I just finished reading something I wanted to bring here and discuss a little:
A beta tester can and will fulfill many roles in her testing. One thing that I am asked to do when testing certain games is to try to break the game and I have been successful testing thus. I have yet to be asked to do this here but I can say, I succeeded in doing so in a recent beta. This would 99% most likely would have never be found, except I use a particular name for testing and a coding conflict occurred because of it.
Yet, the reason I found this flaw was because I was testing the game as only I could. Even if @Fiogan chose the exact sequence I did, she most likely would not have found this error. (If she would she needs to leave my mind before its too late )
This is important for any tester to remember - you as an individual is there because you are that individual.
One thing which will never (or should never) be asked of a tester is to test for others or in place of others because that is not possible. The programmer or publisher has the responsibility to make sure the testing pool is diversified enough or that it includes the necessary focus testers …
Anyways I felt I needed to expand on this.