Is beta now a lottery?

[Cratoh]

<p>Hello, </p><p>I have 21 characters at level 90, 5 crafters at 90. I've experience in the game since sitting on a rock in Feerrott waiting for a quest starter at level 50 when a lot of players were still wondering what would be the best strat for killing the Overlord in RE.</p><p>I am just wondering if beta invites are just done now via who has paid cash, ie fanfaire, rather than people with a ton of experience in game who would be playing heck out of the beta and submitting tons of bug reports/content suggestions for the hopeful release of a finished product.</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[SOE-MOD-02]

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=499962&post_id=5658270" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=49996...post_id=5658270</a> Posts should be respectful and without insults.

[MystsofLedge12]

<p>I think its still in Friends And Family Mode... however they are only 15 days from launch, they may as well rather than do the whole beta thing just toss the heap on test.</p><p>[Thanks for not discussing moderation] - RadarX</p><p>I still think the larger problems will be once they merge the F2P kids into our servers, I think they will have issues with itemizations ect.</p>

[LoneGreyWolf20]

From what I understand they will be inviting everyone per a comment made by Smokejumper according to a couple of threads. Where has anyone seen a release date though?

[Brigh]

I remember a page saying Nov 30th but I think they removed it since now all I see is "Winter 2011".

[kdmorse]

<p><cite>LoneGreyWolf20 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>From what I understand they will be inviting everyone per a comment made by Smokejumper according to a couple of threads. Where has anyone seen a release date though?</blockquote><p>November 30th is what was announced on Thursday.</p><p>(Not that I entirely believe it)</p><p><img src="http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/8894/aodm.png" /></p>

[Brigh]

and they removed it

[feldon30]

<p><cite>MystsofLedge12 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think its still in Friends And Family Mode..</p></blockquote><p>It's now Friends, Family, members of the Test Server community, and all of Fan Faire attendees that signed the NDA.</p>

[kaedianeq2]

<p><cite>Cratoh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hello, </p><p>I have 21 characters at level 90, 5 crafters at 90. I've experience in the game since sitting on a rock in Feerrott waiting for a quest starter at level 50 when a lot of players were still wondering what would be the best strat for killing the Overlord in RE.</p><p>I am just wondering if beta invites are just done now via who has paid cash, ie fanfaire, rather than people with a ton of experience in game who would be playing heck out of the beta and submitting tons of bug reports/content suggestions for the hopeful release of a finished product.</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p>Need a hug or a cookie?</p>

[Cratoh]

<p><cite>kaedianeq2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cratoh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hello, </p><p>I have 21 characters at level 90, 5 crafters at 90. I've experience in the game since sitting on a rock in Feerrott waiting for a quest starter at level 50 when a lot of players were still wondering what would be the best strat for killing the Overlord in RE.</p><p>I am just wondering if beta invites are just done now via who has paid cash, ie fanfaire, rather than people with a ton of experience in game who would be playing heck out of the beta and submitting tons of bug reports/content suggestions for the hopeful release of a finished product.</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p>Need a hug or a cookie?</p></blockquote><p>I'd settle for a beta invite. </p><p>Oh and having read the last few of your 17 posts, I'd like to welcome you to the forums, given the content of them I am sure you will make many friends.</p>

[Saroc_Luclin]

For the past few Beta cycles that I'm aware of, there's always been a Lottery factor. Friends and Family and Fan Faire folk have guarenteed access to get in pretty much as soon as possible. Everyone else, accepts the NDA, and their name goes into the pool and will have a chance to be randomly selected every time they bring in a new wave of folks to Beta. The selection process is purely random and has no 'experience' modifiers to improve your chances. Occasionally, usually when there's raid content to be tested, a guild will get its active members flagged through at once, so they can have a consistant raid force for testing (as opposed to a Pick Up Raid); but I don't think that will be needed for this EQ2 expansion.

[kaedianeq2]

<p><cite>Cratoh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>kaedianeq2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cratoh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hello, </p><p>I have 21 characters at level 90, 5 crafters at 90. I've experience in the game since sitting on a rock in Feerrott waiting for a quest starter at level 50 when a lot of players were still wondering what would be the best strat for killing the Overlord in RE.</p><p>I am just wondering if beta invites are just done now via who has paid cash, ie fanfaire, rather than people with a ton of experience in game who would be playing heck out of the beta and submitting tons of bug reports/content suggestions for the hopeful release of a finished product.</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p>Need a hug or a cookie?</p></blockquote><p>I'd settle for a beta invite. </p><p>Oh and having read the last few of your 17 posts, I'd like to welcome you to the forums, given the content of them I am sure you will make many friends.</p></blockquote><p>Thanks buddy.  Having read the last few of yours I find them to be full of tears and entitlement.</p><p>Have a great day and enjoy the freep revolution.</p>

[Detor]

<p><cite>Saroc_Luclin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>For the past few Beta cycles that I'm aware of, there's always been a Lottery factor. Friends and Family and Fan Faire folk have guarenteed access to get in pretty much as soon as possible. Everyone else, accepts the NDA, and their name goes into the pool and will have a chance to be randomly selected every time they bring in a new wave of folks to Beta. The selection process is purely random and has no 'experience' modifiers to improve your chances. Occasionally, usually when there's raid content to be tested, a guild will get its active members flagged through at once, so they can have a consistant raid force for testing (as opposed to a Pick Up Raid); but I don't think that will be needed for this EQ2 expansion.</blockquote><p>I'm not so sure it's entirely random. I've always managed to be one of the first waves in their previous betas all the way back to EQ1.  I just always assumed it was because I seem to have a knack for breaking things and I'm actually willing to stop, note the /loc (if relevant), and then the steps I did to cause it.  </p><p>Converting the current servers into F2P, and the merger of The Bazaar into Freeport seems a lot more prone to 'Uh oh, oh crap' than AoD to me.  I mean, The Bazaar is a Livegamer server, who knows what modifications to the code are in there that nobody on the current team knows anything about.  Look back a month or two ago when SOE had a power outage, and the LG servers were broken for the following 2-3 weeks while they tried to figure out what wasn't working anymore.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>Normal people aren't let into beta until the last week for 'stess testing', which used to chap me.  But now that I realize that they dont change anything based on beta feedback, i care a lot less.</p>