Normal (not limited to weekend) Beta: Making Testing Practicable for the Casual Player
Last weekend, a bunch of my friends got into beta. Their weekend consisted of picking up hot pockets and not leaving the house. My weekend was very different, as you saw. Besides the computer issues, I am still a parent, and I can’t just drop everything and throw myself into testing. I guess I could have skipped WoW raids, but the rest of the weekend was not negotiable.
When giving feedback after the testing weekend, I pointed out that for some players, playtime crammed into a weekend is not possible.
If you think of it, that self-selects the type of player giving feedback. The players who can drop everything do drop everything and test their little pants off. However, these are probably not the casual players that are becoming an increasingly large portion of the market. If you want to get data from casual players, you need a testing schedule that accommodates those players.
I doubt they read my little QQ, but a day after RSVPing for the beta weekend (that all testers were invited to) I did get a second email inviting me to test. Wait, I have already gotten an email about beta weekend… is this a duplicate? Nope, it’s just normal beta.
Oh. Snap.
I will be able to actually participate and be useful! I have a little time after the Little Jedi is asleep. I can play like I normally do, over the course of a week or so, and maybe I’ll notice things that Mr. Power-through over the weekend didn’t see.