SW:TOR Game testing UNDER WAY!

[Subb]

http://swtor.com/news/news-article/20100709_002

Make sure you're all signed up!

[Manic Velocity]

Came here to post this.  

When you log into your SWTOR community account, take a look at your account info and make sure you check the box that says "Yes, I would like to be considered for testing".

Good luck everyone!

[Adad]

ZOMG

[Tbone]

Whaaaa---! We gotta finish our recruitment stuff!

I didn't get an email, but I'm surprised Beta is starting already. Maybe they will make that Spring '11 deadline.

[Manic Velocity]

I'll have a lot of time this weekend to work on the Phase 1 Challenge graphics.

Time to step it up!

[Adad]

New version of trailer 2 posted in trailers.

[Anamodiel]

Shit. This means that we'll be in testing by October/November, while I'll be in Italy. I was hoping for a January Beta and a late-May launch.

[Strod]

Hoping we get a few members into the first wave! Good luck everyone!

[ArchNemesis]

Oh dear god... It felt good reading this the moment i got my Laptop up and running again.

[Da6onet]

Updated my system stats, maybe they passed me over for the first wave because my old stats were from my laptop and they only want people that can play the game decently in beta :-p

[Manic Velocity]

Not a single one of us got in?

[Fuse]

Not I, said Fuse...and Manic...and TBone...and da6...and Ana...and Arch...etc

[ArchNemesis]

Not I, said Fuse...and Manic...and TBone...and da6...and Ana...and Arch...etc

Unfortunately... This is true T_T

[Tbone]

I'm pretty certain that it's still pretty much friends and family. Next they'll let in community leaders. Since Beta access is tied to your community/forum accounts on their site, I imagine if you aren't regularly playing a role in the community (posting regularly, etc.), you can count yourself out until a few waves later.

[Tbone]

Some clarification from the devs:

"First, we definitely share in everyone’s excitement. This is another step in preparing The Old Republic for launch and the team is just as eager for this as all of you!

Since there is a lot of questions and discussion about Game Testing, I thought it might be a good time to start a new thread. A few threads you may want to check out, though:
Game Testing is Underway!
The Game Testing Agreement and You!
Game Testing – Questions and Discussion
I’ve been reading through a lot of the posts and there are some really good questions in there so I’ll do my best to answer them.

First thing, what we announced is “Game Testing". This is currently underway and will end near the release of the game and happen in a variety of stages. We will be inviting people to different stages and just because you get invited to one stage doesn’t mean you’ll be invited back to another one. Unlike testing that many of you may have participated in with other games, we aren’t looking for people to test “everything". Each of our tests are focused on a certain or a set of goals and areas. We want people to have clear direction on what we’d like help evaluating.

The Game Testing Program is all about us validating the features and design of the game. If we find an area that people just aren’t enjoying as much as we’d like, it shows us that we need to adjust that feature. That is much easier to do when you have clear goals and ideas as to what we are looking for instead of just “the game".

Another thing I see people inquiring about is what I mean when I keep calling things the “service". While the game is a big part of it, it isn’t everything. We look at the entire experience as the service; the website, the community, the game, etc. This holds as true now as it will once we're done with development and fully launched the entire service.

Yes, testing is only in North America now. Currently the service is all supported here but it won’t always be here. Our entire community is very important to us. As you’ll note, with few exceptions, our updates go out simultaneously in English, French, and German. This is because we treat the community as one as much as possible. But we have some time till Spring 2011 (although it is getting closer every day!) and right now, we’re doing what is best for the service in the long-run. We could of just not announced what locales we’re testing in now but we felt it better to be upfront with our community. We also could of held back on testing altogether and not start until we can in all of the areas we’ll be launching the service but I think most of you will agree that we would lose valuable time and feedback if we did that. We’re not announcing just when yet, but we definitely plan on opening up phases of Game Testing to other countries before we launch (and not as a last minute “Open" test).

A couple quick notes/answers:
We didn’t announce that Game Testing Began today, we announced that it is underway… subtle difference but there is one.
Make sure your email address is up-to-date! This means that the account name that you use to log in to the website is the email address we will be sending an invitation to if you are selected.
For those worried about missing any of our transactional emails, make sure you add no-reply@bioware.swtor.com to your address book!
How often will we send out updates? As often as possible! It will be different time intervals for different tests.
You do not need to sign-up again if you did previously but I would recommend making sure your Additional Details and System Scan are up to date (as well as your email address)! And you can do this any time under "My Account".
What data do we track? A lot. If you read the Terms of Service and Game Testing Agreement, you will get a good idea of it all.
Since this is all part of the service, any accounts that are in a suspended status when we are sending out invitations will not be invited. As I said, it’s a total service and your account is treated the same throughout the entire service. If you are temporarily suspended, once your suspension is up, you will be eligible again for testing.
Speaking of Community – No, post count does not weigh any in the decision of who gets into testing. If community participation was a factor, it would be based on the behavior and quality of interactions with the rest of the community.
And last but not least, I’ll reiterate the point that being able to have the community help us test The Old Republic is very important and valuable to the development process. The Game Testing Program allows community members to give us quality feedback so we can make adjustments and have a highly effective service and entertaining experience when we do launch. Our expectation is that players of The Old Republic will follow the terms of the Game Testing Agreement and ensure that the confidential pre-release information we’re sharing with community members remains confidential."