is there a way to sign up for Beta Testing

[Solver]

You're also automatically disqualified if you've asked to be a beta tester more than once per ten thousand posts.

 

[Nikolai II]

Probably helps if those posts don't involve swearing at all and sundry or being generally disruptive, too.

Yeah, it would stand to reason that they want people that can cooperate without resorting to such things.

 

[MadDjinn]

Being a Youtube Personality probably helps a lot more.

"free" PR seems to be the future.

I 'could' pay a company $1000 for a few adverts that might target thousand of people or only 10 people, who knows?

Or I could give this fan, with his 1million subscribers a free alpha/review copy and a NDA and that will cost me $0 and as you know, you can't get cheaper than free.

Time to start working on your youtube channel, buddy.

I think you've mistaken 'press events' with 'beta testing'.

 

[janboruta]

You're also automatically disqualified if you've asked to be a beta tester more than once per ten thousand posts.

Glad I've just hit the 2k posts mark, didn't use up both my chances yet.

EDIT: damn, didn't see the "ten" with the "thousand". Well, there goes my candidature.

 

[temprus]

One would imagine that the 'sign up' process involves posting hundreds/thousands of times about the game on internet forums over a number of years.

Hmm, then I only have two chances:

1) Acquire a time machine and start under a "new" account.
2) Spam posts until count is high enough, which in turn gets me banned long before offer is ever made.



Can I vote this in as an option: Owns all version of Civilization that are available on Steam?

 

[Ryika]

Can I vote this in as an option: Owns all version of Civilization that are available on Steam?

That probably isn't that rare around here. (;

But Post Quality would probably matter a lot more if they were (in a theoretical scenario) looking around the forums, searching for more people to add to their team.

Posts that show an understanding of game mechanics, design, balance, etc.

 

[Camikaze]

Anyway, we don't know of any YouTube people that have gone on to be Civ beta testers, do we? It seems like the fact that beta testers can't talk about the beta would prevent any sort of publicity. (Of course people on YouTube can show they're interested in and knowledgeable about Civ in the same way certain long time posters on here have.)

As far as I'm aware, in past civ releases the credits have listed two people with substantial YouTube accounts as part of the beta testing team - MadDjinn and Ohmwrecker, both of whose YouTube popularity likely followed rather than preceded their testing role. Ohmwrecker barely does any civ stuff on his channel, or even anything in the same genre.

 

[Birdjaguar]

One would imagine that the 'sign up' process involves posting hundreds/thousands of times about the game on internet forums over a number of years.

I've heard that one can achieve beta testing status with genuine enthusiasm for the game and its content plus a few thousand posts demonstrating good knowledge of the game at a high profile location. I'm pretty sure that there are beta testers lurking among us now. They would have to keep a low profile to avoid being harassed between now and October. I am more of an OT forum fan than one to hang out regularly in the Civ forums, but I do know that lots of our regular members have the credentials to be asked to beta test. I'd bet that the HOF and GOTM crowds are chock full of testers. They are just really quiet about it.

 

[bkn42]

As far as I'm aware, in past civ releases the credits have listed two people with substantial YouTube accounts as part of the beta testing team - MadDjinn and Ohmwrecker, both of whose YouTube popularity likely followed rather than preceded their testing role. Ohmwrecker barely does any civ stuff on his channel, or even anything in the same genre.

It got Quill18 a hands on preview too of Civ 6, which is something. No clue if he's a beta tester, but I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Ryika]

I would be surprised if he has time for doing in-depth beta-testing with the amount of youtube- and twitch-content that he does. ^^

 

[Nikolai II]

I've heard that one can achieve beta testing status with genuine enthusiasm for the game and its content plus a few thousand posts demonstrating good knowledge of the game at a high profile location. I'm pretty sure that there are beta testers lurking among us now. They would have to keep a low profile to avoid being harassed between now and October. I am more of an OT forum fan than one to hang out regularly in the Civ forums, but I do know that lots of our regular members have the credentials to be asked to beta test. I'd bet that the HOF and GOTM crowds are chock full of testers. They are just really quiet about it.

I would also assume they would try to get a varied sample size on skill level. After all, most customers are not pro players, so they need the cheftain and prince players in addition of deity players.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

They do have a team, there's no doubt about it.

They even have a name but I can't recall.

I remember this around the time Civ 5 and God and Kings were being released.

 

[CaptainUnknown]

I would also assume they would try to get a varied sample size on skill level. After all, most customers are not pro players, so they need the cheftain and prince players in addition of deity players.

Believe it or not, testers do not need to be pro players to be effective. What you want are attention to detail and those that like to test and experiment every component. You of course want those testers to have the technical writing talent to document everything as well. Handing beta-access over to a pro is nice for testing the difficulty I guess, but a good team of testers will have much different goals than simply just beating the game as fast as possible.

 

[m15a]

It got Quill18 a hands on preview too of Civ 6, which is something. No clue if he's a beta tester, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The preview is a different thing, though. Of course the preview build is going to be shown to people that will be best able to publicize their preview of the game (whether it's through a YouTube video or online blog or whatever). That's the whole point of the preview build.

It's like if you become a book reviewer, you'll be given review copies of books. No secret there. (Well, outside of the under the table deals like mentioned earlier in the thread.)

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

People mistake "beta-testing" for "playing-games". Beta Testing is FAR from that.

Often, Beta-Testing is exhausting and repetitive task because you need to test if this interaction causes desired error.

 

[Nikolai II]

Believe it or not, testers do not need to be pro players to be effective. What you want are attention to detail and those that like to test and experiment every component. You of course want those testers to have the technical writing talent to document everything as well. Handing beta-access over to a pro is nice for testing the difficulty I guess, but a good team of testers will have much different goals than simply just beating the game as fast as possible.

Oh, I do believe it.

 

[AriochIV]

People mistake "beta-testing" for "playing-games".

This. 90% of the people who say they want to beta test really just want to play a free demo. Actual beta testing of an unfinished game is boring and frustrating. Part of the reason public beta testing is so rare is because these 90% will expect a demo instead of a beta, be put off by fact that the game is unfinished, and post bad things about the game online.

The only reason you'd want to risk this is if you have a need for large-scale testing, which is usually only necessary for online multiplayer games, and even then, you want to wait until the game is in a very polished, finished condition.

 

[Ryika]

That really depends on the Beta Test though. With Civ having Autoplay I'd assume a lot of the frustrating parts of Betatesting are probably already out of the way, most of what remains are things like UI-Functionality, Gameplay-Functionality, AI-Player-Interaction and - which is probably the most fun part towards the end - Balancing.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

There is probably another factor. You probably have to be recommended by a beta tester in good standing.

 

[CaptainUnknown]

That really depends on the Beta Test though. With Civ having Autoplay I'd assume a lot of the frustrating parts of Betatesting are probably already out of the way, most of what remains are things like UI-Functionality, Gameplay-Functionality, AI-Player-Interaction and - which is probably the most fun part towards the end - Balancing.

Auto play is good but the AI follow the rules. I agree the UI is a big part of it but so is finding ways to break the rules and crashing the game. I am thinking specifically about the get pantheon before you settle a city causes a crash bug.