The alpha testers are a group of specific, selected people who have access to a private alpha testing file and discussion area. They have been chosen on the basis of many different factors, but their numbers are necessarily limited. As a rule alpha builds only go out to these specific testers, and they are more frequent and more potentially buggy than public releases of any kind, which is one of the major reasons their release is limited.
On occasion we have sent out "alpha" builds to a broader but still limited group of people, with the intention of getting a greater degree of testing prior to a major public release. This approach is used as-needed and is not a regular part of the testing cycle.
Testing essentially works in stages, with the developers doing limited testing first before even an alpha release, followed by alpha testing and revision, then when a stable enough version is reached it will be made public as a beta. This keeps feedback clear and concise at each stage, with well-known and well-defined test scenarios and limitations. Beta releases are used as a near-final testing stage, and multiple betas are usually required. Testing generally culminates in one or more "Release Candidates" (RC's), followed by the final release.
- Oshyan
