beta testing?

**lukesmaximuse** · 01-12-2008, 13:02

hi i haven't been very active on this forum mainly because my computer decided not to play any tw game, i eventually got that fixed. Now completely unrelated to that Pike and Musket are asking for beta testers and i was just wondering what the job means?

thanks luke

**Mithrandir** · 01-12-2008, 13:37

it generally means that you play the game and look for bugs, and report them to the modding team.

**lukesmaximuse** · 01-12-2008, 15:57

thanks for the reply so basically you get to paly the game before most other people

**Husar** · 01-12-2008, 16:10

Yes, but you also have to put up with a lot more bugs, although I know some betas which seemed to run pretty fine already, depends on what the devs call a beta I guess.

**Makanyane** · 01-12-2008, 16:10

Originally Posted by lukesmaximuse

thanks for the reply so basically you get to paly the game before most other people

that is true, but you are meant to try and help the team find any problems with it - you shouldn't be too surprised on a beta version if there are still some crashes, missing components, or balance problems, you'd be expected to help spot and document them.

Also if problems are found, the fixes normally mean you have to keep re-starting campaign, instead of playing on one you might have been interested in.

Doing a good job of beta testing is work as much as play, but if you give good feedback which influences the final product it could be satisfying.

EDIT: what he said too ^^^ - synchronised posting!

**lukesmaximuse** · 01-12-2008, 17:48

im not sure im good enough player to be a beta tester but thanks for all the replies.

**lukesmaximuse** · 01-12-2008, 17:57

im not sure im good enough player to be a beta tester but thanks for all the replies.

**Makanyane** · 01-12-2008, 18:05

If you're interested go and talk to them, just be honest about your experience and the time you can give to testing.

When we chose testers for last mod we tried to have a variety of people, experienced players/modders on testing team can help you locate cause of problems quicker, but team might also like to have less experienced players to see how they cope with installation, and learning how to play the mod. Also people who haven't played TW so much can notice some of the bits of original game that you forgot to change better, whereas everyone else is so used to original game they don't think to mention it.... People that are willing to just read through all the text information and look for typos are useful too.