When did PS1 beta start?

[Frotang]

So I've been trying to remember when PS1 closed beta started mainly so I can figure out how long I been playing this damn game but also to possibly shed light on how long PS2 beta will last. I know that they won't follow the same format because times have changed (hell you got into closed beta then by filling out a form with your cpu specs and sending them a dxdiag if I recall correctly) but you never know.

So PS1 released May 2003, for some reason I can't shake the memory that I was playing closed beta in summer of 2002, which would mean beta lasted almost a year? Can this be right or have I just killed too many brain cells since 10 years ago to remember?

[exLupo]

I want to say 2003, I got my invite around my birthday in February and got in a with a wave few weeks later. The game was still in a pretty feature-fluid state then. If it'd had been around for 9ish months at that point that'd be the longest and least effective CB I've ever heard of.

Comparing it to, say, the F+F Alpha to Launch progression of other shooters (GA and Tabula Rasa), if you played that summer it was an alpha state. The only products I've tested that have been in any form of beta for that long have been ones with repeated restarts and ownership hand-offs.

[indirect]

Sept 2002 iirc

[TerminatorUK]

I think you must be about right...I joined towards the end of the open beta (probably about a week or two prior to release) around late April 2003 and I some folks had access in 2002.

I recall a few things I never saw like coffins instead of backpacks, different sized SOIs on facilities and no lattice system

[Frotang]

Ok starting to jar my memory a bit thx for the info. I must have been early 2002. I was in closed beta (Im assuming due to the fact that my pc specs were at the bare minimum) so it musta been around sept/oct. Though the first few weeks of closed was all scheduled play tests I do remember being able to play open beta for quite a while, possibly 6 monthsish?

So do you guys think they will follow the same format? If they want to release in 2012 then I guess not but if they do then we could be looking at a Feb/Mar 2013 release. Thoughts?

[TerminatorUK]

Something tells me that the beta won't be quite as long for two reasons:

1) It's free to play - issues with the game or problems accessing are easier to brush off when people haven't had to actually pay for the game first

2) SOE need the money - the two security breaches last year (which must have cost $1000's to rectify and not disenfranchise their player base), I'm amazed that Planetside 2 has been allowed to have the time to have the level of polish it has had and over a good development cycle time-frame. Like the pressure DICE must have been under from EA to launch BF3, the developers of PS2 must be under immense pressure to deliver this game as a live product.


If I was a betting man (which I'm not ) I'd say this game will be 'Live' prior to holiday season and the dev's will be under pressure to deliver a weather system that can generate snow to make it look all pretty and get folks in the spirit to spend more money!

[exLupo]

CB > OB > Launch cycles are so much shorter these days. I'd be really surprised if they didn't do the neo-traditional mid-fall shooter launch window.

[Nooner]

The beta was going during the summer of 2002.

I remember this because of that 7 day black out that happened that year. We had just gotten Beta invites within a week or so before the black out. One of our friends had a couple generators at his house, and we discovered that the cable still worked (providing you could power the modem)

So there we were, middle of July, twin generators going in the back yard which powered the refrigerator, the cable modem, and 6 PC's.

Good Times