By John Walker on August 18th, 2008 at 5:55 pm.
Mythic have finally announced a date for the beginning of Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning’s open beta. It’s 7th September, with the game released proper in a month’s time, on the 18th. They’re expecting it to be very open, with what they hope will be hundreds of thousands of people piling in to stress test the servers. This announcement is only for the N. American servers so far, with open beta invites given to anyone who pre-orders the game. We’ve asked EA when the EU servers will be offering the same, and will let you know. US players can register here.
Meanwhile, you might remember our confusion over the pricing for the UK subs rates on the game. At the time they were announced, the one month price was £10.31, which struck us as odd. We enquired, and have now been told they’re lower.
It seemed wrong for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because out-pricing WoW seemed like a ludicrous business idea, and secondly, because it looked like it was based on that day’s exchange rate for the Euro. Which would be an odd way to go about things. We enquired, and were first told that this was correct. We enquired with our eyebrows more arched, and were told it was being reviewed. So I’m pleased to say those prices have come down. Pleased, and taking all the credit.
The new pricing structure for WAR will be:
£8.99 per month
£25.17 for 3 months
£46.14 for 6 months
Which brings it in line with WoW, and is a saving of £8.20 over six months. You’re welcome. You can put it in our tip jar. We’re told that we might also expect to see the previously announced box price drop too. Last month they said it would be RRPd at £39.69, despite all shops setting it far lower – it can currently be pre-ordered for as low as £28 – and we can’t believe they’d be so mad as to go that high.
18/08/2008 at 18:10 arbitrary says:
Ta!
We owe you a beer :-)
18/08/2008 at 18:20 cyrenic says:
Really enjoying the closed beta at the moment. It’s still under NDA so that’s all I can say for now.
18/08/2008 at 18:39 NNeko says:
As an early adopter of WAR, I’m a bit nervous about Open Beta being about a week long before the early live access for early adopters kicks in. Consider: by the time open beta starts, WAR will be gold and in shipment to vendors. Any bugs, memory leaks, non-optimizations, etc that get found in Open Beta are going to be on the live servers. I’m hoping that EA is betting on WAR being a long-term cash-cow and is going to keep funding it until it’s up and running properly, but I suspect we’re going to have a rocky start.
18/08/2008 at 18:59 ZENO says:
Yeah, this open beta is sounding more like a trial.
18/08/2008 at 19:32 Dexton says:
Gold for an mmo is very different for gold for a single player game, expect plenty of patches as the game progresses. I would not be at all surprised if the first thing that you have to do when you get your retail box is download some 0 day patch.
Also thanks to RPS for dropping the price on my next game purchase!
18/08/2008 at 20:03 Orange says:
I look forward to the Open Beta comments, I should have listened to the negativity towards Age of Conan during its beta.
18/08/2008 at 20:10 KingMob says:
I think it’s pretty obvious they’re relying on the open beta to test server load, and not game client issues. Why complain?
Frankly the issue I’m concerned about is the fact that those of us in closed beta are unable to discuss online what guilds, servers, etc. we want to be in, or talk about our experiences, until the ‘open beta’ flag is dropped.
That’s another three weeks of people cattily stating they’re in closed beta and can’t talk about it… aren’t you sick of hearing that already?
18/08/2008 at 20:12 Steven Hutton says:
Except that the NDA is dropping tomorrow morning! Expect a firgurative tidal wave of information to drown the internet moments later.
See point 4
18/08/2008 at 20:26 Optimaximal says:
When WoW was released, the shortage of retail packs meant that it was retailing for £30+ for weeks until the second or third run reached the market. Likewise for the BC expansion and Lich will likely be the same.
Basically, the publisher doesn’t care, because they know the MMO fans will pay it for their latest life-leeching fix.
18/08/2008 at 20:35 Anthony Damiani says:
No! NO!
Not the same day as Spore!
I’ll go mad!
18/08/2008 at 21:35 Acosta says:
My guess is that the phase of finding bugs is closed with the different closed betas theyhad put together. The open beta looks more a stress test than other thing.
18/08/2008 at 22:12 yutt says:
The phase of finding bugs in an MMO is never over.
18/08/2008 at 23:35 Konky Dong VI: Forbidden Love At Ruby Ridge says:
They say this Open Beta isn’t a stress test and considering you have to preorder the game to get in, they may be right. It’s not a real beta testing phase either, so it seems to me that the Open Beta is really just a little treat for hardcore fans and an additional incentive to preorder the game.
18/08/2008 at 23:37 danarchist says:
I am still looking for bugs….not finding any….they dont need to extend the beta much longer really, minor balancing thats about it
18/08/2008 at 23:42 malkav11 says:
It’s also not an open beta. I’m sorry, but open = anybody can get in, not just anyone who can and wants to drop $50 on an unreleased, unproven game for the privilege. It’s a little more open than the invitation only beta, that’s about it.
Oh well.
19/08/2008 at 00:24 Erlam says:
“Any bugs, memory leaks, non-optimizations, etc that get found in Open Beta are going to be on the live servers.”
Large studios never, ever, ever get ‘bugs, memory leaks, optimizations, etc’ told to them by random people given beta keys. Ever. Seriously, if they’re using ‘beta’ testers as QA, they’re fucked.
19/08/2008 at 03:41 arbitrary says:
Now we just await official confirmation :-)
19/08/2008 at 10:16 Impactor says:
Ive been playing in the Closed Beta and most of whats left to do is just balancing and fine tweaks to the game. open beta is just there for mass server stress testing.
19/08/2008 at 12:05 Jamie says:
NDA has been lifted, are RPS planning a feature on the game soon? would be nice.
19/08/2008 at 15:26 Dexton says:
You’ll probably have to wait for the NDA lift to filter down to our Western friends in the US (-6 hours or so) before the internet gets hit with a wave of post NDA WAR information.
22/08/2008 at 05:29 arbitrary says:
The EU CMs are saying this price drop isn’t fully confirmed..