LDoN beta marketing

[feressa]

As many of you probably know, Sony is beta-testing LDoN 'raid' content right now (that's, uh, under 6 weeks before release, but oh well). What's interesting is the number of people in my guild who have ended up in this test, when you take into account that there are probably around 400,000 active EQ accounts right now...

Obviously they're doing some sort of active selection, but I have to wonder how much this is driven by marketing: get a few people from a big guild, give them all the Time gear they've dreamed of (we're in farm-mode in Time like many other guilds, but that still means it will take a long time for everyone to get the stuff they want), then encourage them to go back and market your product to the rest of the guild. As far as cheesy forms of marketing go, this must take the biscuit, heh.

And for the record: no, being able to add +6 disease resist to my favourite Time item DOESN'T give me a big hard-on... Being able to add Conservation of Xegnoy to any of my items would, but from what I've heard that goes beyond what LDoN offers. But I suppose Sony still has problems realising that there are lots of players who know how the game works.

[Snugglegutzs]

Obviously they're doing some sort of active selection

I think you are wrong on this. My Shaman who has FOH tag was accepted.. My Clr who dose not have FOH tag was also accepted. And yes ther are on diffrent accounts. I think it is just pretty much first come first served. Personally I have been unimpressed with beta testing. The pickup groups are FAR worse then what they are on a live server. And the raids ROFL half of the people need to go back to BB. The ingeneral attatude that I see is people running around with /bettabuff 65 on. And they act like jackasses and idiots simply becuse they can and dont care. I think they need to do away with 3/4 of the people that are testing and get the real players in that will really TEST it for them.

[Kodylan]

Has the NDA been lifted or something?

[Iannis]

NDAs are rarely obeyed on these messageboards.

Someone said in a post probably back on page 3 how LDoN was first come first serve. Doubt they'd do more rigorous selection to test the "raid" content if they don't give a shit about the "group" content being tested thoroughly.

[feressa]

Originally posted by Snugglegutzs
I think you are wrong on this. My Shaman who has FOH tag was accepted.. My Clr who dose not have FOH tag was also accepted. And yes ther are on diffrent accounts.

It's not hard to group accounts with a single player, though I might be attributing Sony with a level of sophistication they don't deserve. Given the fact that raid guilds represent less than 1% of the EQ player base I was just struck by the number of members in my guild (including the guild leader) who happpened to get into the LDoN beta. I must admit that motivation plays a role here, though, in that such people might be more likely to check the EQ-related websites on a frequent basis and thus got in during the short interval that beta was open. But the proportion involved seems to be higher than one that could be explained by self-selection.

As for the jackasses: well what do you expect? No matter what sort of guild you come from, the whole process means nothing if you have no real responsibility. The 'Test' server is a farce to players paying for the production servers. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys....

[Translation for the metaphorically-challenged: don't expect people to provide decent quality assurance for free.]

[Edit]: I'm not in the beta and never applied for it, so screw the NDA.

[Obtenor]

How to get great betatesters:


Find all 60-65 players that play more than 35 hours a week, then start sending invites from the player that plays the most to the bottom.

This people (or most) not only have great knowledge of the game, but actually TIME to test it.

Dont just open betas and accept every level 1 that has been playing a total of 3 hours.

[Yeta]

But then you get all of Sam D's chars ;\

[CeNo65]

They have opened signups for beta testing FOUR times already in the past 2 weeks, they seem to be running out of testers ...



im guessing it isnt holding peoples attention

[Itzlegend]

I'd say if you arent in ldon beta, you arent trying very hard.

They actually do need and want testers. The word "paranoid" comes to mind...

And will be a lot more then 6 sv disease per item worth of advancement for time guilds in ldon. This isnt LoY.

[Drewon]

I truly do believe it is a 'first come, first serve' basis with the testing. My 65 Ranger got into beta on the first day. My friend, a level 38 cleric also got in. Another friend of mine - 65 warrior did not.

[Makata]

As of about 2:10 am this morning .. I just got into beta. This late. Never even tried or thought about it before.

I gotta agree with previous poster, if you want to be in beta and aren't, you aren't even a minimal amount of effort into it.

[CrazyUncleLeo]

There's still tons of bugs i've gathered and /bugged so far. Pathing, warping, crashing etc. Dont get me wrong, i'm having a blast in these dungeons but you can quickly tell who the level 30 /betabuffed to 65 characters are. Thats the main problem, too many people /betabuff to 65 and not enough lower level stuff is getting tested. Not to mention, these buffed 65's not having the first clue how to play the character at that level. It's mainly a toy to many people it seems.

[Xaen]

Gave up on testing.. Time limits blow ass. It isnt fun.

[Kodylan]

Originally posted by Xaen
Gave up on testing.. Time limits blow ass. It isnt fun.

If you think that you're missing the entire point and should probably stay in BoT anyway.

[Furor Planedefiler]

since initial EQ. They did a lot of things right.

Much better than the previous method "Who's dick do I suck to get in?"

Shrug, IF I were a Beta tester I would think that their current Beta methods are working great.