News: Beta Producers Letter and free PlanetSide 1 Game Time!

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by RadarX

I'm unable to comment further.

[SergeantNubins]

Others have probably noted this, but i got an email today..

We are gearing up for the next phases of testing for PlanetSide® 2, which kicks off with a Technical Test. Please click the link below to tell us more about your computer specifications. For more information about our upcoming beta plans, check out this Producer Letter covering the highlights! Remember, if you are an original PlanetSide® 1 player, you have priority!



Thanks for your participation soldier. The War is Coming. Are you prepared for battle?

The PlanetSide 2 Team

Nothing particularly special and imagine everyone probably got it, it also gives the link for the technical survey that some people were having trobule accessing earlier. In case by some miracle this is news, im a PS1 vet with a PCG key (for good measure!).


*edit.. yea old news, jumped straight to this thread from the front page of PSU, i see theres another thread about this email.

[Chefkoch]

Originally Posted by SergeantNubins

Others have probably noted this, but i got an email today..



Nothing particularly special and imagine everyone probably got it, it also gives the link for the technical survey that some people were having trobule accessing earlier. In case by some miracle this is news, im a PS1 vet with a PCG key (for good measure!).


*edit.. yea old news, jumped straight to this thread from the front page of PSU, i see theres another thread about this email.

Mmm i didnt get this E-Mail yet..maybe tomorrow

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by RadarX

It's unlikely we'll announce "Hey we let X number of folks in" and dates are just not something that happens in modern game development. A date is a commitment and we take them seriously.

And that's understandable. It's just, with the buildup from last week (T-Ray's indication of a b-word, and your announcement of an upcoming announcement...), I expected that you guys said on Friday "Okay, we're good to fire up the external beta," and that the announcement this week would be "Good news, everybody, we just sent out the first thousand beta emails! If you didn't get one, don't panic, we've got several thousand [tens of thousands?] people in our priority pool, including veterans, PC Gamer keys, and the promotional keys we've been giving out, but we'll be ramping up our capacity as quickly as we're comfortable and able to hammer out server stability!"


That didn't sound like an unreasonable expectation, and so you can understand how "Good news, everybody, we're doing hardware testing and internal server stressing! Beta's coming soon!" looks underwhelming and a bit disappointing in comparison.


I honestly don't even think that your guys' excitement is unreasonable (and hence the buildup you guys did last week); it's just not what we, sitting on the outside and not privvy to the notion that you *haven't* done the hardware testing and whatnot already, were prepared to anticipate.

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's probably simply that, even as open and transparent as you guys try to be, as far as we know at any given stage (including and especially for the last month or so!), you guys are mere days away from sending out beta invites. So no matter how exciting anything between now and that milestone is for you guys, keep in mind that it probably isn't what we think a big announcement is going to be.


Edit to add one final point -- I hope this *isn't* considered "the closed beta announcement." Don't underestimate how encouraging it is to know that beta is actually going on, even if we don't know when the upcoming scheduled tests are, or even if we're not invited yet. Announcements like "Last weekend, we ran our first external closed beta playtest, and we hit 900 concurrent players on the server!" would be really exciting, and just the kind of info I'm sure everybody would love to see from the team that tweets screenshots of in-progress art assets and teases us with fantastic screenshots like Higby's jungle tweet or some utterly hilarious Clegg landings.

[Shocktor]

Originally Posted by Chefkoch

Mmm i didnt get this E-Mail yet..maybe tomorrow

Check your junk mail folder?

[IMMentat]

There was a reasonable info-dump/update, some free stuff (free month, YAY!) and a request for up-to-date system specs (that I cant provide due to the link going to a beta sign-up page, I already signed up so this is useless to me).

A pretty reasonable announcement IMO.


Some of the community is just determined to turn every newsbyte into a big emotional "ZOMG why no BETA yets?, I hates yoouse" stress-fest.

Personally I think the PS2 dev team are one of the best of the current breed, I appreciate the communication they provide and will take each piece of news as a piece of a puzzle rather than an opportunity to bemoan a lack of BETA invites ("when its done" is the best way, as long as they dont screw it up ).

Also my thanks toRadarX for wading in this thread of enormity while maintaining a steady flow of reasonable responses.

[WellWisherELF]

Thanks for the free time SOE, I'll be sure to get some MIA soldiers back into the battlefield.

[Chefkoch]

Originally Posted by Shocktor

Check your junk mail folder?

Nothing..just the daily Diablo 3 and WoW Password Scam

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by RadarX

I'm unable to comment further.

At least the Steam sale is coming to tide us over!

[WiteBeam]

Anyone else after clicking Confirm System Spec get a white page with a blue question mark in a box?

[Chefkoch]

Originally Posted by WiteBeam

Anyone else after clicking Confirm System Spec get a white page with a blue question mark in a box?

If i could even submit my specs

[SixShooter]

Originally Posted by Goku

OMG I just resubbed. BS!

Anyway good news...

I resubbed 2 days ago

It's going to be fun to see the pops shoot back up.

[Hmr85]

Thanks for the free time SOE you guys rock!!!

[SergeantNubins]

Originally Posted by IMMentat

There was a reasonable info-dump/update, some free stuff (free month, YAY!) and a request for up-to-date system specs (that I cant provide due to the link going to a beta sign-up page, I already signed up so this is useless to me).

Change yoru browser language to English[US] and you will be able to fill out the survey.

[randomT]

I wanna say that I want to play this game as much as the next guy or gal, but I think y'all are forgetting what betas are about. Betas are made to iron out the kinks, test server strength, find compatibility issues and the like. I'm glad this game has so many people following it, and we'll all eventually be playing it.

Yes, it appears that CBT is starting or is just around the corner, but keep in mind, everyone, that if you get into the beta, you have a duty. You shouldn't just want to make the game, but strive to make it the best game out there with suggestions, bug reports, and more importantly, patience in not trying to rush the devs into making anything too soon.