Clans invited to play beta early! [Unconstructive whining will be deleted]

[Anderz]

NO ONE IS IN BETA YET.

Clarification from Higby via Reddit:

First platoon isn't a beta invite, it's a forum for outfit / clan and community leaders to interact and give feedback to the dev team. Beta hasn't started yet except for a few internal SOEw teams. We will of course be starting beta small and expanding out once we can handle the load for each group, we'll be adding ps1 vets and priority beta key accounts first, as we've been pretty open about. There will be different phases, you may very well have a friend in beta when you aren't yet. This isn't an exclusivity thing. We have to ramp up like this rather than just inviting 50,000 people in one day and crashing the servers, learning nothing.

Hope you all understand and appreciate that we want nothing more than to have all of you in the beta ASAP, but if we don't do it intelligently we'll just waste time, yours and ours, and delay our eventual release.

Ok, so Dogbolta caught something interesting over at the official PS2 Beta forums with this post:

Originally Posted by Dogbolta

Is it possible that closed beta has already started?

Could be way off the mark but when ever I log into the PS2 forums and check different users some of them have posts/topics credited to their accounts.
But you (I) cant actually see those messages like I would expect to happen during a closed beta where only those participating have access.

Of course with an NDA it might be those people in the closed beta cant even acknowledge they are in one.

Users with posts in what I think is the PS2 forums.
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=822
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=792
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=820
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=795
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=813
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=805
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u....m?user_id=797
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/u...m?user_id=2278

As I said I might be way off mark but it also could be possible.

So I thought I'd dig a little deeper and see if there is any truth behind this.

One of Dogbolta's links points to the profile of 'SnipeFrag', who you'd know is a regular poster on PSU (here is his profile).

So I followed the link in his profile to his clan, Archangels Gaming.

Next, I looked through his recent posts and found this nugget:

Tony M Jones, Community Manager of PS2 wrote:
My name is Tony Jones and I am the Community Manager for PlanetSide 2. I wanted to personally extend an invitation to you to join us as we make the next epic MMOFPS experience. So why am I contacting you? I’ve looked all over for the best FPS and MMO groups in the world, the elite of the elite. I believe that you are in that elite group, and PlanetSide 2 Command has authorized me to extend a unique opportunity and invite you to join us in making an amazing MMOFPS game even better.

When you join our First Platoon program, you will be among the first in the world to get access into the PlanetSide 2 Beta. As gamers we’ve all wished we could talk to the developers and fix things like annoying level design or imbalanced weapons. In the program, you will have direct contact with members of the PlanetSide 2 Development Team and the opportunity to share your thoughts on gameplay and general design.

If you think you’re up for it, respond to this email and enlist today! Become a member of the First Platoon!

This was posted on May 26! We're on to you SnipeFrag!

So it looks like SOE have been inviting clan players into the beta earlier than the rest of us.

Whether they're actually in the beta yet is another thing entirely, but it's obvious they currently have posting powers on the beta forums.

EDIT:
I hope people see this as a good thing. Beta forums can become a quagmire of crap once they open to the public, so getting pro FPS players in early gives SOE a chance to get better quality feedback and telemetry first, rather than feedback from people who are just in the beta because their friend got them a key off of twitter.

It's also promising from a competitive gaming perspective, as BF3 was such a fail in that department. To see them really work so closely alongside gaming clans is a step in the right direction IMO.

[Top Sgt]

lol I was waiting for this to come out

[Anderz]

Originally Posted by Top Sgt

lol I was waiting for this to come out

I know you're under NDA, but can you at least say whether you're playing the game yet?

[Top Sgt]

ohh no i'm not playing I'm not in archangels

But someone brought this up the other day during a livestream that some clans were "on the low" already playing the beta with soe in-house testers etc

So I knew eventually it would come up all i was sayin.

I WISH i was secretly in the beta lol

[RedKnights]

That would explain why there was some familiar names in the E3 event

[Top Sgt]

Originally Posted by RedKnights

That would explain why there was some familiar names in the E3 event

yeah I am sure many of "those guys" were used for the E3 event etc in addition to SOE in house devs to give the E3 showing a bit of organization atleast. They knew 98% of the people at E3 show floor playing would be completely new to the game.

It's all gravy to me... I am just patiently waiting until they let vets and US with PC gamer keys in and let's get rolling.

[Xaine]

Originally Posted by RedKnights

That would explain why there was some familiar names in the E3 event

You!

You're in GoTR and have been for ages. If anyone is in, you and GoTR will be. (I was in GoTR for a while. Name Stryda, AI Max user)

Spill the beans red. Those delicious beta beans.

[capiqu]

Originally Posted by RedKnights

That would explain why there was some familiar names in the E3 event

Lol, I noticed that. I'm ok with it like I posted about 2 weeks before E3 , Soe should let a few PS veterans into the E3 demo to show the world how Planetside is played.

[Pyreal]

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

[Khrusky]

Originally Posted by Pyreal

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GOfY0Ab9g

[SKYeXile]

who are these people? id feel better if it was Evilpig that got in now...

[Dart]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

who are these people? id feel better if it was Evilpig that got in now...

I might be able to shed a little light on that... This is taken from an interview by Higby posted today:

[a]list: Can you talk about any tactics you’ll be using to use your existing fan base to recruit players once the game is in beta or about to launch?

Matt Higby: One of the really cool things that we’re doing from a community standpoint is what we call the first platoon program. We’re taking community leaders that have their own guilds, that have their own clans. These are all FPS gamers that are really influential in the genre, including things like YouTube casters. Those sorts of folks that have really wide reach among actual gamers. We’re bringing those guys in first to be able to give us direct feedback on forums that we’ll be monitoring really closely and talking directly to those guys. We think that’s going to pay a lot of dividends as they get their communities involved in our game and pull in their own groups of players from Counterstrike and from Team Fortress, all of these different FPS games that exist out there that have really tightknit communities. We’re trying to gather as much attention as we can from the leaders of those communities right from the start.

So they're not necessarily hardcore PS players, but community leaders from other prominent games. Btw to the guy talking about 'serious' EU clans - there are many. In fact unless I'm mistaken Snipefrag lives in England.

[indirect]

Originally Posted by Top Sgt

lol I was waiting for this to come out

Hey I saw you in the AT stream last night ^_^

[Greeniegriz]

Interesting...

[Brusi]

interesting