How would you pick Tespia participants?

Suppose:
You are Nexon.
You have become convinced that you need to let players test GMS BB before release.
You can't open it to all players because Tespia hardware is even dinkier than the live game servers. It can't support more than a few thousand concurrent users.
You realize if you pick people at random, 90% of them are going to be worse than useless as testers.
You do not want to invest the time and effort evaluating applications.

You want a set of criteria that can be made into a program that will scan the player database and spit out the names of those characters or accounts most likely to be good testers.

Examples of criteria:
- logged on for at least N hours total in the past month
- completed at least N% of quests available (by job and level)
- has at least N monster book cards (by level)
- completed at least N% of event quests for the past 3 patches
- gained at least/at most N levels in the past month (N being a function of level a month ago)
- has at least N fame
- has at least N buddies
- belongs to a guild
- spent at least/at most N nx in the past month
- owns at least/at most N meso (by level?)
- owns X special item
- has characters of more than N classes (attribute of an account, or even an account cluster [by IP address?])
- has opened at least/at most N tickets in the past M months
etc

Anything that can be automated.

 Spoiler

I would try to look for people who:
- spend, or at least used to spend, considerable time on Maple. Means they have time for the testing.
- train, but not too much. Don't want henehoes, but also not grinders who never leave their one map.
- do quests and events, since it sounds like they'd want to check out the new content. Explorer and quest specialist medals give bonus points.
- are literate. That's kind of hard to check. Doing quests is a good indicator, since quests often require some reading comprehension. Being active in a guild (being master or jr. in a guild of more than a few active people is a plus), or having a large bl, might be good too. If the player database is connected to the ticket system and/or forums it would be useful to check anything the person has written there, but that might not be possible to automate easily. Spellcheck their tickets?

Variety in stats - pick players whose characters are least like others, either in base stats, outfitted armor, or bonuses. That's the kind of person who will find the unexpected glitch. Plus it gives a good cross-section of the player base for little effort.
Cumulative levels - to a threshold. Maybe 200+ levels on a single account, whether it be 1 main or 6 alts.
Useful bug tickets - This kinda assumes their ticket system is not utter pomegranate, and can find the tickets that were actually usable and passed along to the devs.

- Has at least one Level 70+ character.
- Has one character that has completed at least 500 quests towards Quest Specialist.
- Has 3+ characters tied to the same account that the Level 70+ character and Quest Specialist character is in.
- Has played at least an average of six hours per week over the past four weeks.

3 out of 4 is good, with the 500 quests towards Quest Specialist part being an absolute requirement.

Having an account older than 3 years and a modified versions of Alilatias' list:

- Has at least one Level 150+ character. This is because you have not been able to experince all of Maple til about that level. Skills, areas and bosses.
- Has one character that has completed Quest Specialist.
- Has 3+ characters 50+ tied to the same account that the Level 120+ character and Quest Specialist character is in.
- Has played at least an average of six hours per week over the past four weeks.

3 out of 4 is good, with the Quest Specialist part being an absolute requirement.

- Has at least one 120+ character. (This is cause low levels will do nothing, but play around when they can experience high level characters)
- Account made before 2008
- over half of the points in BB quiz made at website.

BB Quiz would be good, cause the people who know about the BB are more likely to find the bugs.

I think the main problem is that the average player, high-leveled or not, would rather play around with Big Bang than hunt for bugs. If they could do it without screwing up accounts, I'd like to see Nexon try out some sort of reward system where legitimate tickets could be worth meso/NX. It's not an ideal solution, but it might be their only one.

- Has at least one 120+ character. (This is cause low levels will do nothing, but play around when they can experience high level characters)
- Account made before 2008
- over half of the points in BB quiz made at website.

BB Quiz would be good, cause the people who know about the BB are more likely to find the bugs.

If someone wanted to experience high level characters they would just go to a private server..

- Has at least one 120+ character. (This is cause low levels will do nothing, but play around when they can experience high level characters)
- Account made before 2008
- over half of the points in BB quiz made at website.

BB Quiz would be good, cause the people who know about the BB are more likely to find the bugs.

The way Tespia was done last time, they copied your existing character over. You didn't get to play with a high-level character there if you didn't have one on the live servers. I think that concept should be kept, it works well to take the "private server" feel out of Tespia.

Quiz is nice but it would require people to go do it, a type of "application". Also, a quiz cheat-sheet will appear on basil 10 minutes after the quiz is posted, so it'll be pointless. Or maybe will indicate who knows how to look for maple info, I suppose that's useful too.

If someone wanted to experience high level characters they would just go to a private server..

The type of players they have been picking are probably unaware/to afraid to play a private server.

@above

If that is the case then it shouldn't be "who made an account xxxx year". I have been playing since the last two weeks of beta, my active account was made in early 2009. It clearly doesn't reflect how long I have played. I think level should be apart of it, there are more 150+ characters more affialted/understand the game than let's say level 50's-80's.

The type of players they have been picking are probably unaware/to afraid to play a private server.

@above

If that is the case then it shouldn't be "who made an account xxxx year". I have been playing since the last two weeks of beta, my active account was made in early 2009. It clearly doesn't reflect how long I have played. I think level should be apart of it, there are more 150+ characters more affialted/understand the game than let's say level 50's-80's.

Level 50's could still understand the game very well..

characters who logged from xx.xx.xxxx

- Has the Quest Specialist Medal
- Has a character over level 120
- Has logged in for x hours in the last y weeks
- Has never been banned (not including bans for a mistake on Nexon's part)
- Has an account which is older than 2 years?

there should definitely be a constant criteria for allowing access to tespia, then they can add randoms. account age, total level of characters within account, and quests completed would probably be best.

- Has the Quest Specialist Medal
- Has a character over level 120
- Has logged in for x hours in the last y weeks
- Has never been banned (not including bans for a mistake on Nexon's part)
- Has an account which is older than 2 years?

I agree with number 3 and 4.

It would be a lot of work, but wouldn't it be nice if Nexon took a quick look around the most popular Maple forum sites to pick certain users that seem best suited for Tespia? No matter how strong the criteria, there will always be asshats who get in over those who actually care.

Have an IQ of 115+ with Quest Specialist and lv 140+

-Has at least 1 character over the level of 120
-Has done at least 200 quests or attained quest specialist medal
-Account older than 2008
-Account has no issues of illegal activity (nx fraud, banned, ect)
-Player age limit of 18 (<----please?)
-Has played x hours in the past x year
-Has an IQ of at least 120 (<---please?)
-Has created x amount of characters and lvled them past x levels

Considering how worthless quests actually are, and how much importance they have to the game, I don't think it should be a requirement.

DFO has a pretty good way of choosing people. They take high level guild leaders/members, important community members from their forums/other fan sites, and other random people. If they followed the same criteria, and maybe offered NX for bug reports, they could have a pretty good test server.

These guys. And 500 random, active people.