The terms "alpha" or "beta" mean less to most players than "get to play it early," which will be the case in September for anyone interested in Battlefield 3 who purchased Medal of Honor: Limited Edition.

DICE has published some clarification on the Battlefield 3 blog to help provide some answers.

The studio is currently rolling into the alpha phase, which is a private and invite-only period meant to test very specific aspects of the online experience. Having purchased Medal of Honor won't help you get into this one, but that doesn't mean you don't have a shot. DICE recommends signing up for the Battlefield 3 newsletter and ensuring your Veteran status is current.

Then, cross your fingers.

What you should really be looking forward to is September's beta. A newsletter recently went out reminding players of the beta, but if you didn't receive that newsletter, there's still time to opt in via your online Electronic Arts profile. There doesn't appear to be a cut-off period, so long as you've got a copy of Medal of Honor in your possession with a Battlefield 3 sticker.

Naturally, that offer doesn't extend to used copies of the game.

The terms "alpha" or "beta" mean less to most players than "get to play it early," which will be the case in September for anyone interested in Battlefield 3 who purchased Medal of Honor: Limited Edition.

DICE has published some clarification on the Battlefield 3 blog to help provide some answers.

The studio is currently rolling into the alpha phase, which is a private and invite-only period meant to test very specific aspects of the online experience. Having purchased Medal of Honor won't help you get into this one, but that doesn't mean you don't have a shot. DICE recommends signing up for the Battlefield 3 newsletter and ensuring your Veteran status is current.

Then, cross your fingers.

What you should really be looking forward to is September's beta. A newsletter recently went out reminding players of the beta, but if you didn't receive that newsletter, there's still time to opt in via your online Electronic Arts profile. There doesn't appear to be a cut-off period, so long as you've got a copy of Medal of Honor in your possession with a Battlefield 3 sticker.

Naturally, that offer doesn't extend to used copies of the game.

:O

Got mine

Sven!

So... I guess if I bought MoH a few months after release digitally from Amazon I'm not going to get into the beta with that?

I no longer have my medal of honor game, whatever i just want the game to come out now

I was just messing around anyways i already have it :P For real though, you lucky PC gamers sometimes get the best stuff

Looking forward to anything BF3 and if buying MoH during the Steam sale got me into the beta then it was well worth the 5 bucks.

Eh too much work, I'll just wait for the retail release. Don't wanna sully my experience either with game breaking glitches.

I Predict: Just like BC2, thousands upon thousands of codes will be given away via various enthusiast sites and server hosting resellers. 

@xobballox: If I remember correctly it should have said on the box if it was a limited edition or not. I think it came with a code?  I also just got an email about a week ago from EA stating I would be able to join the beta so I'm looking forward to that.

Yea not buying Metal of Honor just to get into the beta.

Nothing justifies the purchase of Medal of Honor.

Day 1 if it's on Steam, day never since it's not.

No Steam, No Sale

If I buy Medal of Honor right now for PC will I still get Beta access?

Never much cared for Betas, but that's mainly because they're more "multiplayer demo" now.

@Jcdenton said:

If I buy Medal of Honor right now for PC will I still get Beta access?

Make sure it's the Limited Edition.

I didn't receive an email from EA about the beta, so I tried logging into my EA account even though I had no idea what my username nor password was, and then they wanted me to create a 'Master Account' and to pick a MASTER username. I tried all kinds of names but it kept saying that it was either invalid or someone else had already taken it (which I'm pretty sure was impossible given the things I wrote in the field), so fuck it... I'll just play it when I receive it from my retailer.

@Meatsim said:

Yea not buying Metal of Honor just to get into the beta.

This.

Fuck that shit, it's getting old.

@big_jon said:

@Meatsim said:

Yea not buying Metal of Honor just to get into the beta.

This.

Fuck that shit, it's getting old.

I did - Got my mail yesterday.. happy with it. I sold the thing a week later like in 45 so no biggie.

@Jcdenton said:

If I buy Medal of Honor right now for PC will I still get Beta access?

Only if is the "Limited edition" you can get it in a Best buy like in 30 dlls. Don't get it on steam as that is the regular and don't grant you access to it.

@Jcdenton said:

If I buy Medal of Honor right now for PC will I still get Beta access?

Only if is the "Limited edition" you can get it in a Best buy like in 30 dlls. Don't get it on steam as that is the regular and don't grant you access to it.

i would rather just wait until the actual product comes out.  im not going to buy Medal of Honour just so i could play a multiplayer beta!

'Alpha' is the new 'Beta', just like 'Beta' became the new 'Demo'. It's also not surprising how specific people breaking the NDA by posting footage on youtube are not being banned or having their videos removed.

the september beta has been called open beta , if they dont mess with the definition , that means that there will be an unlimited supply of keys available for anyone , or no keys needed at all.

if its only available for tier 1 people and a select few others , that would be a closed beta.

I wish I could get into the beta, but I'm not going to shell out money for Medal of Honor (which I have already played and felt very "meh" about). The game isn't that important to me.

@Zatoichi_Sanjuro said:

'Alpha' is the new 'Beta', just like 'Beta' became the new 'Demo'. It's also not surprising how specific people breaking the NDA by posting footage on youtube are not being banned or having their videos removed.

some people have actually asked ea for permission on putting up videos , or so they claim .

this alpha seems loose as hell.

i dont condone buying a game just to get into the beta of another game , that sends the wrong signals to the developers.

theres usually another way to get into the beta anyway.

I forgot Medal of Honor exists.

Spoilers: It'll play like a Battlefield game. Just like how Modern Warfare 3 will playing like Modern Warfare game. 
 
Actually, judging the promotion for this Battlefield, it'll play like a Modern Warfare game. Except if it's anything like the Bad Company games, it'll be glitchy and weird :(

I hope there's a way for people who don't have Medal of Honor to acquire keys for the beta.

my used copy had the code unused :D 
 
thank god for some of the dumb people out there.

@Zatoichi_Sanjuro said:

'Alpha' is the new 'Beta', just like 'Beta' became the new 'Demo'. It's also not surprising how specific people breaking the NDA by posting footage on youtube are not being banned or having their videos removed.

Don't be so ignorant. Betas exist to for every game but since so many people just want to experience that game, publishers will want to make a buck because they can. The beta for Uncharted 3 I thought was fantastic and got me pumped for the game even more but it was very clearly a beta with a ton of bugs to iron out.

I'm still hoping my copy of Splinter Cell: Conviction actually gets me into the Future Soldier beta.

I don't want to violate the NDA, so I'll speak mostly in vague terms that apply to alphas and betas across the board, instead:

The number of people acting like this is just a chance to play the game early and that they're entitled to get into the game and play it flawlessly is kind of discouraging. The entire point of an alpha (and beta, for that matter) is to run into problems and then diagnose and resolve them. If you're not running into problems, then it's not particularly helping. If you're interested in participating in an alpha, you should be completely willing to spend the entire time not playing the actual game - because that's an absolute possibility.

There's a reason people do development and QA for a living. It's not happy-happy-fun-time. It's work. If you're not interested in performing various diagnostics and differentials and working out problems and being detail oriented, then you should just wait until the game is released. Frankly, if you're not getting paid to do it, then you should probably not be doing this anyway. I do this sort of thing for a living (but on an enterprise level for unix applications), so I'm normally not interested in spending my spare time doing it, too. Though . . . I occasionally make exceptions.

Of course, I have seen people making comments about "I bought Medal of Honor so I could play this and it's not working boo hoo hoo", which I find kind of frustrating. (Though, I'm pretty sure the MoH offer was for the BETA and not the ALPHA). You shouldn't be buying a game so that you can participate in an alpha or beta. Then again, if that's really what has been advertised, then it's a failure of marketing, too. You should not be offering alpha participation as a buy-in or a reward (or betas either, frankly). If you need a lot of people to participate in the process, then having bought something shouldn't be the qualifier. Your experience, interest, and availability should be the only qualifier.

@CitizenKane said:

I wish I could get into the beta, but I'm not going to shell out money for Medal of Honor (which I have already played and felt very "meh" about). The game isn't that important to me.

In my experience, it's gotten ridiculously hard to find a new copy of the Limited Edition anyway.

Actually patrick, a DICE dev tweeted that the MOH LE deal gets you early access to the open beta, and not exclusive access

Well I got in. Too bad all I have is my laptop

Got the alpha invite a few days ago.  That was unexpected!

I don't know how that's confusing. That's pretty much what I expect alpha and beta period to be.