Anyone else sceptical about guaranteed access to beta weekends when you pre-purchase?

[Nerph-]

I'm a little worried we're going to see another Annual Pass situation here.

If over 1 million pre-purchase the game (like over 1 million signed up for closed beta), how are they going to get all of them into beta weekends?

No doubt this has already been brought up, if so please be so kindest to link the thread and I'll get this one deleted ^^

[Deleted]

Lots of servers.

[Midnight Man]

Further discussion on this topic is already here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...hat-happens-if.... - though the thread title is not clear, thus burying the topic at hand

[Kryos]

I guess they use the live servers to accomplish that. WoW has seperate live game and beta servers and it would be expensive to add much more beta servers for a few months. Since GW2 is not out yet, they can use the live servers for betatesting (and that way have a very good stresstest for that infrastructure, too)

[Delias]

I'm a little worried we're going to see another Annual Pass situation here.

If over 1 million pre-purchase the game (like over 1 million signed up for closed beta), how are they going to get all of them into beta weekends?

No doubt this has already been brought up, if so please be so kindest to link the thread and I'll get this one deleted ^^

It has been addressed, and as I have said, they would not guarantee full access to every single BWE event then take it back and say "Oops, too many signed up."
Since they specifically say that you will have access to ALL of the events, (which WoW's doesn't say, just that you'll get beta access. Doesn't say WHEN you will receive that access) you will get access to all of the events.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...hat-happens-if....
is the other thread.

[Nerph-]

Ok thanks for the replies and links

[Deleted]

I saw a tweet the other day about this, and they have said that they will stick too it, if you pre.purchase you get in, even if its 5m players, they will fix that

[Squirrelbanes]

If 1 million people prepurchase....that's at least £50,000,000 (only taking standard edition into account) in revenue (I don't know retailer cuts - whatever).
I'd say they could afford to open up some servers.
The principal stands that they're not Activision-Blizzard. They would find a solution.

[Deleted]

And more players means better WvW testing. The press footage is pretty unimpressive so far, as the servers seemed pretty unbalanced. If there are many more players to test, there will be more to try out WvW.

[grandpab]

No, not worried...

https://twitter.com/#!/GuildWars2/st...31206511980545

@GuildWars2 Everyone that pre-purchase's gets in to every beta weekend right? Will this still be true if more people that expected buy?

That is correct, and we will not change that. ~RB2 #GuildWars2

[Snow White]

Nope. I have the utmost faith in Anet.

[Deleted]

No, not worried...

https://twitter.com/#!/GuildWars2/st...31206511980545

And that was the tweet i was talking about

[Kryos]

WoW has more than 400 active live-game realms and 4 beta realms - people want them to add enough realms on the beta server that 1 million can play - that's too expensive for a few months.

GW2 has 0 active live game realms - so they can use all their inactive realms for the beta. When the game goes live they convert the beta realms to live servers. That way they don't waste any money. Once GW2 is launched they would not be able to offer the same deal they do right now or only with the "waves" style Blizzard is using right now.

[Deleted]

WoW has more than 400 active live-game realms and 4 beta realms - people want them to add enough realms on the beta server that 1 million can play - that's too expensive for a few months.

GW2 has 0 active live game realms - so they can use all their inactive realms for the beta. When the game goes live they convert the beta realms to live servers. That way they don't waste any money. Once GW2 is launched they would not be able to offer the same deal they do right now or only with the "waves" style Blizzard is using right now.

Exactly this.

Although guaranteeing everybody who pre-purchases full access to beta events right after Blizzard had to fall back to beta-waves (even though it are totally different circumstances) makes Anet look so good in the eyes of many potential customers.

[MKing]

Nope, they will let EVERYONE in, unlike Blizzard they don't have something in fine print that says *Subject to change.

---------- Post added 2012-03-29 at 02:32 PM ----------

WoW has more than 400 active live-game realms and 4 beta realms - people want them to add enough realms on the beta server that 1 million can play - that's too expensive for a few months.

GW2 has 0 active live game realms - so they can use all their inactive realms for the beta. When the game goes live they convert the beta realms to live servers. That way they don't waste any money. Once GW2 is launched they would not be able to offer the same deal they do right now or only with the "waves" style Blizzard is using right now.

You're fooling yourselves if you think server upkeep costs anything now days.

In 2010 when blizzard had 11.5 mil subs, it cost $136,986 per day for ALL servers in EU, US, Asia combined.
That's when they were making $172,500,000 a month from subs. chump change to them.

IDK how much it is now, but you can find it here http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

[Leben]

You have to think of Arenanet like Blizzard. Blizzard before Activision got stuck to them like a leech. Blizzard that would do anything to please their customers. Blizzard that would spend time giving their customers an experience, rather than just gametime. Thats Arenanet now and hopefully thats the way they will remain.

So yeah, you can expect for them to keep their promise.

[Fencers]

I think it might be pretty lame. BWEs don't seem like they are going to be frequent. It's just a quick money grab.

[rhandric]

You have to think of Arenanet like Blizzard. Blizzard before Activision got stuck to them like a leech. Blizzard that would do anything to please their customers. Blizzard that would spend time giving their customers an experience, rather than just gametime. Thats Arenanet now and hopefully thats the way they will remain.

So yeah, you can expect for them to keep their promise.

Considering many of the employees (particularly the founders) were responsible for the original Battle.net, WC3, D2, it makes sense

[Ethas]

As far as I'm waiting this game I still don't really think there will be 1 mil pre-purchase. And if there will, well as it has been said they are not Activision-Blizzard so they probably will sort it out.

[sacrypheyes]

not really concerned about wether there will be 1 or 100 BWE.

from the moment one makes the pre-purchase, it means he's interested enough in the game.
imo, BWE are just something that will allow you to have a "live" experience of the latest build of the game before it actually gets released.
people who hope that they'll be playing GW2 beta every single weekend from April 10th are totaly deluding themselves if anything.

as for how they'll manage all the BWE accesses, provided they get 1mil pre-purchase, they're not idiots, if there aren't enough servers to accomodate that much players without lags and all, they'll add more, if not for that BWE, that'll be for the next, that's just common sense...

i can't possibly imagine them not monitoring their servers load with the current b-testers pool in order to predict how much CPU power they'll need to run the game for 1m+ players.