http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8273895#post8273895
We are very pleased to announce the start of Guild Testing for STAR WARS: The Old Republic! This program will allow guilds to be considered as a whole for inclusion in the Game Testing Program, allowing us to gather important data regarding how guilds play The Old Republic, as well as how organized groups deal with various mechanics and systems in the game. The program is already underway, as we’ve invited the first wave of guilds into testing, however we’ll be adding more over the coming weeks alongside the general Game Testing invites.
How do I sign my guild up for Guild Testing?
All you need to do in order to have your guild considered for Guild Testing is to have an active guild with at least 10 members registered in our Guild Headquarters. We also recommend creating a recruitment thread on our forums, but please make sure you are following the Recruitment Guidelines we’ve set forward. Guilds that spam recruitment messages after multiple warnings, for example, will not be considered for Guild Testing.
How are guilds selected for Guild Testing?
In general, guild testing is done randomly from all eligible guilds (that is, those with at least 10 registered members in the Guild Headquarters). Throughout the program, we will be looking to let in both large and small guilds, so as long as your guild meets the minimum requirement, you have an equal chance of being invited to testing. In addition, we may, at our discretion, choose a few select guilds that are active and helpful in the community, since we could use that sort of helpfulness in-game and on the Testing Forums. Note that this will be done in rare circumstances, in order to reward our dedicated community members. Please do not contact any BioWare staff requesting access to Guild Testing, or else your guild may be removed from consideration.
How do I know if my guild has been selected for Guild Testing?
Guild leaders will be contacted directly with detailed instructions when their guild gets selected for testing. It’ll be their job to pass the appropriate information to the rest of their guild in order for everyone to be sent testing invites.
What is involved in Guild Testing?
Guild Testing works the same way as Game Testing does, however by being invited as a guild, you gain the advantage of being in the same testing group and being on the same server, allowing for more coordination amongst the guild for testing group content. You’ll still be a part of the general Game Testing population as well, and will have access to the general testing forums as everyone else does.
Thanks to the infamous “Peri luck”, this means that the entire Tatooine Royal Navy can now expect to be shut out of the beta test. ;)
We’ve been forcing our GM to check his email a few times a day to see if we got an invite, but the accepted conspiracy theory so far is that BW mostly invites from the US.
In other SWTOR related things I thought the Razer SWTOR keyboard looked interesting, with a large LCD screen where the numeric keypad should have been. Unfortunately, it did not have a numeric keypad, and the extra buttons you got on the lcd screen are not really put in a good position if you’re mosty a WASD(or RDFG) + Mouse player, since you’d have to remove your hand from the mouse every time you wanted to use those keys… So I guess I wont be going for that.
If that’s not a reason to join Threevil I don’t know what is. I applied in some form as a Sith Inquisitor.
Bluto
1705
I applied to Threevil too, let’s hope.
Did anyone watch the EA livestream from Gamescom? They had a live demo of the first raid in the game (Eternity Vault), and the demo team got wiped on the first boss. Hilarious!
Erik_J
1707
Come ooooooooon Threevil! Daddy needs a new pair of light sabers!
Applied to Threevil as myself. Please choose me!
Razgon
1709
I wonder if I can apply to threeevil as well, being european?
my own pitifull small two man guild is beneath their notice it seems, so…
Who knew there were so many on QT3 that would choose the easier path? There is still good in you, QT3, I can feel it!
Relatedly, I have an “mmurphy” applying to the Navy, and while that sure seems like a QT3 handle, I can’t find them on the member list. Anyone?
Obi-Wan once thought as you did. You do not know the power of the dark side.
Seems to have set off a “TOR isn’t perfect enough” whinefest on Gaf, including, irritatingly, some of the more comic-guy-esque beta testers.
Somewhat unusually, it seems to be a caveat of the guild invite system is that one isn’t allowed to say publicly that their guild has been invited. There was a thread on Reddit about it and it looked like the wording on the matter was stern indeed - all players kicked out of beta, blacklisted for future testing, etc.
Murph
1714
C’est moi. Sorry, couldn’t make 'em match, should’ve mentioned my handle in the application. My bad.
Obviously we’ll have to do it by PMs, then, should it occur. :D
Darth McMaster and I have been chatting about the East/West difference in the two guilds, and decided to put it up to a polling. We’re not guaranteed to be on the same server even if we switch time zones, though.
What do you folks think? Is it important that we try our best to be on the same server at launch? As long as we have some big Vent server or something to chat on, the only other advantage to it is doing PvP against each other (which would be pretty neat) but cross-server PvP may exist anyway.
Indifferent or agree or disagree, let us know!
Marcin
1717
Yes, it’s important to get that critical QT3 mass in one place.
If, everytime someone asks “where is the qt3 guild” they get 2 answers … they’ll probably skip it and go where their other forum friends are. It’s what I’d do: “Well it’s already splintered, why bother?”
I would rather we were on the same server (I don’t see how it would be logistically difficult unless there was a difference of opinion over time zones.)
The benefits may be nothing big (don’t have to run chars on two servers), but why not? (I guess running chars on two servers means 2x the character slots, if there’s a low limit on them)
Also cross-faction chat is apparently still allowed in /say, which is better than nothing. And as Marcin said… a lot of people sort of pick one server to play, I almost always have. It just seems like there’d be a more natural cross-faction Qt3 contingent if it was all one server; more people would be apt to join both guilds rather than just the one of primary interest.
Not that people might not peel off and join raiding/pvp/whatever oriented guilds anyway of course.
You know, if BioWare is using forum activity as one of the selection criteria for guild testing, there’s no way that either of the Qt3 guilds is going to be asked to test. The TRN forums are dead, despite best efforts.
Yeah but realistically, if I have something I want to say to Qt3 about the game, doing it here makes more sense. I’ll cheerfully add posts to threevil topics if people want to go that route, but it’s ultimately kind of a potemkin village.
There are a lot of good-sized guilds for them to choose from. I just look at it the guild phase (and being in a suitable guild) as having two lottery tickets instead of one. And that’s assuming the guild invites are over and above whatever individual invites would be anyway.
