By Jim Rossignol on August 4th, 2009 at 1:05 pm.
Right, it looks like I was a bit confused on this front: the next stage of Section 8′s testing is a European beta, since the first lot was North American, and it does have limited places. You can sign up here. That European beta will start on the 10th. For my recent impressions take a look here. Kristan at Eurogamer was also pretty positive. As I understand it, an open beta, presumably for both continents, is to follow. The game is scheduled for release worldwide on August 28th.
04/08/2009 at 13:41 MrBejeebus says:
signing up now, i liked the NA beta, now its with less laggy goodness.
04/08/2009 at 13:58 Tei says:
I was able to sign-up using some byzarre browser ( Avant Browser) after tryiing with other 3 browsers (I don’t have IE installed).
04/08/2009 at 14:10 Tei says:
Iggggnore my post. Maybe I was already subscribed. Rawr.
Looking forward for this!
04/08/2009 at 14:14 Howard says:
That link for the beta sign up seems broken. Anyone else? Could be its just getting too much hammer I guess…
04/08/2009 at 14:18 Jim Rossignol says:
I’ve changed the link to the front page of the Section 8 site, in case there was some kind of geo-trickery stopping you getting to that page. Try again.
04/08/2009 at 14:24 Baka says:
Thanks for the heads up, looking forward to this.
04/08/2009 at 14:40 Flappybat says:
I don’t think this is any signup, I did it back when the NA beta started on Fileplanet. You just get an email saying they will send you details when the beta starts.
04/08/2009 at 15:08 Howard says:
Thanks, Jim, that worked. Unfortunately Flappybat is correct: this isn’t a real beta sign up whih
04/08/2009 at 15:08 Howard says:
*which is a shame* that should have read at the end…
04/08/2009 at 15:10 Jim Rossignol says:
Hmm, that’s odd, they released a press release saying it was a sign up. I shall find out more.
04/08/2009 at 15:23 RiptoR says:
I read it too on gamespress if I’m not mistaken. Can’t check it here at work though, didn’t memorize my login credentials.
04/08/2009 at 15:25 Kits says:
It seems to imply that it is, but the email you receive states that testers have to be over 18, and are decided based upon their computer specs; None of which you’re asked for. Odd.
04/08/2009 at 16:02 Dominic White says:
It’s been nagging away at the back of my mind for a while, but I just remembered the *other* game that Section 8 reminds me of.
You’ve almost never heard of it, on account of Battlefront (hardcore grognard publisher) selling it, and it never having had any kind of press: Dropteam.
Basically, it’s a future tank sim. Not quite modern-day hardcore-sim level, but around Mechwarrior levels of authentic-feelingness. The big gimmick of the game was that you could drop units anywhere on the map, and so long as they weren’t shot down by enemy anti-air, you could switch to controlling anything that survived landing.
Most armored units (such as tanks) had to come in via dropship, which made them quite vulnerable to AA fire. The way around this is dropping in infantry, who land via Warhammer 40k’esque drop pods, fast enough to dodge AA fire with decent regularity. Once the troops were down, you’d jumpjet your way across enemy territory to try and pick off defensive structures (which your enemy had dropped in) in order to move your safe landing zone forward.
It wasn’t/isn’t a hugely pretty looking game, and the documentation was pants, but it felt *right*.
Unfortunately, it seems that Battlefront have abandoned the game. The master servers for it are down, and they don’t even seem to have it listed on their store site anymore, which sucks, as I’d love to see more people playing it.
04/08/2009 at 18:45 Weylund says:
@Dominic: Me too. And yeah, it’s a great game. The scope of it is pretty breathtaking. It’s kind of like Combat Mission – TONS of stuff is possible. Just reading the manual gives me programmer heart-palpitations. Clay (the guy who led the team and wrote most of the code) is a genius.
There was quite an active mod community for a long time… it’s only starting to die down now. I think the servers aren’t there because literally no one is playing.
On topic, I wish the NA beta still had keys.
04/08/2009 at 21:03 Dominic White says:
If Dropteam were put up on Steam for $5, or even released for free (I assume it’s not selling on account of Battlefront not having it listed on their store at all), I’d imagine a lot more folks would play it. It’s deeply frustrating to see it faded out like that.
No doubt Battlefront (oh, I so hate them as a publisher – hard-headed to a fault and constantly bordering on ineptitude) have all the rights to it though, and doubt they’d be too inclined to make it free.
04/08/2009 at 23:01 Him says:
Got my confirmation email when I looked at my inbox just now; quite looking forward to giving this a shake now that I’m free of my DoW2 addiction!
05/08/2009 at 00:34 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
Guess I’ll wait for this open beta. I’m not on either of the both continents *cry*
05/08/2009 at 05:51 Weylund says:
@Dominic: You might be right about the Steam thing.
I think Battlefront is bloody brilliant. They are certainly hard-headed, but they’ve helped revive a dying genre, consistently produced innovative wargames and supported them to the fullest, and they never do things without a reason. That might be seen as ineptitude – after all, they don’t seem to SHARE their reasons all that often – random decisions are bound to seem stupid.
I do doubt they’d be inclined to make it free. A Steam release seems unlikely as well, but it’s worth making a suggestion. Thanks.
05/08/2009 at 08:07 Aftershock says:
One of the options for country in the sign-up for the beta was Australia.
I’m really hoping it lets me in.
05/08/2009 at 11:19 LionsPhil says:
So, Jim, what have your journalistic investigations discovered? Beta signup, or mailing list?
05/08/2009 at 11:31 Rei Onryou says:
I hope it is real signup. I could do with some Planetside-esque gameplay.