i lost the game.

@ random posters
/sigh
You guys are proving the OP's point. Can't you prove the OP wrong? Why do you even have to act poorly in the first place? :P

@ OP
Anyway, I do agree that putting testing servers behind a pay wall is a problem. However, it should depend on what they're testing. If they're testing content aimed at new players, it should be available to all players so that new ones can try it. Others, though, like this gunner update might be better off tested by the ones in the know. You could then access the testing server either through paying real cash (like now), energy, or a random drawing. I really think it should depend on what's being tested, rather than everything being the same.

EDIT: At the same time, saying that the same forum community which you are addressing has low quality, you're pretty much baiting for insults and off-topicness, just to spite you. I suggest to retract what you've said if you want to keep this a bit more on topic.

Maybe they could use random drafting combined with access-with-cash...or maybe not. I'm not really sure. Maybe they could have a testing server...to test ways to access it? xD

Now that I think about it, there was a time where people were getting gifted 30 days of free play time. (They gave out elevator passes to random people, probably as a way to see how things would look before removing mist energy.) Because of that, they definitely have means to pass out testing server rights.

Also, about 'preinsult'ing the community, as flowchart put it: I'm just saying that you might end up with more comments that you mentioned, which may reduce the people actually considering what you've posted. But I digress; it's your call, so I won't be a nag.

As a matter of fact, I remember a while ago when I actually did a similar thing. My goal was to bait out a specific kind of player, who would then respond by being the opposite of how I said they would be. It had mixed results...but I'll drop it. This is off topic.

There are two basic explanations;
First one is that OOO do fix only serious and visible bugs. That was totally visible after Battle Sprites test - theres no serious game affecting bugs, but tons of graphical ones for example, so they limit accepted bug reports to the most common ones of small ammout of players.
Second one is server issue. All of us know that servers are hosted on potato and if you would play at least one evening CET you would see how laggy it is even when that little ammout of testers plays. At last Gunner test I was dancing around with "Revive now" note. Preview server also causes lag to main one. Lifting limit of paid players would be exactly shooting oneself in the foot.

5$ is price of one small pizza, everyone can affort this without big lose.

....Now I have to tell everyone else in my family that I lost the game....

Jokes aside, why even come to the forums to complain about something that everyone knows about already and expect the forum community to be a bunch of [snowballs]? I mean yeah, some people here don't have the greatest English, but that doesn't mean they're stupid...

Such condescend, much meanie, wow.

"Locking the test servers behind a pay wall is kind of dumb, and in a way, prevents testing to actually be done." -Lunamon

I see where you're coming from with this, but I really want to nitpick on how Three Ringos don't call it "testing server", but preview. "Preview server".
Sure, they have a testing forum and they're asking for feedback and whatnot, but it is still called preview server... If you ask me, it sounds like it's only for previewing upcoming changes for a price, and that's honestly how I've thought about it. Yes, I'm on thin ice with this, but still. Couple this with Three Rings' grave-silent attitude and notoriety of pushing out buggy, unwanted updates...

Access to the preview server is a luxury (heck, having decent internet access is luxury enough). Luxuries, by their very nature come at a cost. Other companies restrict their testing groups to whom they select; Three Rings accepts everyone dedicated enough to their game to have dropped a mere $5 in the past three months (seriously? that's a lot?). Whether or not that's lenient enough is personal opinion.

You are not entitled to anything except the game. It is free, have you noticed?
If you have no trust in the people testing things, you're always allowed to actually pay for the game and join us in the test server.

It is not because a community does not agree with you, that we are of low quality.
Opening with a statement like that is bait, and says more about you than the community.

I won't waste any more words on this.

Well, allowing people that pay to get into the test server will make people spend lots of that juicy cash on CE. Making OOO moonies,

But, if you let it open to the public, you will get people that are generally uneducated about the game not only getting a freebie to see whats in the update, but they're also going to give biased and generally uneducated feedback. I could have gotten into the test server, but i didnt because im not very knowledgeable about any of the guns, being mainly a sword user, so my feedback would have been biased, uneducated, and worthless garbage.

Now imagine 100+ posts of that. people saying that something broken or blatantly overpowered is ok, and not to fix it. All of the educated, game-smart people that were gunners or super endgame (have like every weapon/armor) would be drowned out, ignored, and they'd be the minority, and not many listen to the minority.

Now, i'm probably gonna get "So you're saying if you don't pay you're not knowledgeble?"
No, but im just making an observation, as most people that pay and post feedback are long time players, are part of the forum community, and this hasn't been their first rodeo.

>playing on the test servers
>actually testing

I didn't pay good money to go to the testing server and do things like math, I spent hard earned ca$h on that. Screwing around and hyperventilating over spoilers FTW.

Well, Magnum paid, which means that Magnum is allowed to go into the server if he/she want's.
If Magnum doesn't want to test, it's not exactly needed, since others are doing the testing.

I only didn't do it because i WANTED to be able to give feedback and help the dev team. But, i was inexperienced. So i didn't.
Also, i don't play LD. So, yeah.

More or less everything's been covered by everyone else that's posted prior to me, but I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in for the hell of it.

The pay wall is not really fundamentally flawed, it's just a methodology of establishing your demographic. They're throwing some new stuff together, and they want the people that actually financially support them to be the first ones to see it, and get to have a play with it. That's their call, and it's not actually a bad idea. It's just demographically awkward.

Think of it this way. Assume you have 5000 players. 200 of them have paid something towards the game over the period that they've played. From a very simple point-of-view, that implies those 200 deemed the value they get for their money was worth it; or they just felt like it would be good to support the developer (albeit, it's a good idea to base numbers on the former reason, not the latter).

Now, assume you have a new aspect of your game that you're about to roll out. You could:
1) Only ever debug internally (ie. alpha test) and fix issues as they arrive after it goes live.
2) Release externally to smaller group of players, and fix issues as they're reported. Then roll out the debugged version.
3) Release externally to the entire group, but have the tests run independently of the main game (so essentially the same as 1, but the roll-out is for testing, not to "go live").

Now, 1 is the worst possible idea a development team could use. It'll just lead to customer dissatisfaction and serious damage to the team's reputation if issues arise. So there's 2 and 3, right? Well, obviously OOO is going with 2. 3 would just be a mess of bug reports and issues, which complicate a team's ability to determine the actual issue.

So, 2! Seems like a pretty sweet way to go, right? Well, how do you determine who should belong in that group? You could:
1) Pick at random, from a list of players online within a set period of time.
2) Apply a constraint allowing players who seem to support the game to test.

So, you're in favour of method 1, whereas OOO has opt'd for method 2. In terms of demographics, you're probably more likely to find players that actually do have an interest in the game using method 2, than you would in 1. If you never spend a single dollar on the game, from a perspective of someone who has no idea of your actual connection to the game, you look like you're not particularly bothered about the game. Those who have paid, it's the exact opposite.

So! After all of that rubbish, I understand why you feel the pay wall is a bad thing; but I'm here to tell that it's fundamentally a pretty solid idea. Chances the players actually dedicating money to the game will be of more use than players that don't spend anything, are just better.

You have to remember OOO's cannot go around asking every recent player if they fancy the idea of testing new aspects of SK before OOO rolls them out. It's simply unrealistic for them.

Maybe choose who gets to play on the preview server based on play time or something else that shows how experienced you are.

Another option would be for those who completed the SK survey to have access. Money isn't the only way to show you care, as not all of our players have access to cash. Our 13 year olds have parents, sure, but some of them won't allow in game spending. At the same time, money!=passion for the game, but taking the time to do the survey means at least on some level, they care.

That would be my suggestion.

Also, i second literally everything Mookie-Cookie said. Solidarity, my ginger.

/e dont see any reason to talk with people who don't have 5$ once in a 3 months for game they love to play. Oh excuse me 4.95$, guess that's a big difference.