How long will the beta be?

[Liwen Diamond]

If my estimate of SOE's developpement ressources and efficiency is accurate and the alpha footage shown at E3 is a viable snapshot of the current stage of developpement of the game at the time, I'd say 3 to 4 months.* Most of the game bugs proper have been squashed, most of the graphics assets are done, most of the features they wanted for launch are included, the biggest and perhaps hardest of challenges in left to overcome however : Making the game stable at performing at 100% under of the strain of thousands simultenously playing. And THAT, I predict, will take a solid 3-4 months.

*This expert opinion as been provided to you by Liwen Diamond, a 23 years old gamer with zero insider experience in the buisness of developping video games and no access to any concrete information regarding the game developping studios known as SOE outside of "Must have around 300-400 ish veterans of the industry working in there, with maybe 250 of them actually developping games of the rest being administration, PR and marketing." This opinion as thus, on a scale of 1 to 10, an approximate value of 0.