I can't wait to pre-order the expansion, and I'm planning to whether this happens or not, but does anyone know if Turbine plans to release it on the Beta Server before Sept 6th?
Because the Dev Tracker has been so busy lately, I can't find the exact post from Turbine to quote.
However, there will be a closed beta for testing Riders of Rohan. Players who pre-purchased the expansion will receive priority consideration when invitations for beta testing are sent out. However, simply pre-purchasing does not guarantee anyone an invitation.
The remainder of this post is speculation:
Last year, Turbine began the closed beta for Rise of Isengard exactly two months before launch. If the company holds to a similar schedule this year, we might expect invitation-only testing for Riders of Rohan to begin in July.
In addition, Turbine might make a build available for open testing a week or two before release in order to shake out any remaining show-stopper bugs that would prevent a successful launch. Whether or not this happens will depend on the quality of testing done in the closed beta, and the availability of developer resources at that late date.
I can't wait to pre-order the expansion, and I'm planning to whether this happens or not, but does anyone know if Turbine plans to release it on the Beta Server before Sept 6th?
They don't "release" new content on BR. The set BR up as a test system for updates.
Specifically, the general practice (and one that has been mentioned at least once in a trade press article) is that there is a closed beta--invite only--to complete major testing prior to launch. *Most* of the real testing done is closed beta these days is stress testing, but some of it is just a "many eyes" job of locating bugs, and some of the "bugs" will actually be unclear quest text.
With RoI, they opened up BR to anyone who wanted to install the client and take a look a week or two before launch. Since they've put non-expansion updates on BR, with open "testing" a week or so before updates went live, it is reasonable to expect that something like that will happen around the end of August.
In any case, pre-ordering RoR will increase your chances of getting into closed beta, providing you meet their other criteria. If you *do* get into a Turbine closed beta, be aware that they take their NDAs very, very seriously. Breaking an NDA can lead to various actions. First and most obvious is getting tossed summarily out of the beta program and not getting in for another. You can also be banned, all the way up to perma-ban. Once again for emphasis...Turbine really, really means those NDAs.
The upside to the beta programs is that you get to test new features and areas. You may get to participate in crashing the server. You will be contributing to making the game, the expansion, and the launch better and smoother. Playing in closed beta can be a lot of fun and there are features in there that will let you set up a character in ways you'd never otherwise get a shot at...all in the name of testing the system to destruction.
(But even if game-breaking bugs are found, the RoR release date will not be postponed, nor will it be fixed before release, since that will be impossible. So preview is a bit more accurate than bug-testing period.)
(But even if game-breaking bugs are found, the RoR release date will not be postponed, nor will it be fixed before release, since that will be impossible. So preview is a bit more accurate than bug-testing period.)
Is the process perfect? No. Does it help? Yes.
Since beta testing has never (in the ones I've been in going back to SoA) found an actually game breaking, and there *certainly* weren't any in PoI, that contention is unprovable. If you get into RoR and find a repeatable way to deliberately crash the server (and /bug it, of course), see if something is done prior to launch....even if it's just to disable that feature for a time.
However, even if bugs that are found don't get fixed before launch, Turbine gets to know about them sooner and start working on fixes and workarounds sooner.
For RoR? So far, no. They have taken applications in the past. For RoI they sent out invitations to their own randomly selected people. They have said that, like RoI, pre-purchasing RoR will increase your chance of getting an invitation.
They have also been know to include invitations in the lotteries, but it's been a while since they did that.
One other point...again like RoI, there will probably be multiple rounds of invites. So if you don't get into the beta immediately, don't lose all hope.
I wouldn't worry too much about being in beta. Beta is supposed to be work and not play! It is not an honors club. Yet there are always a few there who don't understand this, who whine that there are bugs, who are clearly looking to get advance knowledge about instances so they can get the good stuff the first week, etc. What you'll be seeing in beta is not the finished product, you will see stuff that isn't quite working yet, bugs that will get fixed, bugs that won't get fixed for a couple of updates, some quests that won't make it out of testing, some class changes that change several times during the beta and changed again just before it goes live, etc. You'll do a quest, then stop and write up a bug report before moving on, and over time this gets tedious.
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Originally Posted by Enomeg
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