Divinity 2 - Playtesters Needed

Before you get all excited, you'll need to live near Oudenaarde in Belgium. Here's the announcement:

We are currently conducting invitation only play tests to check out if our gameplay works. If you live in the neighbourhood of Oudenaarde (Belgium) and want to spend an afternoon trying out our next RPG, send an email to playtest@larian.com. Please include what days you are available in the months of August and September. These are gameplay and focus tests, so you will be sent a small questionnaire. This will allow us to establish what type of gamer you are and fit you in the right group of players.
Please take into account that you will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement (also known as a non disclosure agreement). Our number of testing slots is limited, so it's possible that we won't have any availability on the days you are available. Also, keep in mind that these tests are conducted on a work in progress version of Divinity 2, and that the very purpose of these tests is to fine tune the game.
You will not receive any compensation for participating in these tests, but you will be included in the credits of the game. Additionally, you might enjoy the experience as we think the game is shaping up pretty nicely.

More information.

Please filter out any candidates who have played World of Warcraft. WoW seems to spoil people and twist their understanding for true RPGs. Those people may never return to the world of singleplayer RPGs.
WoW is the evil!

This is the first time i want live on another country? damn.
________
Suzuki Dr650S

I hope they find a good group … anythign to help progress!

They did the same for the Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity. Its an excellent way to find bugs and inconsistencies, but equally important it gives them feedback on the playability of the game.

Damn wish I lived closer to oudenaarde, for the very first time but: damn you Limburg

Originally Posted by titus
Damn wish I lived closer to oudenaarde, for the very first time but: damn you Limburg

hahaha well living near rotterdam isnt helping either
wish i could on those dates and all. love the first in the serie so.

I'm living not too far away from the border, but this trip would cost me several hours of driving, plus quite a lot of gasoline.

That alone isn't the real problem;: the real problem is rather that I'm too exhausted after more than 4 hours of driving (6 hours is my hard achieved record) to be able to normally think again.

Being an HSP definitively has its drawbacks.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
…
Being an HSP definitively has its drawbacks.

Pardon my puny level of education (or laziness to conduct a proper research )
- but what is "HSP", please?

HSP
Look there, switch to German language if needed.

Does this mean that they are closer to finishing than we expected, or do they do this at every stage?

It´s a variation of focus testing. Until a year or two ago this was done secretly. Lately marketing has found out they can use it to create positive buzz for free - the expense is already budgeted as QA.
The reason for focus tests is simple. The publisher side wants to avoid surprises. That´s why important features are tested and the results recorded, sometimes even with hidden cameras. Then conclusions are drawn whether the feature works as intended and whether the intention was really a good idea.

Divinity 2 is approximately a year away. Maybe a bit less if everything works perfectly. It´s a quite expensive multi-platform game, which requires heavy testing. They´re certainly way over the middle of their dev cycle. Take Fallout 3 for example. It has been finished months ago, Bethesda is only working on polishing.