Beta Testing activity in Star Wars: The Old Republic is intensifying closer we get to launch date. The latest news is that French and German gamers have been for the first time invited into testing. I am not sure if they will be able to test in their own language, as was discussed a month ago when this was initially going to happen, but I am just glad that Europeans will get to have at least a small say with the future direction of the game. Along with this wave of invites there was another wave for English speaking gamers like those in Canada, UK and USA. All of these were invites for regular game testing that is an ongoing affair. Larger in volume, yet shorter in duration are Beta Weekend tests and today we saw invites sent out to all countries that SWTOR will initially launch in. This is the second Beta Weekend test and we hope this will become a more regular happening in the 9 or 10 weekends left before the game launches. The 2nd beta weekend will last from 7th-10th October, 2011. It will end on midnight October 10th for the US testers and some time early morning on the 11th for the EU testers (because of the time zone difference). All of the invites in the aforementioned waves have now been sent out and you should have them in your mailbox. If not, check your spam folder or check your beta testing status on www.swtor.com/tester.
 
As a help for the community, Stephen Reid and the community management team have setup a permanent thread on the forums that will track all the major beta testing happenings. They will try and update that forum thread each time a beta testing invite wave is about to go out (or has just gone out) and they’ll try and keep us updated on the most important information about what’s happening with SWTOR beta testing. If you are anxiously awaiting for your chance to test The Old Republic make sure you bookmark this thread. Here’s the most important info found in that thread today, October 4th, 2011.

Invites that were sent last week (week ended September 30th)
-Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and select European countries
-What was sent: General Game Testing invites
-Server location: East Coast USA
-Invite status: All invites in this batch are now sent
-Invites that have been sent this week

General Game Testing invites
-Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada, France and Germany
-What was sent: General Game Testing invites
-Server locations: East Coast USA (North America testers); EU servers (France/Germany testers)
-Invite status: All invites in this batch are now sent
-Beta Testing Weekend #2 invites

All invites for Beta Testing Weekend #2 have now been sent. Please check your email (including spam folders) and login to swtor.com/tester/ to see if you have been accepted for this weekend’s testing.
-Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and all European launch countries (see list here)
-Please note – We will be re-inviting all testers from Beta Testing Weekend #1 (AKA ‘Squadron 1020’) as promised.
-What was sent: Beta Testing Weekend #2 invites (October 7th to 10th – early hours of 11th for EU)
-Server locations: East Coast USA (all testers)
-Invite status: All invites in this batch are now sent

Today via Stephen Reid on the official forums and twitter we got an announcement from Bioware that they decided to re-invite the testers of the first and only (so far) September beta testing weekend.  Here Stephen gives us a great explanation to the reasoning and the situation behind the change of not inviting weekend testers back for another go.

Read on

After the initial announcement of the start of beta weekends at PAX Prime there were still many unanswered questions that remained. Stephen Reid, Senior community manager, tweeted some of the final answers just now. Here’s a summary of the most important information pertaining to the first SWTOR beta weekend:
 

• Most likely, all of the invites for the first beta testing weekend have already been sent out. If you haven’t received an email yet or it is not in your spam folder you will not get in this weekend. (source)
• No EU testers have been invited for the first beta testing weekend (however a huge batch of beta testers from Europe will be invited in the next few days to regular Game Testing)
• NDA is still in effect so people should not talk about the game impressions in public
• The First Beta weekend starts on Friday, September 2nd
• As it stands now, people that were invited for the first beta weekend will not partake in subsequent beta weekends
• Invited players are being picked at random from those that applied for testing at swotr.com
• Pre-Order status has no effect on your chance to be invited to the beta testing weekend

 
I hope this helps answer some of your questions.