Uhhh... what about all the 14 year old mentally disabled people who have multiple beta accounts in every beta or earlier stage of development I have ever ever played in or heard of?  The way many people get into beta is simple, and it's identical to the method many people use to reach "success" in real life, but it's even easier to implement this strategy over the internets:

1) LIE.

2) Kiss ass.

It's funny to read the dev comment about not kissing ass.  I got a huge laugh about that.  Then some master beta dude in this thread writes a whole long post about how to kiss ass with level 9 mastery and how it got him into 32 betas, but then tacks on the caveate, "but don't kiss ass".  LOL.  Every development community I have ever seen was quickly staffed by the #1 ass kissers on the official forums/irc [they get nominated to be moderators usually, and even admins in indy projects like Darkfall for example], and these are usually among the first of the wider community vanguard brought into "beta" after the friends and relatives stage. 

 I was the one who recieved the Eddie Izzard CD. Thanks, btw. It destroyed my marriage.

HI Sanya

well after retirement from five years of Daoc gaming and attending 2 orlando fla road shows anf a five year trophy   i am free floating around looking for a better game hoping i can get a key for Aion  cross your fingers for me nice to see i crossed paths with you once again in my gaming life hope you are enjoying this much more than where u were not that it was a bad  thing lol happy hunting  catch you on the flip    sirbillyboy  / carlie

Wow, pretty demanding... people who are sincere, friendly, no drama... gawd then we all here are doomed. lol

Besides, it cant be true. According to enough people here, I am the most visicious, trolling, evil, illiterate drama queen that exists, and I constantly get into closed betas. hrhr

Ok I am honest. I always tell straight of the bat what I think. Does that balance the bad character I have? Ok then maybe you get me into that SWTOR beta pls. XD

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The truth about Betas in recent years is that they are early marketing gimmicks and not much more.  Having been in several myself over the years, I know from experience that many of the games GLARING problems which are discovered in Beta are never fixed before release.  How many games have released in recent years where the Beta players themselves were screaming from the hill tops and saying the game is no where near ready to go gold? Conan is the most recently famous example.  I was seeing warnings about that game from Beta players months and weeks before release, all the way up to the last day.

I've given up on trying to Beta new games.  Most of the time they are released in an unfinshed form anyway, so why bother getting in early just to experience the same bugs I will continue to experience later?  If I sound cynical, it's because I am.  This genre is stale and in a sad state of affairs.  Our only hope will be the indy game devs who are willing to take chances on new ideas.

Same here.  I won't alpha or beta another game unless I know for certain the devs will put the test back in.

And interesting read. I cant help but be an asshat on internet forums most of the time, just make it so much more entertaining. best off avoiding posting if I want a slot tbh.

I like your writing style and story telling. I just wish you caricature didn't seem so much like Jerry Seinfeld.

Nice article Sanya. I am already seeing little kiddies writing a love letters to the devs of the game they want to play early.

"Deer developr. I luv ur game so much, that I be good beta task master. Please please please let me in. U will like mah betah testring skillz. I promize. I testid many games. I testid "mmorpg.com", I testid little doggis on my little consil I press som button and doggis make funny sounds. I testid all games that those people talk on mah TV. My TV has little doggis on it. They make sound if U touch it. So yeas. Pleees, let me in Ur game. U will luv mah beta testrink."

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The truth about Betas in recent years is that they are early marketing gimmicks and not much more.  Having been in several myself over the years, I know from experience that many of the games GLARING problems which are discovered in Beta are never fixed before release.  How many games have released in recent years where the Beta players themselves were screaming from the hill tops and saying the game is no where near ready to go gold? Conan is the most recently famous example.  I was seeing warnings about that game from Beta players months and weeks before release, all the way up to the last day.

I've given up on trying to Beta new games.  Most of the time they are released in an unfinshed form anyway, so why bother getting in early just to experience the same bugs I will continue to experience later?  If I sound cynical, it's because I am.  This genre is stale and in a sad state of affairs.  Our only hope will be the indy game devs who are willing to take chances on new ideas.

QFT.  I can't beta games anymore as well.  I've tried many times, I've tried being a "positive" community member and encouraging to the devs to fix the issues that I myself have found as well as major issues that a game has and to see that stuff go live when it's being reported for several months was enough to kill my desire to beta test. 

P.S.  I loved the story regarding the sending of the wrong disk to a potential beta tester.  Reminds me that I am the king of "mistells" in games.  I cannot count the times that I have sent the "I hate that ****ing jerk" tell to a friend only to realize that I sent it to the person I was talking about, or sending random crazy comments about guildies (not mean) and then realizing that I just typed it in guild chat.  I once made a comment to a friend that the wife of our guild leader had a very sexy voice in vent and that I'd like to show her a good time only to realize I actually put that in guild chat.  Thankfully he was very good natured about the whole thing. 

---

Originally posted by Airwren

---

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The truth about Betas in recent years is that they are early marketing gimmicks and not much more.  Having been in several myself over the years, I know from experience that many of the games GLARING problems which are discovered in Beta are never fixed before release.  How many games have released in recent years where the Beta players themselves were screaming from the hill tops and saying the game is no where near ready to go gold? Conan is the most recently famous example.  I was seeing warnings about that game from Beta players months and weeks before release, all the way up to the last day.
I've given up on trying to Beta new games.  Most of the time they are released in an unfinshed form anyway, so why bother getting in early just to experience the same bugs I will continue to experience later?  If I sound cynical, it's because I am.  This genre is stale and in a sad state of affairs.  Our only hope will be the indy game devs who are willing to take chances on new ideas.

---

 
QFT.  I can't beta games anymore as well.  I've tried many times, I've tried being a "positive" community member and encouraging to the devs to fix the issues that I myself have found as well as major issues that a game has and to see that stuff go live when it's being reported for several months was enough to kill my desire to beta test. 
 
P.S.  I loved the story regarding the sending of the wrong disk to a potential beta tester.  Reminds me that I am the king of "mistells" in games.  I cannot count the times that I have sent the "I hate that ****ing jerk" tell to a friend only to realize that I sent it to the person I was talking about, or sending random crazy comments about guildies (not mean) and then realizing that I just typed it in guild chat.  I once made a comment to a friend that the wife of our guild leader had a very sexy voice in vent and that I'd like to show her a good time only to realize I actually put that in guild chat.  Thankfully he was very good natured about the whole thing. 

---

Same here. Gave up on Beta testing. I mean real bug exploration. Now if I get in Beta I just see what game is like. Most of the games in Beta stages in most cases are the same
as they go into Open beta and then get released.IN any way people supposed to sorta "work" in Betas, helping devs to catch the bugs that were potentially missed. A lot of people just play the game and argue about its features and just being morons on general chats.

That was a great article.  It was well-written and interesting.  However, you need to remove the comment under the picture of the tranny that says "Definitely not a DAoC Beta client!."  That's unbelieveable that you would put that there.  How fucking bigoted can you get?  Why ruin a good article by showing your social ignorance?  Seriously.

Originally posted by girlgeek

That was a great article.  It was well-written and interesting.  However, you need to remove the comment under the picture of the tranny that says "Definitely not a DAoC Beta client!."  That's unbelieveable that you would put that there.  How fucking bigoted can you get?  Why ruin a good article by showing your social ignorance?  Seriously.

Have you smoked yourself retarded?  Is there any chance that the picture this caption is attached to is the person who does the performance she references and that she sent a CD of to a beta tester?  Way to show your ass without pulling your pants down by making your social commentary without first comprehending what you read.  /golfclap

 one thing that i think has helped get me in a hand ful of betas is agregae experience. My first beta 5 years ago was City of Heroe but i was active in the forum 2 years before that when they still had the "open power types "as their promo on the site (sorta like what Champions Online does now)

Since then whenever i applied for a abeta i always include my past experience. My current resume would looke like this.

Previous Betas?

City of Heroes

City of Villians

Matrix Online

Champions Online

Tabula Risa

Originally posted by Airwren

P.S.  I loved the story regarding the sending of the wrong disk to a potential beta tester.  Reminds me that I am the king of "mistells" in games.  I cannot count the times that I have sent the "I hate that ****ing jerk" tell to a friend only to realize that I sent it to the person I was talking about, or sending random crazy comments about guildies (not mean) and then realizing that I just typed it in guild chat.  I once made a comment to a friend that the wife of our guild leader had a very sexy voice in vent and that I'd like to show her a good time only to realize I actually put that in guild chat.  Thankfully he was very good natured about the whole thing. 

Okay, I LOL'd at this part... we've all been there!

And @Sanya, I hope you eventually got around to watching Eddie Izzard.  I've seen a few of his stand-up acts, and without question (IMHO) the best one is "Dress to Kill".  He has also appeared in quite a few movies and TV shows lately... very funny guy.

Originally posted by Airwren

Originally posted by girlgeek

That was a great article.  It was well-written and interesting.  However, you need to remove the comment under the picture of the tranny that says "Definitely not a DAoC Beta client!."  That's unbelieveable that you would put that there.  How fucking bigoted can you get?  Why ruin a good article by showing your social ignorance?  Seriously.

 

Have you smoked yourself retarded?  Is there any chance that the picture this caption is attached to is the person who does the performance she references and that she sent a CD of to a beta tester?  Way to show your ass without pulling your pants down by making your social commentary without first comprehending what you read.  /golfclap

Who jerked your chain?  My comment  was not directed at you, now was it?  It was to the author of this article and we have already conversed about this.  Frankly, it's none of your effing business.

Regardless your OPINION, there are people of different persuasions (AND opinions)  that are gamers and some would  be offended. Not everyone lives in the UK and knows who that comedian even is, for that matter.  I'd never heard of him.  A lot of people on these forums probably haven't.  And since the scenario you described above was not detailed in the article....you're making an assumption too.  Now piss off and mind your own business.

I have periods that I search the net furiously for The One Game, that I know don't exist. But I suppose Searching The One Game is another mmo for me, one that is played with Firefox :-)

In this search I join a million +1 closed betas, and I provide as details as the dev ask.

From these million closed betas,  I receive (months later) some invitations, so I have some luck, and play some of these games.   Some are just marketing plots, so don't really need, other are real efforts to make the game better, and I am then abduced on the cycle to report bugs and try to really help the game, make some suggestions (flawed, since I am a gamer, not a game dev). 

But after some of these events, that after released where not all that good games, I am somewhat sad.  You can try to help these games, but by the time a game is in closed beta, most games are mostly "done".   Even in alfa state most games are designed by people that don't really need your help, other than beind a drone that play the game. 

I feel like betas are a "lacking" way to help game dev's.    So of course, I got, and buy his games on release.  Thats probably a better help than betaing his games. 

In real life I am programer. So I secretly like flawed betas.  I was really happy to play Vanguard, and Tabula Rasa betas.  These games where much fun on the naive first runs, as a beta tester.  I think most games in the process to be Ok for everyone, get mediocre, and is sad.   Most games in closed beta have parts where are Great, but these parts are removed because are overpowered, unbalance the game, corrupt the database, or some other problem.   

Thanks to all the dev's that have let me the privilege to beta test his games :-)