Guild Wars 2

Geikamir.6329:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Hylgeriak.8250:

I’d consider AP or played time a better measure to reward loyalty than just signing in to a mailing list

I’d consider gem store (cash) purchases a better measure of loyalty. AP and play time is a measure of available leisure time.

Unless they’re testing out making a couple clicks in the gem store, I think AP and play time are vastly more reflective on one’s ability to play through the game deeply.

But both are irrelevant when considering if they can be effective testers. They want players of all skill levels to balance correctly. Suitability is best determined by quality of bug reports and ability to give good feedback. Difficult to judge.

Either way it’ll be largely a lottery for now, they just want active players who sign up and are willing to try and don’t have a record of antagonism or cheating.

Sarie.1630:

Hylgeriak.8250:

I’d consider AP or played time a better measure to reward loyalty than just signing in to a mailing list

Honestly I read “customer loyalty” as “amount spent on GemStore”! :p

Don’t mind though. Fingers crossed.

all are a bad idea, you need both veteran and newbies in a beta to kitten the difficulty of something new.

bin in plenty of beta’s, some bad, some really good, some good at the start.
one thing i always love to do to beta’s like this, to exploit flaws in a map and see if i can get past walls and walk right through objects, best part is when i know a way to crash the game. :P

lordkrall.7241:

Terrahero.9358:

AP and playtime are just measures of leisure time. There are plenty of people who, due to real life constraints, only play a bit. But they’ve been on board since the start. Preordered the game to beta test and get the few day head start and anything.

And would those people really be good for beta testing? If you have limited time so that you could only play a bit, joining a beta and give feedback would probably not be such a good idea.

Why wouldn’t they? They are temporary events, not ongoing anyway. There are so many variables as to how much a player can play.
No doubt a bunch of people will get an invite who have no interest on beta testing, because they are so invested they want the “new feel” when HoT comes out.

Or they are so invested in GW2, maybe the leader of a WvW guild, they cannot afford to take time out to test a beta. They have zergs to lead.

And considering GW2 has a pretty large casual demographic of people who play bits, get their fun out of that time, and log out. Surely you want to bring those people into a test as well.
Designing a game just for the hardcore players is a very, very bad idea. Just look at Wildstar.

We did sign up. Not very likely to get in, but one must try. So happy it did not require 18 years of age. My daughter turns 17 this year.

Considering they said t hey are looking for stress testers for core parts of the expansion I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high… most early stress tests have you standing in a small area with a crap ton of other people not doing a whole lot. You probably won’t have access to masteries, or specializations, or revanent, or the story, or guild halls, or much of anything except the new zone that you are standing in.

I jumped at the idea. I love betas, and have participated in them for several games. As soon as I saw the announcement I made sure to sign up all my family’s accounts.

Then, this morning, I suddenly wondered whether I really want to. It’s not like this is an entire new game, where I won’t really scratch the surface during testing and will have plenty left to explore at launch. What if testing means it’s all old hat by release? And I’ve got plenty I still want to do in the core game in preparation for HoT. Time testing would take away from that.

Hm……

I’m just here to look at all of the comments of people arguing on who qualifies to play HoT when in the end, ANET will choose anybody they want. Reasonably they would choose people based on combined numerous variables such as: News letter registration, login and time investment into the game, monetary funds invested into the game, and who is active on the forums/social media.

Why? ANET wants to choose people that enjoy playing GW2 to the point where much time and money is invested (which is an indicator that player will purchase HoT and most likely enjoy it as well) then tell other people about their experiences in HoT thus start a chain of feedback discussions about the game via forums or YouTube for example.

I’m not ANET and I’m not speaking for ANET, but logically you’d want to choose players that have proved to be quite invested into the game and have done some reasonable amount of digging into HoT research to be “qualified” to participate in the CB test.

Signed up, I enjoyed GW2 betas , I hope I get in.

Delirious.9278:

I’m just here to look at all of the comments of people arguing on who qualifies to play HoT when in the end, ANET will choose anybody they want. Reasonably they would choose people based on combined numerous variables such as: News letter registration, login and time investment into the game, monetary funds invested into the game, and who is active on the forums/social media.

Why? ANET wants to choose people that enjoy playing GW2 to the point where much time and money is invested (which is an indicator that player will purchase HoT and most likely enjoy it as well) then tell other people about their experiences in HoT thus start a chain of feedback discussions about the game via forums or YouTube for example.

I’m not ANET and I’m not speaking for ANET, but logically you’d want to choose players that have proved to be quite invested into the game and have done some reasonable amount of digging into HoT research to be “qualified” to participate in the CB test.

Lol. I don’t know if one of the criteria should be frequency of posting on the forum. Some of the regular posters I’ve seen say they haven’t played in a long time and from their comments, seem to be in a love/hate relationship with the game. There are also many who are strongly invested in the game, but wild horses couldn’t drag them into posting here.

Biohazard.7523:

I would gladly test their beta product for 10$ per hour.
If they dont get enough participants they can contact me on this account.

People thinking that it’ll be measured by AP or play time: nope.

To find who is Chosen, they should have a GM in white armor parade around the game zones followed by a giant Eye encased in a transparent Prism that zaps nearby players with a laser. The players that don’t get knocked down are rounded up and herded into the new HoT zone…

Dav.9152:

To find who is Chosen, they should have a GM in white armor parade around the game zones followed by a giant Eye encased in a transparent Prism that zaps nearby players with a laser. The players that don’t get knocked down are rounded up and herded into the new HoT zone…

I see what you did there!

I’d like to get into beta, but I highly doubt I will. Originally I signed up with my primary email, which is not the email used for the game. I opted to re-signup for the newsletter with my game email lol, since they were taking active accounts into consideration.

Garambola.2461:

So happy it did not require 18 years of age. My daughter turns 17 this year.

Probably thanks to the lack of NDA. Contracts with minors are trickier.

I bet all those beta leak sites are peeved though…

I bought into the GW2-beta by pre-ordering. Had to buy the basic edition and the CE later, since the pre-order CE’s were sold out after 21 seconds.

Had a lot of fun with my friends in that beta. I still got a screen somewhere with our first beta-chars at the lake in Kessex Hills.

Would be nice to get picked for the beta and try out the new features.
For once in my life I’d like to get picked for a beta, not just because I bought it, but because I really got picked.
Sigh…I don’t think I got much hope regarding that.

tekfan.3179:

Sigh…I don’t think I got much hope regarding that.

Their beta FAQ specifically mentions stress tests. I live in a country which usually gets ignored for betas but even I got into a couple of GW2’s stress test beta weekends. So don’t give up hope

There’s something off with this beta. Based on the generic sign up page Anet is not looking for testers, but rather players to demo their client.

The closed beta’s, based on invite only, that happened before launch (before the beta weekends for those who pre-ordered as well) didn’t have NDA either iirc. We saw footage of these events on popular youtube channels.

Might give an idea as about what stage HoT is currently in if they are going into non-NDA beta, considering how diligently arenanet usually keeps new things under wraps.

I’m still not getting any newsletter email confirmation after applying 4-5 times and after adding all their email addresses to my contacts. Checked all my inboxes and spam, nothing there. But I received some e-mail from them in the last few days so I’m confused :\

nickcosta.8256:

I’m still not getting any newsletter email confirmation after applying 4-5 times and after adding all their email addresses to my contacts. Checked all my inboxes and spam, nothing there. But I received some e-mail from them in the last few days so I’m confused :\

Did you get a newsletter lately? Because I never received any confirmation with my game address yet I received the newsletter, so I assume I’m registered.

I dont expect to be chosen.

I guess that due the lack of NDA, they want the testers to actually talk and explain to the rest of the community what they are experiencing. And because of that, the tipical youtubers (aurora, bog, WP, matt vissual, angry joe, jebro…) are the ones i believe are ging to be chosen. In addition anet has treat those players specially well in the past (giving them exclusives for their channels, inviting them to their events, etc) so with them they have good reviews assured.

I guess that just players like most of us are out of the contest. But we’ll see.

I hope to be chosen. There’d be so many vids to make….

I won’t be chosen. I’ve been too critical in the past.

Apart from a few minor tweaks, I wouldn’t expect any major changes to what they have decided to do already.

Baldrick.8967:

I won’t be chosen. I’ve been too critical in the past.

Apart from a few minor tweaks, I wouldn’t expect any major changes to what they have decided to do already.

To be fair being critical in a constructive way is actually exactly what should be in the beta.

They made some rather major changes both to the original release and EotM based on beta feedback actually.

Terrahero.9358:

Probably mostly see press and youtubers get selected.

There will be no nondisclosure agreements for these beta tests. Those of you who are selected as testers will be free to talk about your experiences and to post streams and videos of the content you play.

It seems they want to bring out info on the game during the closed beta. So I don’t think your AP counts nearly as much as the amount of viewers you have on your stream.

I think it’s more likely they’re not having an NDA so they don’t have to enforce an NDA.

It’s pretty meaningless unless someone at Anet can commit to searching for leaks, tracking down the person responsible and taking action against them (which could range from identifying and banning their account to actual legal action). That’s a lot of time and effort.

I think it’s more likely the beta will be very restrictive – we won’t have all the maps, won’t have access to all the masteries, won’t be able to play the whole story etc. and they’ll make sure everything that is included is stuff they are happy for everyone to see.

Danikat.8537:

Terrahero.9358:

Probably mostly see press and youtubers get selected.

There will be no nondisclosure agreements for these beta tests. Those of you who are selected as testers will be free to talk about your experiences and to post streams and videos of the content you play.

It seems they want to bring out info on the game during the closed beta. So I don’t think your AP counts nearly as much as the amount of viewers you have on your stream.

I think it’s more likely they’re not having an NDA so they don’t have to enforce an NDA.

It’s pretty meaningless unless someone at Anet can commit to searching for leaks, tracking down the person responsible and taking action against them (which could range from identifying and banning their account to actual legal action). That’s a lot of time and effort.

I think it’s more likely the beta will be very restrictive – we won’t have all the maps, won’t have access to all the masteries, won’t be able to play the whole story etc. and they’ll make sure everything that is included is stuff they are happy for everyone to see.

That’s silly. You can still put up an NDA even if you don’t plan on chasing everything. NDA’s are typically aimed at larger outlets anyway, not individual players.

Caeledh.5437:

I bet all those beta leak sites are peeved though…

Those sites are the reason no NDA will be in place. Intelligent devs know they can’t stop leaks so why make them matter…..

There’s something off with this beta. Based on the generic sign up page Anet is not looking for testers, but rather players to demo their client.

You are assuming those that get an invite won’t be asked to enter the standard tester type info before being allowed access….if they want a true random sample, that’s how to do it.

I’m betting they have a count of every report sent in during original Beta tests so they likely have a good idea what players are actually interested in helping test the game.

I just hope I can get in XD, not sure how they plan to select players for this and exactly what they mean by a “small” pool of players, that and I really want to try out revenant since its mechanics and theme have made me want to main it, that and of course balancing issues will be something that I would enjoy discussing with other testers, presuming we can keep it civilized anyway

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

nickcosta.8256:

I’m still not getting any newsletter email confirmation after applying 4-5 times and after adding all their email addresses to my contacts. Checked all my inboxes and spam, nothing there. But I received some e-mail from them in the last few days so I’m confused :\

Did you get a newsletter lately? Because I never received any confirmation with my game address yet I received the newsletter, so I assume I’m registered.

I got a mail that went in my “Promotions” tap, it was about the 75% discount on the game and the pax and Rezzed events..I guess that is a newsletter..?

To be fair, I signed up for the beta but won’t really care if I get chosen or not.
Instead I do hope that the people that do get chosen are the kind that report every tiny bug they see in-game(ANY BUG-The NPC is facing the wrong direction, BUG, MUST FIX~~~).

After all, betas are there to test the game itself and fix any problems that are found before it’s released so us non-testers will have a smoother experience than what it could have been.

My guess is the beta is more about getting general player feedback than bug hunting (although I agree that hopefully everyone will report all the bugs they find, and with more info than just “This is bugged, fix it”).

They don’t normally do player testing for updates, even big updates like feature packs and Living Story releases, that’s all handled by the internal QA department. I’d be very surprised if the beta, and the whole expansion, wasn’t going through that process before we ever get our hands on it.

Look at the pre-release betas. Sure there were a lot of bugs that were found, but more importantly it raised issues like NPCs and ranger pets using the same downed/dead icons as players (and ranger pets being resurrectable at all) being confusing during big fights, or karma farming in the human introduction being an issue – things that a small group of internal testers might not notice, or consider a problem.

Danikat.8537:

My guess is the beta is more about getting general player feedback than bug hunting (although I agree that hopefully everyone will report all the bugs they find, and with more info than just “This is bugged, fix it”).

They don’t normally do player testing for updates, even big updates like feature packs and Living Story releases, that’s all handled by the internal QA department. I’d be very surprised if the beta, and the whole expansion, wasn’t going through that process before we ever get our hands on it.

Look at the pre-release betas. Sure there were a lot of bugs that were found, but more importantly it raised issues like NPCs and ranger pets using the same downed/dead icons as players (and ranger pets being resurrectable at all) being confusing during big fights, or karma farming in the human introduction being an issue – things that a small group of internal testers might not notice, or consider a problem.

Oh, man. Lol. I remember all the complaints about ranger pets dying and their dead icons showing on the map and complaints about accidentally rezzing pets instead of people when they were close together. As well as people who never swapped out dead pets and dragged them around the map so there were moving “dead” icons.

ANet took out pets dying after that. (Thank goodness).

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Did you get a newsletter lately? Because I never received any confirmation with my game address yet I received the newsletter, so I assume I’m registered.

I don’t get newsletters and didn’t receive an email confirmation for the HoT signup. Not any of the three times I’ve tried it.

Even if it is the same mailing list as the newsletter, the smart thing to do – since people would obviously expect a confirmation – is to trigger a confirmation email regardless of whether they’re already on the mailing list or not. Not a difficult thing to program.

So I’m pretty sure something is broken.

Danikat.8537:

I think it’s more likely they’re not having an NDA so they don’t have to enforce an NDA.

It’s pretty meaningless unless someone at Anet can commit to searching for leaks, tracking down the person responsible and taking action against them (which could range from identifying and banning their account to actual legal action). That’s a lot of time and effort.

It’s not always a matter of having to search. Watermark the graphics in some way – perhaps not so obvious to a casual observer. That’s how a lot of leakers have been (effortlessly) caught in the past.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Those sites are the reason no NDA will be in place. Intelligent devs know they can’t stop leaks so why make them matter…..

Definitely.

No matter how careful they try to be with NDA’s, there’s an inherent significant financial incentive to leak and publish those leaks – because that is effectively exclusive game content which the mainstream gaming media can’t touch.

The only way to deny them the unfair advantage is to do most of the serious testing internally and forego NDA’s with the broader beta pool. I think it’s a smart move and expect other developers to follow their example.

I would say that an active account, and one in good standing, should be required to test HoT.

Well, obviously I’m really hoping that I’ll be one of the chosen ones. That’d allow me to have access to HoT obviously, and have an awesome addition to my proffesional portfolio (maybe for future job at ArenaNet, right? :P. Just kidding). But as RNGsus is not at my side (two Imryldyeens on the same day from the MF, what the charr, Zommoros?), I’ll probably simply settle on waiting.

I’m very hyped about to get into beta, I even would like to stream it so the guys that are not able to be in there, could watch me and maybe ask things about the game and what they would be interested to check for/test etc

Danikat.8537:

My guess is the beta is more about getting general player feedback than bug hunting

In my opinion, is more a free marketing campaign than an actual betatesting. If they actually want to be tested, it would have an NDA.
And dont get me wrong, probably they already did their alphatesting, where they already determined what works and what doesnt.
I guess that the game currently is almost done, and they are in a phase where they just want promotion, and fixing last bugs. But I dont expect big changes as result of betatesting work.

Silicato.4603:

In my opinion, is more a free marketing campaign than an actual betatesting. If they actually want to be tested, it would have an NDA.

If it was a marketing campaign, why do it with such a small number (at first) though? It is not a open beta, nor is it a beta were they just allow any random guy that get lucky on putting in a key on the webpage access.

I think it is more a matter of not having to waste time and resources hunting down NDA leaks and stopping people from getting unfair economical advantages due to knowing coming recipes and such.

If anything, I think the loyalty and how much time you’ve got into it is going to be the biggest thing. People who have Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 are probably going to be higher on the list, and people who are more senior to the game of Guild Wars 2, such as 1 or two or three years, are going to be more hand selected.

As long as somebody puts some stuff onto youtube from this i absolutely do not care. Personally i prefer to follow the changes and then play the finished product, otherwise i get nervous that any time i find something i like it’s going to get nerfed

I signed up for the beta, and I am looking forward to it, provided I am one of the few who get choosen..lol (Keeping fingers crossed.)

I played during beta tests of GW2, and it didn’t ruin things for me when the game went live. In fact it only made things better. (Not to mention got me excited more for launch while playing beta’s.)

lordkrall.7241:

Silicato.4603:

In my opinion, is more a free marketing campaign than an actual betatesting. If they actually want to be tested, it would have an NDA.

If it was a marketing campaign, why do it with such a small number (at first) though?

Cause it is easier to manage and control the opinion of 20 than 200. And it is not the same the opinion of a person with 2 followers that the opinion with 20.000 followers. Ones is more influential than the other.

In any case We well see if i am right or not when we knew who are the chosen ones and what kind of public internet coverage (or how i like to call it: marketing) they do.

Silicato.4603:

Cause it is easier to manage and control the opinion of 20 than 200. And it is not the same the opinion of a person with 2 followers that the opinion with 20.000 followers. Ones is more influential than the other.

In any case We well see if i am right or not when we knew who are the chosen ones and what kind of public internet coverage (or how i like to call it: marketing) they do.

But how can they control the opinion of people if there is no NDA?
Even if I have a grand total of no followers at this point, if I start streaming HoT beta I am quite certain that I would start getting rather many followers rather quick. And ArenaNet could do nothing at all about stopping me from saying whatever I want, due to the lack of NDA.

If they wanted to control what people said they would have an NDA that stopped people from saying what they wanted.

I think this thread is rather pathetic.
Begging for beta invites like a bunch of hobo’s.

That being said….. please picke me

lordkrall.7241:

But how can they control the opinion of people if there is no NDA?

Selecting specific betatesters.

An example:

Imaging that you do a product and you want to sell it. You need reviews, to make it popular, and you need good reviews, to make it desireble.

And you have this pool to make the job of reviewing:

- a lot of persons who doesnt know you or your product and that in addition nobody knows about them and have 0 influence on others
- your parents & family
- your friends (some of them veeeery influencial, with a lot of followers)
- your competency, who hates you, and are very influencial
- your enemies

You decide to not have NDA (cause the goal was to sell the product, it is no time for secrets, but for good reviews)

So who will you select? Or better: who you’ll never select?

When you choose your friends and your family you dont have to fear about bad reviews, even if there is NDA. And when you choose influential people, you’ll sell better that good reviews.

Thats why i expect this phase of betas is for people diferent than the most of us: we are just players, we are not influencial and our opinion is not bought yet by friendship.

Eh, if I get into the beta, it’s all the more awesome. If not, then at least I get to look at the expansion with fresh eyes.

Silicato.4603:

Selecting specific betatesters.

An example:

Imaging that you do a product and you want to sell it. You need reviews, to make it popular, and you need good reviews, to make it desireble.

And you have this pool to make the job of reviewing:

- a lot of persons who doesnt know you or your product and that in addition nobody knows about them and have 0 influence on others
- your parents & family
- your friends (some of them veeeery influencial, with a lot of followers)
- your competency, who hates you, and are very influencial
- your enemies

You decide to not have NDA (cause the goal was to sell the product, it is no time for secrets, but for good reviews)

So who will you select? Or better: who you’ll never select?

When you choose your friends and your family you dont have to fear about bad reviews, even if there is NDA. And when you choose influential people, you’ll sell better that good reviews.

Thats why i expect this phase of betas is for people diferent than the most of us: we are just players, we are not influencial and our opinion is not bought yet by friendship.

That is of course assuming that friends and family:

1: Don’t already have access to the alpha.
2: Will outright lie about the game if they find it bad.

I don’t know about you, but when I ask for feedback from friends and family they usually don’t lie about what I am doing bad.

Might want to save the tin foil hat theories until there’s at least a pool of people you can direct it at…

To be honest,
I would really like to be a part of beta testing.
I was initially Guild Wars 2 player during it’s first steps since it went out.
I was studying, so I could not spend a lot of time playing.
Now I finished my photography college, and I am ready for some playing.
Ps.
I was also closed beta tester for “World of Tanks”, closed alpha tester for
“World of Warplanes”, and for a couple more games includimg Survarium, Stranded Deep, hopefully for “World of Warships” too.
Regards to everyone,
Luka

If they were looking for professionals to review the game, or streamers with thousands of followers to showcase the beta they wouldn’t do it by asking them to sign up for a news letter and wait to see if they got picked.

They’d contact the people they wanted directly (especially if they want good reviews) and invite them. Like when they’re looking for people to broadcast PvP tournaments or for the pre-release press beta. And quite likely they’re doing that now as well. But separate from this.

I’m pretty convinced we all have a pretty much equal chance of getting picked because this seems more like a random lottery to pick other people to a) populate the servers during the beta (so those reviewers and streamers can complete group events and get good footage of busy maps) and b) increase the amount of player feedback they can collect.

Maybe it’s just me being optimistic but that’s how it’d make sense to me, and how it’s worked with other games. For press betas you have to submit your credentials – show them who they are and persuade them to pick you, for general public betas you submit your email address and wait to see if you get lucky.