What's the best MMO testing experience you've ever had?

'Borrowed' from Massively, join in on the weekday discussions and let your opinions be heard!

I know I’m not alone in feeling beta-fatigue. I hear the same things I feel from you folks in our comments and from our writers too. We’re tired of being asked to pay to perform QA duties for game studios. We’re tired of games rushing to “open beta” soft launches so they can make a quick buck. And maybe above all else, we’re tired of having so much of the game experience spoiled before the “real game” begins.

I didn’t always feel that way, though. When MMORPGs were few and far between, I gobbled up testing experiences, which meant that while I alpha’d classic Anarchy Online (yes, it was that bad) and love to tell the “monsters-that-way sign” story from Horizons, I also got in on the ground-floor with insanely fun betas like Asheron’s Call’s and Star Wars Galaxies’. I even got to test a very early version of World of Warcraft thanks to a dear friend, and I pretty much had to be dragged back out of it because I had such a great time.

It’s been a while since I was that in love with a beta; vanilla Guild Wars 2 might come the closest. What about you? What’s the best MMO testing experience you’ve ever had?

TH

I have been lucky enough to be in quite a few betas. The first was Age of Conan that had awful crashes. I was really hyped to get in though so it made it worthwhile.

Nowadays betas aren't as exclusive as they were. I remember getting into Champions Online and feeling really privileged to be in, but now you can near enough buy in. I also used to explode my enthusiasm for the game, whereas now I use them more as testing grounds for what class I am going to be.

Above all, I use them to see if the game will really match what I am looking for, for example, WildStar didn't sadly.

The biggest pain in beta was never actually getting into SWTOR Beta which was my most hyped MMO of all time. /brokenheart

TH

For me the MxO beta had its charm. Back then betas were really difficult to get into and really meant something. Now it's just bs mostly...