What's with this soft launch/hard launch anyway? Since it will be a so called soft launch does that mean we can bounce off the planet when landing?
I know. I just don't like the fact that there's no proper way to beta test a planet. It has to be released to EU to be tested.
hm. Soft launch is something that 99,999% of the players want. I don't want to wait 2-3 more months. If you don't like it don't go there. But the planets looks cool so far and I want to go there ASAP.
I'd love to see how many people will get mad at all the bugs they may encounter ^^ Because, after all, this is their first real test.
Soft-launches and beta tests are excellent ways to QC games and products and fix problems early. This also shows that Cryrene cares about the player base enough to give them access and the ability to provide feedback. At least that is my perspective. I would do the same thing. Of course you will always have people that complain or create grief (non-constructive criticism) about bugs but we just ignore those people right? You can never make those types happy. lol. :D Just my 2 cents. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing Cyrene.
Everything that can be tested by the Cyrene team itself, will be and has been tested. Issues can occur when the tested, final things are placed into the live platform - and that's not in Cyrene's hands. Creating a soft launch will hopefully decrease the amount of errors and bugs, since not everything is launched at ones, and it will give the players a feel of the planet. I believe it's a very clever thing to make this soft launch, instead of releasing everything with a big badaboom with the risks that could follow (worse case scenario) by doing that.
This is of course the best way to test a new planet in EU. But a real beta test, separated from the EU universe would be much better, because there's no real money involved then.
Now it has been my experience that most beta-tests for an existing game are done on a separate server. It is basically a copy of the existing environment. I would imagine that could still be done in EU right? This way no real money is used and no assets are really accumulated. After the test, everything is erased until the live release. I have seen this done in other games and have actually participated in these tests. Testers were even rewarded special game perks that were available later just for participating in the beta. Just my two cents. :D