2012 - 02:55 AM, said:

Damn fail is fail, what can I say.

I work as a software tester, so testing WoWP would have been 2x fun for me since I love planes and I love testing software. So yeh I'm quite mad on WG because one of the devs posted we would probably all get in, so I made some hopes of having what amounts to some really good fun for me. But alas this is probably the 100th time WG lets me down and it gets "better" every time. It is good that people that have no idea about testing, airplanes(google for the win) or who lie on their app get in. Nice... not their fault anyways, hope they have fun. All of these angry people is WG's fault for not posting updates on the acceptance process every day on the news page and properly explaining how their process works.

We will all get in soon.

i will wait for next 24h and this will be best from me. so i can say to all pilots  HAVE A NICE WARFLIGHTS. this game is nothing without RAF((Spitfire)as an example) in first battles becaus RAF is biggest luftwaffe opponent in first battles and you threw them like a bugs.....  SHAME ON YOU FOR RAF

PadyEos, on 02 March 2012 - 04:34 AM, said:

|
|
V
"Hello everyone,
Admission to testing takes a while because we have tens of thousands applications. I am sure you will get an invitation sooner or later. Hope you will join us. I will probably add everyone who submitted an application(of course if he/she had not written age 666 and other funny trolling lokes)

James."

.. so, you are mad at him for basically saying "you will get invited as long as you aren't a troll, but it takes time so just wait" ? Kinda rushed for someone whos work requires a lot of patience and regularity. I've been mad at WG quite often, but never over nothing.

*Edit*

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3 days RO

-Kikokeko-

Well said, that is exactly what Alpha testing is all about.
I been in so many tests for games and there are always people complaining how the game is unfinished. That just makes me laugh, since they are testing an unfinished game.

The reason why WG lets in small groups of testers is simple. They don't want to overload the server by letting over 100K people in at the same time.
They promised they would probably let almost everyone in eventually, so just be patient. If you can't be patient, alpha testing is not for you, because you often need a lot of patience when the game keeps crashing or constant getting the same bug etc.

n0way, on 02 March 2012 - 01:39 AM, said:

I agree to you 100%.
+1

Thing is though, there are people such as myself who know this and have been waiting longer than most people for it, and there are those that will not report bugs. That do think that it is a game and plan on playing it just like that and they get invited before those of us more trustworthy and reliable. They have already banned 4+ people due to them leaking footage. Its not like I plan to break the rules or just play the game without any feedback. Its more than just that too. If you look back in about 3-5 years and all World of Tanks, Warplanes, Battleships games are working to its full potentioal and are really good games, you'd remember than you were a part of it. That you helped. It may only be such a small part but that can still mean alot to some people. That's why I want to be in the Alpha testing. To help make this a better game franchise in the one way that I can.

I worked 3 years as a game tester and tested alot of different games. Most of them were single player games but still, it was a exciting job and I enjoyed my work. I usually only tested the "final versions" of the games, which were about to be released so I have to admit, that I don't know what testing a game in a Alpha-Stage means. Anyways I am really excited about testing this game and see the game growing and getting its "perfection" with the releases of different builds. In my job I had to test whatever they wanted me to test. So sometimes I had to test totally boring an retarded games. This time I choose to test or atleast offer WG to test this game.

Well, I didn't get access to the game yet but I am alright with beeing patient and hoping for access.

The forum creator made a good point...

And I do not want to get in for fun...

I want to contribute to th birth of a potentially blockbuster game...

We have some many players who are thinking like this: "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Let's fly planes daaaah deeeerp" (No offence intended for whom are thinking otherwise)

I think I made myself clear...

Hopefully I can contribute...

P.S.: It is outrageios, that little kids get in first 1 day after aplying... (I wait for alpha since last year October)