Confused about the term Alpha (PoE Alpha Version)

Hi,
maybe its the best to ask my question here. Im seriously confused by the term PoE-Alpha. I always thought, since so many years of gaming, that the status of a software goes alpha before beta. Like Alpha > Beta > Release Candidate (Goldmaster) > Release etc.

What is this alpha about? Is it basicly the newest version of PoE? It should be, but why are you caling it then alpha? Also is the alpha version seperated from the open beta version? They should be if you go by the names, yet Kripparrian mentions the difficult got many changes in alpha, which will hit when OB is released.


Lttle OT:
Got Paypal first time just for buying PoE back in September~. I really cant wait anymore for the OB. It took too long (for me) :D

edit: I cant find a thread where people are anticipating the OB. Help appreciated. Because the game looks much more polished than some months ago.

WEll you pretty much got that right, Alpha is a testing enviroment for new content in this game, only a very limited number of players has access to the alpha and tests new content/changes for GGG.
It's a quality assurance to make sure there isn't any broken content released to the public.

You have the correct impression of alpha -- it's sort of the testing ground for new content before it is deemed worthy of being released to beta. It's a LOT of bughunting. Very unstable.

Lately we've had a lot more alpha discussion because, for better or worse, some fairly high profile players are being granted Alpha access to test the forthcoming Open Beta content additions.

But when all is said and done, alpha testers are under very strict Non-Disclosure Agreement regarding otherwise unrevealed content, and so are very careful with what they say here on the beta forum.

Regarding Kripparrian's involvement and streaming and 'leaked content' in general, I recommend you peruse this link:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/66936

There you will find the lead dev's thoughts on the matter.

yeah, you have the concept right it's just you are applying it to PoE as a complete singular thing or finished piece of software.

instead the concept here could be thought of as being applied to patches. for example they alpha test each 'patch' prior to it being deployed to the beta testing area. at some point when the game goes to release I imagine they will still have a deployment scheme that makes use of alpha and beta testing for each incremental update.

Thank you guys. I understand now. Just saying, how will the release of poe look like? What is GGG's goal? Will they go for example on steam or retail? Also in this context, do you guys think we will ever see localisations for PoE? Would love a german version of it, since somehow arpgs are so technical. Or rpgs in general, you have to read much. I love the fact that you have no stats preview for a item before equipping in poe and you have to think about the affixes. I did this in the beginning of D3 too, since its much more atmospheric that way.

Ok im OT again, but i also love that there is no gold in this game, but the currency is "from the game world". It reminds me of my favorite rpg, Gothic 1 :D Atmosphere is the most important for me.

There won't be a retail version of the game, it's free2play and GGG is just a small indie company so a retail version of the game is the last thing we're going to see.

Steam may be an option in the future atm it would simply mean a too huge influx of players, there are already a lot more people waiting for OB than GGG originally estimated also Steam costs money as well.

They have confirmed localization as coming but we won't see that before release and thats far, far away.