Well if people cannot be bothered to read the full details of the emall that's their own issue.
It clearly states it is for an upcoming (i.e. not happening now) beta, and additional details will be announced soon (again, not happening now).
Unfortunately it wasn't that clear. I got the mail yesterday and thought to myself, do they mean tomorrow? I didn't even remember signing up for the beta and haven't been checking the site that often. After getting to the site and redoing my password I found I wasn't able to log in. So I did the natural thing and googled it. I found a link to their forums which I was able to access and sure enough, the email created enough confusion that there was an entire FAQ from Bioware about it.
The eMail said it perfectly clear, that anyone who signed up to the official site before 11.11.11 will be given access to beta within the next weeks and that you should watch out for further eMails that'll then give you detailed instructions.
What's not to understand about this one?
People not being able to read and make their haed around an eMail with such easy to understand content shouldn't be using the internet at all imho.
Oh... and why do people want to get into beta anyways, if you allready have the option to get a few days for preordering the game? Preorder costs $5 and you can then try the complete game instead of a beta for a few days, and if you don't like it, then you simply don't pay for the retail-box and send it back.
Beta doesn't offer anything really, as you won't be able to keep your characters anyways. It's wasted time and wasted bandwith for the 27GB beta-client.
It doesn't say "within the next few weeks" it says "soon".
Well if people cannot be bothered to read the full details of the emall that's their own issue.
It clearly states it is for an upcoming (i.e. not happening now) beta, and additional details will be announced soon (again, not happening now).
Unfortunately it wasn't that clear. I got the mail yesterday and thought to myself, do they mean tomorrow? I didn't even remember signing up for the beta and haven't been checking the site that often. After getting to the site and redoing my password I found I wasn't able to log in. So I did the natural thing and googled it. I found a link to their forums which I was able to access and sure enough, the email created enough confusion that there was an entire FAQ from Bioware about it.
The eMail said it perfectly clear, that anyone who signed up to the official site before 11.11.11 will be given access to beta within the next weeks and that you should watch out for further eMails that'll then give you detailed instructions.
What's not to understand about this one?
People not being able to read and make their haed around an eMail with such easy to understand content shouldn't be using the internet at all imho.
Oh... and why do people want to get into beta anyways, if you allready have the option to get a few days for preordering the game? Preorder costs $5 and you can then try the complete game instead of a beta for a few days, and if you don't like it, then you simply don't pay for the retail-box and send it back.
Beta doesn't offer anything really, as you won't be able to keep your characters anyways. It's wasted time and wasted bandwith for the 27GB beta-client.
Here is the info from the email:
Your account has been selected to participate in an upcoming Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Beta Weekend Test. If you have previously tested or are currently participating in an ongoing test, you will be invited again. Additional details for this upcoming test will be announced soon.
Here is the info from the official site:
How can you take part in this coming Beta Test Weekend? Well, for starters we are happy to announce that anyone who has signed up for our Game Testing Program prior to today, November 11th, will get invited! Invites will be sent in the coming weeks.
So right off the bat the info you are making your agruement with WAS NOT contained in the email. No date and or time was given in the email, and those of us who have not kept up on the beta phase had no idea of what the Beta time table looked like. That would be the reason Bioware put an FAQ up on their forums specifically regarding this email.
As to why people would want into the Beta. Frankly too many people have been burned recently on pre-orders. Think Champions, STO, Rift. Even non-MMOs like CoD:Black Ops, Medal of Honor and BF3 all came out with a large number of bugs and messed up multiplayer. Most people just don't want to drop the money down on something only to have it be a bust and then have to worry about recovering it. Despite Bioware's track record of good games this is their first MMO. People want to know if they have a decent product before they go out and dropp $60 or more.
Originally posted by marinrider I want to get in beta to actually BETA the game and make it better? Also, I think many of us have no bandwidth cap on our internet, so the client size isnt a big deal. But about the keep your characters thing, I'ver understood that part. I get why they delete them, but I dont understand why people level up to 25+ or in the case of one of the rift betas, 40+. I get that you want to test it, but I think I would be burnt out by launch if I did that in beta. Hell, I didnt even make it to cap in rift in launch. Got to 30 something and got bored.
The beta-tests, where you could possibly change something by giving feedback to BW are long gone. Now we're talking "open-beta-stresstest" tho, which is all about testing the server-infrastructure and not player-feedback about gamedesigns, etc.
And the person above posting the eMail you got clearly says: "Additional details for this upcoming test will be announced soon."
And the link to the official news goes even further clarifying: "Invites will be sent in the coming weeks."
Just got beta invite, but the offical site will not allow you to log on, even through the forum, they appear to have removed that option, but oddly the create a new account option is still there. Any idea about whats going on? Is this a emergency measure after a server overload, as it seems a huge amunt of invite where just sent out.
No problems here, I just got to the site and logged in with no problem at all.
**UPDATE 5:10PM CST (23:10 London, 00:10 Paris/Berlin): The update scheduled for tomorrow at 6:00AM CST (12:00 London, 13:00 Paris/Berlin) has now been canceled! We will still be performing scheduled maintenance tomorrow evening as originally posted at 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin).**
*UPDATE 4:30PM CST (22:30 London, 23:30 Paris/Berlin): Today's maintenance has been delayed until tomorrow morning at 6:00AM CST (12:00 London, 13:00 Paris/Berlin). The expected duration will still be two hours.
If you are disconnected tonight, the servers will be available again very shortly, so please log back in and play as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience.*
*UPDATE 3:05PM CST (21:05 London, 22:05 Paris/Berlin): Today's maintenance has been moved to 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin). We still expect the duration to be two hours.*
*UPDATE 11:50AM CST (17:50 London, 18:50 Paris/Berlin): At 3:00PM CST (21:00 London, 22:00 Paris/Berlin), we will be taking the servers down for maintenance. We expect them to be available again at 5:00PM CST ( 00:00 London, 01:00 Paris/Berlin). Thank you for your patience!*
Hello testers! This weekend we will be performing a couple of tests that will require scheduled downtime:
At some point during tonight’s stress test, we may do a brief server restart that will kick players from the game. The servers will be available again very shortly after this restart, so we encourage you to log back in and play as soon as possible.
On Sunday 11/13 at 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin), we will be performing scheduled maintenance and we expect the servers to be available again 7:00PM CST (1:00 London, 2:00 Paris/Berlin).
We appreciate your participation in this weekend’s testing phase. Thank you!
why the servers are not up. It's not a normal beta weekend, they are testing the servers so there will be a lot of times people can not log on to play.
Just got beta invite, but the offical site will not allow you to log on, even through the forum, they appear to have removed that option, but oddly the create a new account option is still there. Any idea about whats going on? Is this a emergency measure after a server overload, as it seems a huge amunt of invite where just sent out.
You got an invite for a FUTURE test. That was the confusion most had.
It doesn't say "within the next few weeks" it says "soon".
Well, given that the game launches in December, I'd say within the next few weeks is perfectly logical. There are only so many weekends left before launch after all
Lol Hate to say it,but its actually good people are having issues NOW. That way bioware can pin point those issues before launch.
Yes it is, they fixed or worked out a lot of the problems they had on the first night. tonight was a lot smoother and a lot better performance for me and many others. still issues but they are working on things.
Going to feel bad for all those haters out there, they'll end up punching their computer screens when they see how well ToR came out =o)
Lol Hate to say it,but its actually good people are having issues NOW. That way bioware can pin point those issues before launch.
Yes it is, they fixed or worked out a lot of the problems they had on the first night. tonight was a lot smoother and a lot better performance for me and many others. still issues but they are working on things.
Going to feel bad for all those haters out there, they'll end up punching their computer screens when they see how well ToR came out =o)
I agree. Was quite impressed at how fast and smooth they fix / patch things up. A month ago I was dreading launch day, pretty much assuming it would be a total disaster.. But if they keep going at the same success rate of coding and general wizardry I think it might go quite smooth, well smooth for a MASSIVE mmo launch these days. Each day that goes by I get more excited for launch.. If building and playing a character you know will be deleted is this (rediculously) fun and entertaining. Playing after launch is gonna be the most fun i have had in an MMO, maybe ever, but atleast in 6 years or more LOL.
Well if people cannot be bothered to read the full details of the emall that's their own issue.
It clearly states it is for an upcoming (i.e. not happening now) beta, and additional details will be announced soon (again, not happening now).
Regardless of how CLEAR the email was, mere human curiosity would tend to cause people to venture to the official site. Bad move on SWTOR's part that. I mean, that's what I did. Even though I knew it wasn't an actual invite, I was still curious as to the other goings on, so I tried to access the site. And now it is clear I'm not alone.
I have not been impressed with this stress test weekend yet...
Very similar, and slightly more annoying than the last stress test before WoW launched.
Oh, and you are correct.
How can you not be impressed by a stress test? Its a stress test, what is there to be impressed/not impressed with?
Um, the way Bioware handles the fact that thousands of testers cannot even download their game from their patch server because their launcher is crap? The way their customer support for 3 days prior to the test says essentially that we have to just "be patient" with the launcher when everyone in the CS forums is saying it's not slow downloads it's the launcher crashing, locking up, failing to download, looping downloads, etc.
What are you implying? That someone can't form an opinion on a negative experience? I reiterate, I wasn't impressed. And I'm still not impressed. While the quality of response has improved, it still doesn't change how they responded in the beginning because they wouldn't accept that stress testers could actually recognize a real problem and weren't just having nerd rage.
I'm sure if you didn't run into any of the crashing and downloading issues, people probably felt the stress test functioned well as a stress test... But for me it was a download and launcher test...
Comments
It doesn't say "within the next few weeks" it says "soon".
Here is the info from the email:
Your account has been selected to participate in an upcoming Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Beta Weekend Test. If you have previously tested or are currently participating in an ongoing test, you will be invited again. Additional details for this upcoming test will be announced soon.
Here is the info from the official site:
How can you take part in this coming Beta Test Weekend? Well, for starters we are happy to announce that anyone who has signed up for our Game Testing Program prior to today, November 11th, will get invited! Invites will be sent in the coming weeks.
So right off the bat the info you are making your agruement with WAS NOT contained in the email. No date and or time was given in the email, and those of us who have not kept up on the beta phase had no idea of what the Beta time table looked like. That would be the reason Bioware put an FAQ up on their forums specifically regarding this email.
As to why people would want into the Beta. Frankly too many people have been burned recently on pre-orders. Think Champions, STO, Rift. Even non-MMOs like CoD:Black Ops, Medal of Honor and BF3 all came out with a large number of bugs and messed up multiplayer. Most people just don't want to drop the money down on something only to have it be a bust and then have to worry about recovering it. Despite Bioware's track record of good games this is their first MMO. People want to know if they have a decent product before they go out and dropp $60 or more.
The beta-tests, where you could possibly change something by giving feedback to BW are long gone. Now we're talking "open-beta-stresstest" tho, which is all about testing the server-infrastructure and not player-feedback about gamedesigns, etc.
And the person above posting the eMail you got clearly says: "Additional details for this upcoming test will be announced soon."
And the link to the official news goes even further clarifying: "Invites will be sent in the coming weeks."
It can't be more clear then that.
No problems here, I just got to the site and logged in with no problem at all.
**UPDATE 5:10PM CST (23:10 London, 00:10 Paris/Berlin): The update scheduled for tomorrow at 6:00AM CST (12:00 London, 13:00 Paris/Berlin) has now been canceled! We will still be performing scheduled maintenance tomorrow evening as originally posted at 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin).**
*UPDATE 4:30PM CST (22:30 London, 23:30 Paris/Berlin): Today's maintenance has been delayed until tomorrow morning at 6:00AM CST (12:00 London, 13:00 Paris/Berlin). The expected duration will still be two hours.
If you are disconnected tonight, the servers will be available again very shortly, so please log back in and play as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience.*
*UPDATE 3:05PM CST (21:05 London, 22:05 Paris/Berlin): Today's maintenance has been moved to 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin). We still expect the duration to be two hours.*
*UPDATE 11:50AM CST (17:50 London, 18:50 Paris/Berlin): At 3:00PM CST (21:00 London, 22:00 Paris/Berlin), we will be taking the servers down for maintenance. We expect them to be available again at 5:00PM CST ( 00:00 London, 01:00 Paris/Berlin). Thank you for your patience!*
Hello testers! This weekend we will be performing a couple of tests that will require scheduled downtime:
At some point during tonight’s stress test, we may do a brief server restart that will kick players from the game. The servers will be available again very shortly after this restart, so we encourage you to log back in and play as soon as possible.
On Sunday 11/13 at 5:00PM CST (23:00 London, 00:00 Paris/Berlin), we will be performing scheduled maintenance and we expect the servers to be available again 7:00PM CST (1:00 London, 2:00 Paris/Berlin).
We appreciate your participation in this weekend’s testing phase. Thank you!
why the servers are not up. It's not a normal beta weekend, they are testing the servers so there will be a lot of times people can not log on to play.
Lol Hate to say it,but its actually good people are having issues NOW. That way bioware can pin point those issues before launch.
You got an invite for a FUTURE test. That was the confusion most had.
Well, given that the game launches in December, I'd say within the next few weeks is perfectly logical. There are only so many weekends left before launch after all
Yes it is, they fixed or worked out a lot of the problems they had on the first night. tonight was a lot smoother and a lot better performance for me and many others. still issues but they are working on things.
Going to feel bad for all those haters out there, they'll end up punching their computer screens when they see how well ToR came out =o)
I agree. Was quite impressed at how fast and smooth they fix / patch things up. A month ago I was dreading launch day, pretty much assuming it would be a total disaster.. But if they keep going at the same success rate of coding and general wizardry I think it might go quite smooth, well smooth for a MASSIVE mmo launch these days. Each day that goes by I get more excited for launch.. If building and playing a character you know will be deleted is this (rediculously) fun and entertaining. Playing after launch is gonna be the most fun i have had in an MMO, maybe ever, but atleast in 6 years or more LOL.
Regardless of how CLEAR the email was, mere human curiosity would tend to cause people to venture to the official site. Bad move on SWTOR's part that. I mean, that's what I did. Even though I knew it wasn't an actual invite, I was still curious as to the other goings on, so I tried to access the site. And now it is clear I'm not alone.
Um, the way Bioware handles the fact that thousands of testers cannot even download their game from their patch server because their launcher is crap? The way their customer support for 3 days prior to the test says essentially that we have to just "be patient" with the launcher when everyone in the CS forums is saying it's not slow downloads it's the launcher crashing, locking up, failing to download, looping downloads, etc.
What are you implying? That someone can't form an opinion on a negative experience? I reiterate, I wasn't impressed. And I'm still not impressed. While the quality of response has improved, it still doesn't change how they responded in the beginning because they wouldn't accept that stress testers could actually recognize a real problem and weren't just having nerd rage.
I'm sure if you didn't run into any of the crashing and downloading issues, people probably felt the stress test functioned well as a stress test... But for me it was a download and launcher test...