Well, looks like it is true!  Aventurine does have pro testers.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=el&u=http://forum.bnb.gr/showthread.php%3Ft%3D43090&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddarkfall%2Baventurine%2Bsite:.gr%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26as_qdr%3Dall

Sadly, it is what I expected.  Local guys in Greece, working for free as interns.  I would speculate that there are not that many of them either. 

Take the news however you wish though.  Good news that they did advertise for testers.  Or bad news that this is the level of 'pro testers' they are recruiting.

Be careful people might call you a liar here even when you post good info  :(

Pro testers, with only requirement the  "love for games" ???? and some english speaking??????

Very professional indeed.

I’ve recently found this and many other posts on Greek and international gaming and game developer websites forums, most of them obscure, and most of them from years ago.

Blasphemy! Aventurine's AI bots does everything!
The Cake Is A Lie! The Cake Is A Lie!

Originally posted by Polarization

This was the main reason why they moved to Greece in my opinion, so they could “recruit” unpaid students and graduates as interns or for work experience, and so that they could take advantage of paying very low wages to the majority of there Greek staff who also probably lack experience and who Tasos apparently expects to work over 8 hours a day.

 

Bingo.

But that has been stated from the very start, they chose Greece for the low cost of living - and development.

it's a smart move. you need both high-level and grunt-level testers, so why pay more for the grunts? better to have cheap, supervised grunts in-house than legions of blithering idiots like 90% of posters on these forums.

solid business decision.

Originally posted by dirtknap69

it's a smart move. you need both high-level and grunt-level testers, so why pay more for the grunts? better to have cheap, supervised grunts in-house than legions of blithering idiots like 90% of posters on these forums.

 

solid business decision.

That is pure bullshit.

If you want your product to succeed, you need to motivate your workers and make them love it.

As it stands now, Greece is the most expensive European country to live in. Most certainly,you too,belong to this 90% you just said...

I don't think Greece is the most expensive European country to live in.  I think that particular pleasure belongs to Norway.  It's more than 20% above the European average.  I bet Greece isn't even in the top ten.

Greece is expensive but that's relative to the purchasing power of Greeks; our wages are probably amongst the lowest in Europe, so that makes life seem expensive.

I won't argue that many everyday commodities are expensive, and perhaps more expensive in absolute value than similar commodities in other European countries.

But development costs, such as offices' rents and , most importantly, state taxes are low, because Aventurine is a software development company and such companies are subsidized in Greece (with money and tax cuts) in an effort to strengthen the industry - as part of an EU subsidization program, that has been mentioned many times in the past.

So these costs are low and if I were a newly-founded software development company I'd make efforts to establish my offices in such a place.

 Not sure in which Greece you live in,but Greece is expensive because everything is expensive. All its european indexes regarding commodities, housing, renting...are high. We got maybe the most expensive road worldwide( Ermou str.) 

Housing, and real estate property is also extremely high too. Offices in key areas are among the highest values. Of course I am not referring to your offices, I mean good offices.

There are NO state taxes, but VAT is high (19%) all in all not the best place for development. Add to this low wages and ....

Originally posted by ddev

 Not sure in which Greece you live in,but Greece is expensive because everything is expensive. All its european indexes regarding commodities, housing, renting...are high. We got maybe the most expensive road worldwide( Ermou str.) 

Housing, and real estate property is also extremely high too. Offices in key areas are among the highest values. Of course I am not referring to your offices, I mean good offices.

There are NO state taxes, but VAT is high (19%) all in all not the best place for development. Add to this low wages and ....

Well, the media really enjoy making us think that Athens is the most expensive city in the known Universe, but that is certainly not true. The problem with Greece is that salaries are very low. Of course prices are going up, but this happens everywhere in the world. Just pay a visit to Norway and check prices. I bet you'll be speechless, and reconsider the whole thing about Greece being expensive. 

A VAT of 19% is among the lowest in Europe. And try comparing Ermou Str. with Oxford Street.

Originally posted by ddev

 Not sure in which Greece you live in,but Greece is expensive because everything is expensive. All its european indexes regarding commodities, housing, renting...are high. We got maybe the most expensive road worldwide( Ermou str.) 

Housing, and real estate property is also extremely high too. Offices in key areas are among the highest values. Of course I am not referring to your offices, I mean good offices.

There are NO state taxes, but VAT is high (19%) all in all not the best place for development. Add to this low wages and ....

OK, go rent  offices in London or Paris and tell me where you got the best price...

Does it matter?

Just chill, sit back, and forget about the game until something concrete actually shows up, like the open beta.

Until then it is hardly worth speculating.

Originally posted by Polarization

I’ve recently found this and many other posts on Greek and international gaming and game developer websites forums, most of them obscure, and most of them from years ago.

But considering Tasos himself has confirmed that that the “professional testers” that he considers will be sufficient enough so that public beta will only hopefully last a few weeks are actually “junior QA personal” recruited from places like  a “local college” in one of his latest updates I thought it would be redundant to post them.

This was the main reason why they moved to Greece in my opinion, so they could “recruit” unpaid students and graduates as interns or for work experience, and so that they could take advantage of paying very low wages to the majority of there Greek staff who also probably lack experience and who Tasos apparently expects to work over 8 hours a day.

I also suspect, based on some evidence, that some or many of the internationaly recrutied developers that have left Aventurine, possibly did so becuase of the working conditions or the pay.

 

anyway,back to our main subject.

polar is right on spot with this one...

Originally posted by ddev

Pro testers, with only requirement the  "love for games" ???? and some english speaking??????

Very professional indeed.

And still its better then any other beta we have read about.  Most times we see big adds all over the internet, any idiote can apply. I have more respect for laidback ones as we see here.

Here they can find people that want to test the game, not play it. And mostly local ones, making feedback and comunication smoothly.

I also hope noone assumes just because they put up an add for testers that it doesn't mean they accepted just any jerk who walks in off the street.  No beta test accepts everyone, and alot of the tests I've been a part of (and am a part of now) picked me because I had past experience in beta testing.

Originally posted by daarco

Originally posted by ddev

Pro testers, with only requirement the  "love for games" ???? and some english speaking??????

Very professional indeed.

 

And still its better then any other beta we have read about.  Most times we see big adds all over the internet, any idiote can apply. I have more respect for laidback ones as we see here.

Here they can find people that want to test the game, not play it. And mostly local ones, making feedback and comunication smoothly.

  Ummm...no it isn't.   First off, this isn't an open beta invite situation.  Its an internal beta situation...generally speaking most companies DO employ seasoned game developers and personnel for that phase of the job.  Not one single respectable MMO company has ever used a local ad for dragging the greenies in for internal tests.  Hell, most of them just use the same team that MADE the game to do it...with a handful of extras.

  In case you weren't paying attention, by the way, any idiot can STILL apply.  The only difference is, only the idiots on the same block as them will ever get to....further leading us down the same path where they never let anyone outside their "circle" see or hear anything of importance.  Worse yet, it means they are so low funded that they cannot afford support for the ideal beta testing....forcing them to use a small handful of people off the streets of greece to supposedly do the testing of a full fledged testing workforce.

  Communication has never really BEEN an issue.  Jesus man, most of the "communication" used during testing phases is done from programs which monitor things that are happening.  Beyond that, its not really hard to use a simple built in mailing tool to report things.  Even a basic forum offers enough ease in communication to overlook using JUST local people.  That is, unless, you think it is somehow harder to read a forum that it is to walk cubicle to cubicle asking everyone whats going on.

  You, my friend, are a very desperate man to spin things for them.

I still think that searching for beta testers in a few local computer related internet sites, is way better then looking for beta tester all around the globe. Atleast in that state that Tasos is talking about.

The beta testers can then sit and talk with the developers in their own office. Playing on the developers own computers and give feedback in realtime. And if there are some idiotes among the beta testers, they will be kicked out in notime.

We have seen many betas fail the last years. So the other way of doing it is atleat not better, that we can all agree on.

Still, this is not the ultimate way to do it i guess.....but atleast they try something.

Originally posted by daarco

...So the other way of doing it is atleat not better, that we can all agree on...

We don't know if this alternative is better yet.