WAR (Warhammer Online)

Originally posted by desnow
Hate to crush your dreams, but WAR will be having an open beta. It is an important stress testing phase as well as advertising through word of mouth. WAR just isn't to that stage yet.

desnow, Warhammer Online will not be having the kind of 'open beta' as Vanguard; in other words, the 'open beta' of Warhammer Online will be, as the original poster noted, quite different. Here is the story from Mythic: http://www.warhammerherald.com/news/

Scroll down to 'beta news'.

'Final Beta: No NDA. Because there is no NDA, people often refer to this as "open beta." But I wanted to be really clear with you guys - we are not planning the kind of open beta where everyone with internet access can download the game and hop in. That's nutty. Right now, we are tentatively considering having everyone who pre-orders the game invited to this phase of beta. This phase will also invite winners from our big media promotions. STARTS: TENTATIVE DATE: Summer 2007'

Originally posted by retrospectic
I hope I am not alone when I look at the Vanguard forums and cringe.  Vanguard, along with some other MMOs, decided it would be a positive idea to test their game using players who subscribe to fileplanet.  Supposedly the beta will be open to ANYONE soon as well. 

Originally posted by JulianDracos
WoW is not a good comparassiion.  First of all it already had a million+ fanbois waiting for the game.  Second, the early levels were fast and fun for the general audience.  Whether WoW had an open beta or not, it still would have been just as much as a success. 

Open beta for the purpose of stree testing just prior to lauch is fine.  Open beta testing for other testing that tends to go on for more than a few days is a problem.  You have people login to the game (or I know this is hard to believe people will never try it) then come out and trash it for the sake of trashing it.  For example, lets say there are a bunch of WoW fanatics that are afraid WAR might take a lot of subcribers away.  They will then go onto every board claiming to be beta testers and trash it.  This will encourage other people who have never played to jump on and trash it as well.  It is what happens with almost every game released. 

In order to have a successful lauch of a media product, whether it is a game, mmo, or movie, you need to have some control over the publicity.  SoR is a highly rated game on here.  If you want an example of what a bad open beta can do, look at that game.  The game was not near ready when open beta started.  They were making changes.  Then, because of finances it was rushed to live.  You have people trashing the game before it game out, and then you had people trashing the beta.  Now, this is a case of the game not being ready for open beta and then being rushed, but at the same time, even if many of the comments were not true of a game, such word of mouth can kill a game.

An open beta with everyone invited offers nothing.  What will sell the game is a goos product and the fact that EA will have advertizing everywhere just priot to launch - oh and the Warhammer name. 

Originally posted by Empress_Jess

http://www.warhammerherald.com/news/

Scroll down to 'beta news'.

'Final Beta: No NDA. Because there is no NDA, people often refer to this as "open beta." But I wanted to be really clear with you guys - we are not planning the kind of open beta where everyone with internet access can download the game and hop in. That's nutty. Right now, we are tentatively considering having everyone who pre-orders the game invited to this phase of beta. This phase will also invite winners from our big media promotions. STARTS: TENTATIVE DATE: Summer 2007'

Hate to crush your dreams yada yada yada...

So they will be having a closed beta with screend users and then an OPEN BETA with people who pre-order. Which leads to the same issue VG is having: people expecting a copmlete game because they got a number out of a box.