If you’re following Warhammer Online at all you already know this (I really really doubt that Dragonchasers is your first stop destination for Warhammer news): Open Beta is scheduled to start Sept 7th.
Lots of speculation ensues, since we’ve been told servers go live on September 18th, and there’s a Head Start/Early Access program for pre-orders of an indeterminate length. Do the math and you get a really short open beta.
As I posted in the comment section of JoBildo’s site, I can only hope now that Mythic is treating Open Beta as a marketing tool and don’t anticipate making any major changes based on what they learn from it. I hate to see them rush-patching/fixing anything major in the last weeks before launch.
Stropp made a good point as well:
On the other hand, it’s probably a sensible move by Mythic. Open betas can be brutal on a games good PR. You always get a bunch of players who get in and rip the game to shreds. There’s always haters. Limiting the amount of time before release, limits the amount of time they get to spread negativity.
I think there’ll be a ton of WoW fanboys who totally (and unjustifiably) slag the game as soon as they get a look at it, just because this is NOT WoW 2 in spite of what some people seem to think (using that “fact” as praise or derision, depending on what’s side of the WoW fence they live on).
The problem is going to be keep this illogical hate in check so that it doesn’t become a meme.