FoEhints: Testcenter (beta server) of Forge of Empires
84The Test Center (beta server) of Forge of Empires
The video material of my clips for events and historical quest lines is recorded on the test center (beta server). I often receive questions about the test center. Today's video provides answers.
Forge of Empires is available in many countries and languages. When logging in you can chose the preferred country. Beside Britain, the US, France, Germany and many others there also is a country named beta. This is where you find the test center.
While most countries have so many players that they need many servers, e g Noarsil, Greifental or Parkog, the beta environment only has a single server: Dunarsund. Very important: If you are playing on a server named Dunarsund in a country different to beta you are definitely not on the test center. The test center is only available in the country beta.
On your smartphone, shown in the video is the iPhone app, the sorting is a bit different. Here the test center always is at the bottom. Also you will not find the word beta. Instead InnoGames uses the abbreviation zz and the British flag indicating that English is the preferred language here.
As accounts are only valid for a single country, you need a separate account for the test center. It may have the same password and name as your main account as long as it still is available. Because this is a complete different account you cannot use the diamonds of your main account here and vice versa.
Generally everybody can start a city on the test center. This has a number of benefits:
new features are shown much earlier
Events, historical quest lines, new content and eras are available much earlier. This is how I am always able to show videos with the new features before they are published.
Occasionally free diamonds
As an incentive to test the new features, players often receive free diamonds. InnoGames is not expecting you to invest real money for being able to support the developers delivering a flawless game experience.
InnoGames expects that players report bugs in the forum when they are noticed on the test center. But nobody controls that. You are allowed to play on the test center even if you never publish a single bug report. Generally every player on the test center helps to improve the game. This is even true if someone is not reporting bugs, as many tests can only be successful if a minimum workload is on the server.
On the other side the test center also has some disadvantages:
You cannot select your language. It is English. For visitors of this YouTube channel this is not such a problem as for those watching my German channel. English is used for game messages as by players in chats and messages.
On the test center there are many players with only occasional activity. Many only log in if there is something new. So it can happen that for a daily challenge I have to visit 42 taverns, but all taverns of my 100 friends are full because their owners are currently not logging in.
Some things are different on the test center. The treasure hunt has been suspended when the daily challenges have been introduced. The time is GMT, not necessarily your local time. It occasionally can happen that the server is rebooted and new content can be accompanied by new bugs, with impact on the game experience. Don't forget that this is the test center.
Again all advantages and disadvantages summarized on one slide. If it makes sense to play on the test center is everybody's individual decision. My general advice for the test center as well as for all other servers: Better concentrate on one world to be successful there instead of poor results on many different worlds.
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Other Statistics
Forge of Empires Statistics For FoEhints
Currently, FoEhints has 6,492,349 views for Forge of Empires across 372 videos. This game accounts for over 1 day of watchable video on his channel, roughly 99.07% of Forge of Empires content that FoEhints has uploaded to YouTube.