I seem to recall a sentiment being expressed by Anet (someone can go find a quote if they want) to the tune of them acknowledging that "open beta" has become synonymous with "marketing tool", and so by the time it's in "open beta", I think we can expect them to be down to an essentially finished game that just needs to stress-test population numbers, and so I don't expect that phase to last very long at all. Fairly certain that, (based on this line of thinking) as soon as someone that isn't internally invited and officially hushed sees "beta GW2", the only anticipated response will be "OMGITSSOAWESOMERELEASEITNOW!", IE, a marketing tool.
As for "closed beta", under a NDA, I expect them to take their time. Really, though, "closed beta" is "the last phase" of any true length, based on the above perceptions, IMO.
Last edited by Omedon; 2011-12-15 at 09:19 AM.
Diablo IV is the best MMORPG Blizzard has ever made!
I remember reading something like that also.
GW1 didn't have traditional closed beta that you often see on mmos (web form where you sign-up etc), but it pretty much went from private alpha test to public beta weekends sometime end of 2004 and then game was released in April 2005. Pretty much anyone could get into these Beta weekends even these who didn't pre-order and these who did pre-order had guaranteed access to all of these weekends. I guess there will be similar to these monthly beta weekends that GW1 had. Hopefully soon
I suspect a march or april release but then agian thats mostly wild speculation on my part. They have said the open beta will be short and will be followed closely by the launch. The closed beta, well how it goes determines when open beta starts and they have not specified if there will be multiple waves of invites to the community or if it will just be an expanded friends/family tester pool. Still with how good the game has looked at the demos I suspect baring major problems closed beta will only be a couple months with maybe a week or two of open beta as a pre launch demo.
Who is John Galt?
I'm guessing OB will start in the eve of Spring. So I'm also guessing 2-3 months of CB like everyone else.