More EU Invites Go Out

Stephen Reid posted a new thread which will be updated when more invites are sent out. Happily it said that more EU invites were sent out this week. However, the content of this thread was not without controversy.

With that out of the way, here's the current status as of today, October 3rd:

Invites sent last week (ending September 30th)

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and select European countries
    * What was sent: General Game Testing invites
    * Server location: East Coast USA

Invites sent this week (ending October 7th)

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada, France and Germany
    * What was sent: General Game Testing invites
    * Server locations: East Coast USA (North America testers); EU servers (France/Germany testers)

More to come.

What was odd about this update at first read is that this week the EU servers were open for Game Testing, but only testers from France and Germany were invited. Predictably there were complaints about this. Actually there were also complains that the USA East Coast servers were chosen, but that turns out to mean everyone in North American can be invited.

No the real thing here for the EU is that Bioware only invited, this week, testers from France and Germany and not randomly across the whole EU green zone.

Now remember that new client with French and German voice overs? That they wanted to test? Yep, that's why. They of course want to use their Game Testing program to test the game, and particularly want to test the new features they put in.

Now didn't they say they wanted to get this new client a bit of testing before Beta Weekends start, and this looks like testing to me. Unfortunately it is now Tuesday so I am not sure enough testing will happen for this coming weekend, but it depends if they wanted internal or external testing before proving the client. Inviting external testers means they have probably proven the client internally.

Anyway, here is me on beta weekend speculation again. I also hope they might want some English speakers to come.

Another potential issue is that of British English versus American English. Now in the UK we are used to getting American English products which are "good enough" for us, but there are distinct differences in spelling and terminology between British and American English. A search on google shows most of Europe seem to be taught British English.

So will the EU client be British or American English? Testers could have a load of fun submitting bugs saying the spelling is incorrect for "color" or "summarize", and annoying the hell out of Bioware who might think that British and American English is the same.

I am pretty sure the client will be American English, and so they won't really need that many more English speakers to do ongoing Game Testing. It would be good if it were British English, then they'd need a lot more European English-speakers to test it out. Not to mention those characters with an English accent, who surely need to be verified that they refer to Tea properly and use the correct Queen's English, right?