What drives me crazy is the false sense of entitlement in this thread:

"I should have been picked because I post in the forums!"
"I should have been picked because I put in 100 hours in Skyrim!"
"I should have been picked because I have 5 level 50 characters!"

You didn't get in. I didn't get in. Get over it -- life goes on. Buy the DLC when it comes out.

So that's a fact, huh? You must work for Bethesda, right?

Number 3 happened. Someone I know made ten accounts and received three beta codes.

No ones saying that you buffoon. The majority of us are saying people that just joined because they heard about the dlc shouldn't have qualified in the slightest.

No it's called a theory you 'dolt'.

Whether they should have or not is not for any of us to say--that's Bethesda's choice and they have their processes and reasoning.

And there's no need for name-calling.

There's people like Gheart and few others who are responsible

I wonder why you've logged in, you Heard about the DLC, point in case.

And I'm not quite sure what you just said, did you really just say that the community (the fan base, the active one) has no right to give improvement ideas for the next beta? Funny stuff, you should try comedy.

Yes, there are people who signed up for the forum just to get the beta who would not come back after they got the beta. Yes, there are many qualified members of the forum who would have been good choices for the beta. Yes, there are some people who may have lied about their stats in hopes of increasing their chances of getting into the beta. We're well aware of the downsides to choosing players to beta test. How about some bright side? Bitterness isn't going to get anyone into the beta, it's not going to improve the quality of the game, and it's not going to get us to the game's release date any faster. I'll start. There have been beta testers (I don't know their names, and therefore can't prove this to be true, sue me) who would not spoil the beta, but have said that the bugs aren't very bad, and that the overall quality of the game is pretty good so far. This makes me confident that we will really get the game on the 25th and that it will run smoothly.

I've got no idea who Gheart is but none the less, it's sad if only 1/3 of the people that got the beta are actaully going to 'beta-test' and report bugs.

Yeah, let's just leave it at that.

Are post date or join date even relevant? I'd say no.

If someone joined 5 years ago and has a post count of 10,000 and has never been warned, I don't really see that have having any relevance to whether they should be selected for the Beta as compared to someone who just joined and has a post count of 17. It technically only takes one post to report bugs if you're keeping a comphrehensive list and do a dump all at once, so you don't really need them to be glued to the forums as much as you do to the game. Then, when they've played or if they run into something in deperate need of fixing, THEN they come back to the forum to discuss it. You need to see a wide variety of iterations. Post count and join date could be mutually exclusive from beta testing ability.

How many characters have they played? Which races? What play styles? What's the average play time? What quests do they typically complete? Any order to that questing? What level are their characters?

The answers to those questions are far more relevant when taken in combination that when someone joined a forum or how often they post.

JMO

This is all getting too personal with name calling. Enough.