I wanted to comment on the well put article Melchizedek posted:
http://www.vanguardspheres.com/modul...warticle&id=51
I completely agree, and even know players who waisted away the opportunity to be such a big part of making a game great. There are two parts to making a game great. Vocal and committed testers, and open and responsive developers. I feel we have the latter part covered, but the former is just as much if not more important to the longevity of a game. Afterall games are made for the gamers.
I myself have beta tested:
SWG
WoW
MxO
Guild Wars
And a couple other non-MMO type games.
I was surprised to see how little feedback there was. There were thousands of players participating so I expected to see so much more feedback. Granted the same bugs were probably seen by many different players, but I feel as a beta tester everyone should provide feedback on any bug they experience, or even just make suggestions on how they felt about a particular aspect of the game.
I hope that anyone who gets into beta for VSOH does take this seriously. It is at times like work, but beta testers are an important part of ensuring a games success, and even influence the direction of a game after it's initial development.