Beta Testing

[doom]

FYI -

Neverwinter Knights just released a call for Beta Testers at
www.neverwinterknights.com

- Doom

[Arjan]

they posted this on their msgboard (bioware)
http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.php?to...ic=1510&forum=2 (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1510&forum=2)

in one day 34,000 people signed up for the beta test.

A.

[Finkin Swiftfingers]

Exciting news. Cannot wait till this game is released!

[Mark_Aurel]

Bleh. As far as I could tell, they only want testers from certain countries - and my country is not among those.

NWN shouldn't be that far off, I hope.

[doom]

On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 03:19:13PM +0200, brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG wrote:
> Mark_Aurel wrote:
> Bleh. As far as I could tell, they only want testers from certain
> countries - and my country is not among those.
> NWN shouldn`t be that far off, I hope.

American software venders are often hesitant to send Beta software to
countries that don`t have fairly strict laws regarding software piracy
and international copyrights. Any country that has a loophole that
someone has exploited in the past is probably taken off the list. It
is too expensive to fight international lawsuits should someone choose
to post the software, resell it, or what not. I don`t like it, but I
guess I understand the decision.

________
/. Doom@cs.wright.edu

[doom]

On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 03:19:13PM +0200, brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG wrote:
> Mark_Aurel wrote:
> Bleh. As far as I could tell, they only want testers from certain
> countries - and my country is not among those.
> NWN shouldn`t be that far off, I hope.

American software venders are often hesitant to send Beta software to
countries that don`t have fairly strict laws regarding software piracy
and international copyrights. Any country that has a loophole that
someone has exploited in the past is probably taken off the list. It
is too expensive to fight international lawsuits should someone choose
to post the software, resell it, or what not. I don`t like it, but I
guess I understand the decision.

________
/. Doom@cs.wright.edu

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[Mark_Aurel]

I actually got the impression the beta was tied to language versions or countries where Infogrames have major divisions - i.e. France and Germany are on the list, other European countries are not. I think the notion of somehow protecting a program from piracy that way won't work - I had the WC3 Beta within one or two days of its release in the US. I'll wager it won't be much harder to get the NWN beta, if I go look for it. I don't generally condone piracy in any way; I play a lot of computer games, and I've bought every one of them. The Age of Mythology (sequel to the Age of Empires series) beta is coming up soon; I'm on the closed beta for that game.

It all reflects company policy, or purpose of the beta. I feel pretty certain Blizzard didn't object to, perhaps even actively pushed for, the illegal spread of the WC3 beta - for publicity purposes.

[scotchco]

Germany is only on the list because we whined to the high heavens on the official boards when we weren't included.

However, being on the list does mean the people from those countries are silent for now. It doesn not mean that anyone will actually get into the beta, and I severely doubt it.

Regards,
scotchco