We are once again looking for people who either know the Sentinels of the Multiverse game, have experience beta testing other games, have experience in game development, or are even just really excited to help make Sentinels of the Multiverse: The Video Game the best it can possibly be. We’ll need you to try out every beta build with a few games and look for problems, then send us detailed feedback. The feedback can be problem reports, suggestions, or even just ideas.
If this describes you, head over to handelabra.com/beta and sign up! We can't promise how long we'll leave the form open, and signing up does not guarantee you a spot, but we're looking for more testers than the last time.
On the Stream you said there would be no Rush (You even said that it would be up for at least a couple of days), that we would have time to sign up, and then you close it in less than 24 hours. Learn to Play Sentinels Session 22 -------- 1:20:00 Beta anouncement that it will be open for at least a couple of days.
There is also one comment during a game I will have to watch all the video's again, Made by John where he says "The beta will be posted on facebook, twitter, etc... there will be no rush, it will be up for a week so you will have time to sign up." so I am off to watch all the streams.
So while you may be right that we thought there wouldn't be a rush, it turns out that there was. As it says on the sign up page, "Submissions will close when we have enough qualified testers." And we had 5x the number of people sign up than we were expecting in only 24 hours.
I decided to turn off the form since, at this point, all it really means is more people disappointed that they signed up and werent picked. Turning it back on at this point would just mean the same thing and I'm personally not super comfortable gathering a bunch of people's info if we're not going to use it.
I apologize if people didn't manage to submit their info in time, just remember that there will be a public beta later in the summer that will allow for a much larger pool of testers.
So it doesn't matter to you that your loyal followers, that have been asking about this live for over a month. Don't get a chance, You just take the first whatever that shows up.
So then why should we watch live. To ask the same question for over a month, and then to get left out.
How do we know these people who were accepted weren't also loyal fans? Should we be disappointed in our loss or happy for their success? (Or both?). I wanted to join as well, but also missed the window of opportunity. But to hear that they had so many requests that they had to end it early makes me happy that they have so many fans. There are so many disappointments in life that if we don't learn to see the good, we're going to be disappointed with our lives. But, if we train ourselves to see the good, then we can have a great day even when the world crashes around us. Just look at Setback! :D
While I agree with you that they maybe shouldn't have emphasised that they'd keep sign-ups open for a while and then close them within 24 hours, but ultimately if they hadn't you would have just signed up and been rejected rather than not being able to sign up at all. There is no difference in the outcomes, except that in the latter case more people get disappointed and the Handelabra folks are made to collect lots of people's info to no end. Sounds pretty pointless to me.
And also: assuming that the first people to sign up to become a beta tester are not 'loyal followers' seems a bit suspect. I'd assume that, while a 'loyal follower' might have any number of reasons for not getting around to signing up quickly (I know full well how much life can get in the way), on average it will be people who are passionate about the game, and who are keen followers of Handelabra, who sign up before the more casual fan. (And even then, it's not like the casual fan somehow is lesser than the more dedicated fan, or less deserving, though they may be less likely to want to playtest in the first place.)
Should there be a confirmation that our application was received, or will we just hear back when decisions are made? No preference, just making sure I don't miss something.
As someone who has tested games in the past, you honestly probably won't be missing much and you are probably saving yourself a lot of time and frustration. The game will crash, it probably don't work as expected or should (maybe some weird Argent Adept interactions), text/art is missing or has place holders.
Network play is always a pain to debug. You're sitting there in a chat with the developers (who's stayed up late), trying to get your iPad to connect to the server. And "yes, I've double checked the stupid wireless router" that's sitting three feet away and it's working because we are are chatting through it right now. And you can connect from your PC, but your iPad just sits there at the connecting screen saying "connecting..." in some saccharine font that you've grown to hate at this point. And nothing you do seems to get it working, even the debug image the dev team sent you which spits the same message over and over. Connecting...Failed...Connecting...Failed...Connecting...Failed.
And then you realize that somehow your fricken 8 y/o connected your iPad to your new smart thermostats wireless network. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
So then you sink into a depression because two hours ago you had assured the developer that "yes, my iPad was connected to the Internet" because you saw that wireless icon in the corner of the iPad showing three bars. And now you have figure out some way not saying you just wasted precious developer (sleep) time because you couldn't read the network name right next to the stupid wiress icon that said "Honeywell Thermostat".
Okay, maybe I have issues, but seriously it's that kind of frustration that you have to deal with when you beta test.
You may feel cheated, but really there's not a lot of pleasure in testing software. The pleasure is in finding the issues, reproducing and documenting them (if you can), and submitting bug reports. Yeah, it gives you early access to some new features or expansions, but that's a side-benefit at best. Early betas are not about building company loyalty, it's about loyal fans helping the company.
Beta testing is cool but it is often not fun. I did sign up, but I am not overly fussed if I didn't get in because it takes a lot of playing for the sake of finding and isolating bugs, weird interactions etc.
Play a game by ubisoft or Bethesda within the first 3 weeks of a game coming out and then tell me you want to be a beta tester since that is what players pay 60 dollars to do
I'd go as far as to say that you could apply that to Bethesda games until modders have had at least three years with them.
The difference is though, with an actual beta test, they're admitting they haven't properly tested it yet, and need someone to help them with such. With Bethesda, you get all this "No, no, really… It's finished. No, really. Uh, that's not a bug, it's a feature. No, really!".
