Tag Archives: open beta

Cryptic? Not for much longer! That’s right, after months of internal testing, Neverwinter has finally entered the open beta stage.

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CCP Games has announced that Dust 514, its PS3-exclusive FPS, will go into open beta on January 22nd. Players will be able to download and enjoy the game for free from this date.

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With Adhesive Games’ mech shooter Hawken’s open beta launching on Wednesday, it’s an exciting time for mech fans. Meteor Entertainment’s CEO Mark Long talks to PCGamesN about the challenges they faced, how the team ramped the game up without taxing player’s systems, free-to-play and why we probably won’t see the game on consoles.
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New Zealand developer Grinding Gears Games has announced another open beta weekend for Path of Exile. Head on over to the website to find out more or simply register, which will also put you in the running for a invite into the ongoing closed beta. Can’t wait? Buy $10 worth of in-game credit to secure your place. Path of Exile is an indie free-to-play action RPG which has drawn attention for its boats of “ethical” vanity-only microtransactions, as well as interesting, currency-free barter system.

Thanks, Ausgamers.

The closed beta testing period of Codemaster’s free-to-play PC management title, F1 Online will come to an end on Tuesday June 19 in preparation for the open beta. In addition, the non-disclosure agreement that closed beta participants have been bound by will also expire on June 19, freeing all and sundry to talk about their experiences with the title and share any screens and video captured from it.

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Another day, another CS:GO beta update – and soon you can get in on them! More »

C&C Tiberium Alliances has just gone into open beta, and now we’ve got some new screens for you to stare at as well.

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After a short delay, the APB: Reloaded open beta is back on track, and scheduled to fire up today.

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The Battlestar Galactica MMO was created by man. It evolved. It rebelled. There are many copies. And it has a plan…

To enter open beta in a couple weeks. (Ok, so maybe it’s not the most eventful rebellion.)

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Test Drive Unlimited 2 director Alain Jarniou has confirmed to VG247 that the free-roaming racer will have an open beta this year.

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Loads of Beta news this week in MMO round-up.

IncGamers made good on its promise, and has posted part-two of its Aion Beta preview, Mortal Online’s second stage of Beta testing begins soon, CrimeCraft started its Beta and Alganon is prepping for one.

Loads of MMO are going to be coming out soon, and there will be more than just fantasy offerings on the table. Sci-fi, apocalyptic, modern, and steampunk are all heading our way.

Hit the jump for more on the week in MMOs.

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The open beta for browser-based shooter Quake will go live on February 24, id confirmed today.

The classic game is for competitive play, complete with leaderboards and matchmaking. And all for free.

Stats will be wiped from closed beta participants in preparation for launch.

Sony’s officially recognised that many users are unable to connect to PlayStation Home, releasing a short message on the PS Blog saying it’s working on fixes.

“We are aware that some people may be experiencing difficulty in accessing the PlayStation Home beta at present,” said SCEA corporate comms boss Patrick Seybold.

“This is due to overwhelming demand for the service as people access Home for the very first time since it became Open Beta and appeared on the XMB.

“While we prepare solutions to ease the problem, you may continue to experience difficulties accessing Home. We kindly ask for your patience as we work to meet the incredible demand for this revolutionary service.”

For many, Home is like looking at candy through the sweetshop window: connection error messages have been an intrinsic part of Home’s launch so far.

Eurogamer’s impressions of Home have gone live, and they’re less than complimentary. Did you know you have to pay to create a “club” (guild)? We didn’t. Snip:

You can probably forget about Clubs to be honest, since Sony is charging GBP 3.99 for the privilege of forming one. Not only that, but in the future – some time after 31st March 2009, according to the blurb – you’ll be charged a monthly fee to keep your Club running. That’s before you even consider the costs of setting up a club house and furnishing it with cool stuff.

We appreciate that Home is a completely free release, and that Sony needs to make money from it somehow. But charging for social features – especially charging fees on top of one-off payments – is a schoolboy error.

Read the full thing through the link. If you dare.

Connection issues Home was experiencing last night appear to have eased. And when we say “eased,” we mean we had no problem logging on this morning.

Following the release of the app last night, many users complained of error messages and an inability to get Home to load. Time-out messages were also experienced.

Hopefully it was a load thing. Go create an avatar.

Home’s here, Sony’s announced in a note on the PS Blog, confirming that the little logo is now available in the XMB of all PS3 owners worldwide.

“Getting to this point has required a tremendous amount of participation, input, care, and passion from the thousands of beta testers who helped make PlayStation Home what it is today,” said Jack Buser, Home director.

“So to all of you that have tested, from all of us on the PlayStation Home team here at Sony: ‘Thank You!’”

Home launched earlier this evening in what appeared to be a smooth roll-out, although the app is experiencing some connection issues.

Multiple users are complaining that they’re unable to access the now-launched PlayStation Home.

We’re getting no joy with it here at all, although some are reportedly able to launch, so we’re assuming it’s a load issue.

When trying to access the app, a network error C-991 is repeatedly served with the message, “The connection to the server was lost.”

Not for long, hopefully.

PlayStation Home is now available for download to all PS3 users. We’re in the UK and downloading now.

The Home logo appears under the PSN section of the XMB if the download’s available for you.

More soon.

Update: PSN’s now down. Hold on to your hats.

Update 2: PSN’s back up, but still no home. The Dog explains, posting at 5.55pm: “Apologies for the delay in an update, you may have noticed a PSN outage in the last hour. Things seem back on track now although the outage delayed us a little we are moving again. Hope to have another update soon.”

Update 3: No Home! The Dog explains, posted at 8.15pm: “Very sorry about the delay here. The PSN outage really set us back a while but things are picking up again. And apologies for the delay in updates, I had to get home to continue with this. Looks like we’re not far off now though.”

Original post:

SCEE chap TedTheDog’s updating on the status of Home’s imminent launch on the EU PS boards, as you can see here.

The latest, posted at 4.25pm GMT:

Testing complete and a couple of technical problems have been found. We need to iron these issues out first and I’m waiting to hear how long that might take (I’m not qualified to even guess, its very technical). Apologies, I know you all want to get in but we must get these things right. And please remember, this is a beta and today is our first step into the Open Beta environment and what we’re doing today is part of the beta process itself.

SCEE said yesterday that the social app would be released this “evening,” so keep watching. Can’t be that long to go now.

SCEE’s refused to confirm or deny a Times Online report yesterday that said Home’s open beta was to launch in the next ten days.

“We’re not commenting on that story, I’m afraid,” a rep told VG247 this afternoon.

The piece said open beta was to launch by December 17.

Sony’s constant line on the social app’s release is that it’d happen before the end of 2008.

The Times can’t have just got the ten days thought from thin air, right? Right?