Fomka

SoE did a massive beta invite not long ago, so everyone and their mother can get into beta, so who really cares. But yeah, I agree that keeping NDA till the release is kinda wrong.

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Fibs

You obviously don't understand the difference between a demand and a request...

LFG

If this is how it's going to be in the future, I'm not inclined to participate in beta. I still won't allow obvious NDA violations, but then I also won't be personally responsible for them.

I think that not releasing NDA until official release of the expansion is all downside with no benefit for me, our users, and this website.

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rorion

I would assume it is causing alot of extra moderating on your part which is always a pain in the ass.

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Choadley

Years ago, I used to work in a factory and I can safely say, I don't give a fuck where you used to work.

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Gori

Given that this is the latest they have ever went, there are two possible explanations in my mind. They are trying to hide the "goodies," or they are trying to hide the "baddies."

I hope they are smart enough to realize that their reputations, which have been increased of late among the general public, would only be damaged by hiding any problems that might have surfaced, particularly given Scott's and Smed's "polish" comments.

I am hopeful, but have to wonder. I looked over general gameplay and there wasn't a thread regarding the NDA on the first two pages so I started a new one. Within 30 minutes or so it was merged into another thread in the expansion section. The e-mail explaining it said...

Please understand that we are trying to keep all RoK NDA posts in one thread or else they would spread like the plague. Thank you.

Odd....that thread was started 2 weeks ago and only has six pages of posts? It appears to not be "spread(ing) like the plague."

Also, maybe it was just coindidence, but I find it very unlikey that someone would report the thread I started. I think the better likelihood is that the moderator just happenend across it, or that they are making sure to look for "NDA" to make sure no threads that break it turn up.

I can't help but wonder though why the thread on when the NDa will be lifted is only six pages? General player apathy or a result of it being out of sight?

I hope in this case the secrecy is to keep the goods from being spilled. However, a small conspiritorial part of me wonders if it isn't part of damage control so the pre-order numbers stay high.

Oh well, either way I have my two copies ordered.

LFG

Yeah, it's all about me and this stupid fucking hobby of mine. I pay my money and spend my time promoting their product.

You're a fucking idiot.

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LFG

I agree - it seems to me they will ultimately be worse off, rather than better off, limiting beta discussion to their private internal board.

The possible benefits to them are:

1. Limiting negative publicity if something is horribly wrong at this late stage and they don't want to reduce initial sales of the new expansion because of that.

2. The extremely selfish convenience of limiting all dev focus to their own private single source of information. To me, that's like saying "we will only support fan sites when they serve our limited purpose, other than that they are on their own and can pound sand for all we care".

But the disadvantages of this strategy are:

1. Generating negative publicity by causing pissed off people like me to speculate on what could be so bad and so fucked up about the expansion that SOE feels the need to hide it until release day to trick the maximum number of subscribers into buying the product.

2. Causing loyal and supportive fan sites like this one to feel like we are being thrown under the bus and intentionally denied content and traffic that there is no good reason to suppress, except based on the selfish benefit of concentrating dev feedback in SOE's private forum at the cost of screwing fan sites.

P.S. The next time someone calls me an ass kisser, think back to posts like this one.

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gungo

Releasing it a few days before the expansion is fine to support the fansites. But i actually think with the nda being held longer helped the offical forum beta site and had a much better signal to noise ratio.

So yeah releasing the nda the weekend before release should be fine.

Pinski

I disagree. There is so much noise on the official beta forums right now combined with people being retarded as hell claiming their ability isn't as overpowered as person x says, while the class that person x has an overpowered ability while giving completely wrong information about the ability. TBH, some people who are in beta shouldn't be there. I also find it hilarious about what I've heard about a certain guild who didn't get in as a beta guild.

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All of the seasons and all of the days
All of the reasons why I've felt this way
So long...
So long
Then lost in that feeling I looked in your eyes
I noticed emotion and that you had cried
For me
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