Official Beta Testers Applications

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Doylee said:
No. I can personally tell you that it is a completely voluntary position, you are not getting paid wages for helping Re-logic test their game(s). Nothing has changed since then.
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Just as I thought. I mean, I never even expected to get paid for testing when I signed up.
 
Well, as I somewhat implied earlier, the expectations on a paid tester as opposed to a voluntary one would differ immensely.
 
Derunih said:
I think people are confusing unpaid beta testers with paid alpha testers, who are official employees at the actual office.
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Whether or not a tester gets paid doesn't depends on if he/she is testing alpha or beta software. Usually alpha is tested by the development staff itself, although as of late the distinction between alpha and beta has become very subjective (and by subjective I mean a way of justifying game breaking bugs).
Jay2a said:
In some cases, you can actually get paid for beta testing, but that's not the case with Terraria.
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That's what I was referring to.
 
And to those that are clueless of the difference between Alpha and Beta:
  • Alpha is when the features get added to a piece of software. This nearly always closed.
  • Beta is when the features are added but need to be tested for glitches. This is sometimes open, sometimes closed.
Take for sake of example Starbound. (Yes, I know, some of you consider it a forbidden topic, but it permits me to explain something)

They have three (3) builds: Stable, Unstable, and Nightly.

Stable is... well stable. Few bugs and most glitches fixed.

Unstable is Beta: A lot of features are added, but haven't been fully tested yet.

Nightly is Alpha: Untested, features get added daily and the engine is continually getting expanded.
 
What I see it as according to how it's presented nowadays is that Alpha means that it lacks large portions of content or otherwise has very deep holes in it. Beta being the 'polishing' phase for bug fixing and fine-tuning of gameplay.

It's been twisted a lot because of the surge of early-access; devs still have to do a lot of bug fixes so that the game is considered playable and doesn't put off their target audience through crashes and the like.
 
FlakMaster said:
What I see it as according to how it's presented nowadays is that Alpha means that it lacks large portions of content or otherwise has very deep holes in it. Beta being the 'polishing' phase for bug fixing and fine-tuning of gameplay.

It's been twisted a lot because of the surge of early-access; devs still have to do a lot of bug fixes so that the game is considered playable and doesn't put off their target audience through crashes and the like.
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Basically what I said. One of the games that adheres to this a lot is Dwarf Fortress, which is still in Alpha, so every release is constantly bugged. Beta will not come in another 20 years when Toady has added quantum mechanics to the game.
 
I wanna be the very best
like no one ever was...
to find them all is my real test
to report them is my cause...

I will travel across the game
testing everything in sight...
looking for bugs at every turn
Searching day and night!

(I don't know what drove me to type this.)
 
Loki said:
If you left stuff blank, that could hurt - depending on what it was. @Arkhalis - thoughts?

As for "leaking stuff" - the best way I always found to not do so was to not make it a big "thing" publicly that you are a tester - half the time most people won't even know. I find that the more you talk about it yourself, the more you invite such queries.

That and having good self control. ;)

Just food for thought. :)
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Addressing the aforementioned points:
Should an answer be left blank on the application:
  • I will be reading every application fully, meaning a blank field (other than the optional bug) will be looked upon poorly
  • I would much rather see a response of "I am not sure what is going on here, but I feel this is not the intended function, please advise" than a blank field
    • This shows me you are willing to report something out of place at the risk of sounding ignorant
      • (ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of, simply overcome by furthering your education)
  • The only exception to this is the optional bug, where I will add points. Keep in mind though, over-explaining or incorrectly making assumptions about the optional bug can be detrimental to your application as well. Don't answer with the assumption you know what is going on (pro-tip: Explain what you see, not what you think)
To the point of leaking information:
  • If you feel incapable of protecting company privacy, do not apply
  • If you have an overwhelming urge to brag to your friends about your beta status, do not apply
  • If you just can't wait to tell the world about all the new features and how amazing they will make the game, do not apply
  • If you want to join the beta to find bugs, keep them secret, and exploit post release, do not apply
I am looking for professional individuals capable of playing the game and reporting issues with the goal of improving quality and user enjoyment.
  • Your focus will be to assist with game testing, even if repetitive, to find and reproduce issues the developers can fix prior to release
  • A great example: Some of our testers have generated hundreds of worlds and repeatedly killed the same boss hundreds of times to vet out balance, drop rates, world gen issues, etc.
Self control is amazing, but knowing who you are and what you can do for the company is even better. If you don't think you can accomplish what I am asking here... Please, don't apply; save yourself, and the community, the trouble.

I do appreciate every single application and everyone who plays the game. However, not everyone is up to the task of being a tester. Be confident, motivated, and eager to help out. Only then, will you be someone selected for testing!

Sorry for the long-winded response, but I felt the information worth being shared.
 
Arkhalis said:
Addressing the aforementioned points:
Should an answer be left blank on the application:
  • I will be reading every application fully, meaning a blank field (other than the optional bug) will be looked upon poorly
  • I would much rather see a response of "I am not sure what is going on here, but I feel this is not the intended function, please advise" than a blank field
    • This shows me you are willing to report something out of place at the risk of sounding ignorant
      • (ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of, simply overcome by furthering your education)
  • The only exception to this is the optional bug, where I will add points. Keep in mind though, over-explaining or incorrectly making assumptions about the optional bug can be detrimental to your application as well. Don't answer with the assumption you know what is going on (pro-tip: Explain what you see, not what you think)
To the point of leaking information:
  • If you feel incapable of protecting company privacy, do not apply
  • If you have an overwhelming urge to brag to your friends about your beta status, do not apply
  • If you just can't wait to tell the world about all the new features and how amazing they will make the game, do not apply
  • If you want to join the beta to find bugs, keep them secret, and exploit post release, do not apply
I am looking for professional individuals capable of playing the game and reporting issues with the goal of improving quality and user enjoyment.
  • Your focus will be to assist with game testing, even if repetitive, to find and reproduce issues the developers can fix prior to release
  • A great example: Some of our testers have generated hundreds of worlds and repeatedly killed the same boss hundreds of times to vet out balance, drop rates, world gen issues, etc.
Self control is amazing, but knowing who you are and what you can do for the company is even better. If you don't think you can accomplish what I am asking here... Please, don't apply; save yourself, and the community, the trouble.

I do appreciate every single application and everyone who plays the game. However, not everyone is up to the task of being a tester. Be confident, motivated, and eager to help out. Only then, will you be someone selected for testing!

Sorry for the long-winded response, but I felt the information worth being shared.
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So explaining what you believe is the cause of the bug is bad, even if the answer is correct?
 
Vulpes Inculta said:
So explaining what you believe is the cause of the bug is bad, even if the answer is correct?
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What Arkhalis is saying is, if you definitely know the cause of the bug, write it down. Otherwise, write down what you see. If you just make an assumption as to what the bug is, that can be catastrophic due to the dev team "fixing" a part of the code that's not actually broken.
 
Vulpes Inculta said:
So explaining what you believe is the cause of the bug is bad, even if the answer is correct?
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Well, not always, it's a tight rope to walk. Remember, the developers know exactly what is going on behind the scenes. I'd rather you explain exactly what was happening and how to reproduce an issue with an image or gif than try to explain why something is happening code wise.

Most of the time, in past experience, testers are wrong about the mechanics of why an issue occurs. Occasionally we have someone with programming knowledge who also knows the game itself, but keep in mind you are often testing new functionality. This is not the same game you decompiled 4 versions ago and expect to understand everything.

Generally, it is far easier for the devs to find and resolve an issue if it is clearly explained exactly where you are, what is going on, and how to reproduce it; than if you made an assumption of what is going wrong, and were in fact incorrect.

Jay2a said:
What Arkhalis is saying is, if you definitely know the cause of the bug, write it down. Otherwise, write down what you see. If you just make an assumption as to what the bug is, that can be catastrophic due to the dev team "fixing" a part of the code that's not actually broken.
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I doubt it would go so far as to the dev team fixing something they shouldn't. However, the time it takes to find the issue described could be exponentially higher. Trust the developers to know their application and fix described issues. You don't know it as well as they do, THEY MADE IT! :)
 
Arkhalis said:
Well, not always, it's a tight rope to walk. Remember, the developers know exactly what is going on behind the scenes. I'd rather you explain exactly what was happening and how to reproduce an issue with an image or gif than try to explain why something is happening code wise.

Most of the time, in past experience, testers are wrong about the mechanics of why an issue occurs. Occasionally we have someone with programming knowledge who also knows the game itself, but keep in mind you are often testing new functionality. This is not the same game you decompiled 4 versions ago and expect to understand everything.

Generally, it is far easier for the devs to find and resolve an issue if it is clearly explained exactly where you are, what is going on, and how to reproduce it; than if you made an assumption of what is going wrong, and were in fact incorrect.
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Well, would've been good to know this is the approach you were going for, before submitting an application. :p I don't remember my answers at all, so I could've done it "correctly", but I wish I would've known this before. e.e
 
Vulpes Inculta said:
Well, would've been good to know this is the approach you were going for, before submitting an application. :p I don't remember my answers at all, so I could've done it "correctly", but I wish I would've known this before. e.e
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Don't over-think it! I waited to have responses like this to see how people responded, with their own individual thoughts. I am not looking for the "Arkhalis said to answer it this exact way" tester either :)

Individuality, free thought, and creativity are all amazing traits I look for as well!
 
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