Very good idea. If OOO wants Spiral Knights to succeed through actual fun and exciting gameplay, we definitely need Open Betas. Don't Starve is currently in closed beta for multiplayer, which I've taken part in with a select few others. We submit bug reports and suggestions to help shape the game. Open Beta will be available soon (all free of course) so everyone interested in helping can take part. Even if they don't want to help they can still enjoy new stuff.

If OOO plan on dragging Spiral Knights through the years, promos and seasonal events will do just that seeing as people are happy to spend money on them.

Why would anyone want to pay to test a buggy game? We have people on the Don’t Starve forum paying upto and over £40 for a key to access closed beta multiplayer, which in its current state is riddled with bugs and broken gameplay mechanics. I honestly don't get it?

If it's free you'll get more people willing to help and maybe speed things up. OOO are a small team right, surely they must be struggling alone to find every bug in the update and if most time is spent there then is the gaming experience going to be good at least?

Edit: forgot to mention, keys were handed out for free to certain players, just like in Spiral Knights the players themselves are dictating the value of the keys.

Testing games is serious business, SK wants the invested players to get into the test server. In general it is the paying players who have more experience and more knowledge about SK.

Suppose SK did allow anyone onto the server, do you have any idea how many players (vanguards even) are ignorant of current game mechanics? How many players know how to file a useful Bug report?

It is generally the paying players that care about balance in the game, new players will just want a blaster that can kill anything in one hit.

@Arcknightdelta
What Fehzor meant was, test servers (as well as betas) are not hosted for the benefit of players. They are hosted for the benefit of the developers, who lack the in-house testers capable of putting in the sheer man-hours to do the amount of testing they'd need on certain aspects of a game.

It's nice getting a preview of things to come, but that isn't the point of a test server. It lets the developers test functionality of things when they need mass testing, hence why it isn't open all the time.

And OOO clearly need that extra man-hours. Is it correct to say that smaller companies tend to allow Open Betas, in general? I haven't ever been part of or heard of bigger companies doing such betas. Although Destiny did. But that was just a way to get more people recognising their game. Publicity stunt.

@ Holy-Nightmare; fair point. But like I said in an earlier post, there are better ways to get capable people helping to test, paying is one but not the best and only way.

Edit: back on topic, I still think if OOO uses a few brain cells they can definitely come up with a constructive way to allow players to participate in free Open Betas. I'm sure at least one of you guys have participated in a beta and helped find things you know should be there. I have and I know everyone who participates has enjoyed it.

Actually, if one wants to get into the preview server, they need to have payed at least $4.95 total in the last three months.

So it is not a pay-once, get-in-forever, you need to pay up each time the server is open since it's highly unlikely that it will be open multiple times during 3 months' time.

I would love to see a weekend test server with the same requirements as of right now. Having an "open beta" is good for certain games, but for games such as Spiral Knights the paywall (which is very small, let me remind you) is there for quality control. For the most part, players who join the testing server are there for new content unless they are invested in the game already, with time and/or money. A very large amount of players would not submit bugs or try out the new things simply because they "want to play the new content like they have with the old content". I saw this with the gunner update test server back in the spring, on both the PvP and PvE sides. In PvP, people kept trying to be the overpowered striker they were used to, and only about 4 or 5 people that I saw were actually trying out the new gear. I saw far more vog cub + sudaruska strikers than I did any sort of gunner.

In the clockworks? I saw people who wore chaos and a swiftstrike, and maybe brought one of the new guns.

By putting up a ~$5 paywall, you are ensuring a better sort of quality control. Players who are willing to test and try out new weapons, gears, and levels will likely have no problem paying that fee, whereas players who just want to play the new content because it's content will likely not pay into the testing server. Many people spend $5 on a morning coffee or much more going out to bars. If you want to get into the beta spend your beer money on Spiral Knights for one weekend.
An open beta is good for some things, but especially since Three Rings likes to keep the spoilers down, it would do more hurt than help.

@Arcknightdelta

Um yes. That would be what I was saying.

I come from hispanoland (using Google Translate) to say, do not worry or make a topic about upgrading to Arcade ?, so with the expansion missions (New Boss Tier 3 - Post Vanguard ...), you still "forums" have the full attention of the few developers who are, if anything I advance Nick "it" before going for these "few programmers" do not take it out or put it in the Test Server ?, well we would say that lacking or would give them ideas, whether they are few take time but it's better than nothing, the game is taking one year WITHOUT SOME "NEW" you will be "forums" let yourself be creating publications on the famous GUNNER UPDATE, that already passed are ONLY pistols and can get 1 on 1 in each promotion or event ... (pfff ...).

There is a huge difference in game design here. One game is an action MMORPG, the other is a survive-with-friends mode of an adventure/crafting game. Spiral Knights is also completely free to play while Don't Starve has a price tag on it. In Don't Starve the game is a lot less straightforward to what you have to do, where Spiral Knights is pretty straightforward and you know when you're stuck.

Keeping both of these in mind, Spiral Knights is more likely to have players who just want to bash some heads join the beta because they can bash more heads, not because they are seriously testing the new bits for bugs or errors. With Don't Starve, only people who have already paid for the game can play this beta (As far as I understand at least. It would seem odd to me to give random people without the base game a beta key), and for the most part people who are getting into the beta are invested in the game already. Invested players will report bugs/complain to the forum when something doesn't work, which has a similar effect in the long run to the developers. With Spiral Knights, the team likes to keep spoilers to a minimum, and so players posting "my game isn't working in the beta" to the wrong subforum, which would and has happened, would not be too great for the way Three Rings has gone about it.

That's my argument against a free open beta in Spiral Knights. A free closed beta, as you have stated Arcknightdelta, would work wonderfully in Spiral Knights, but it would just be a variation of what we currently have. A good situation wouldn't be "hand-picked" players, but perhaps instead total playtime, an energy fee from you account (Like how we can buy Operation: Crimson Hammer), or a birdsong giveaway with trade-able passes/featured auctions, or even as a vanguard prestige mission reward for a mission that shows up once a month with a 1 month expiration date on it.
Getting free players in is okay if they are invested in the game, but often the less money people put towards games the less invested they are in it. In this case time is money, so that's why a time investment would work just as well as a monetary one for a free to play game such as Spiral Knights.

Ok so my suggestion is a close beta with free access. The only way in is by OOO selecting you if they think you could be a viable candidate. A series of questions in the form of a survey could be one way for selection. You can never tell out of all the paying customers who actually is interested in helping and who actually has the capacity to help out. You can't honestly say the majority if not all paying customers are at all capable testers. In my experience almost everyone wants to be part of a closed beta if the guaranteed way in is by paying a small fee, what's stopping some 10 year old (not discriminating, my cousin who is 8 is a genius for his age) from begging/stealing their parents card details and signing up?

It's a lame design and needs to be changed imo.

They already have done that as well lol. They used it to test tortodrones, and it was kept a secret from the players.