To be up front, nobody has been invited into beta 2.5 for quite some time. We need to make the transition over to SOE servers, front-end, patcher, etc. which should be happening in the next week or so. Then we will move beta 2.5 players over to the new set up for a week or so and make sure all is good. Then we will launch Beta 3 which will include a lot of people from both pools (the message board pool and the CGM pool). And when I say a lot, I mean thousands.

And it's not just about getting the SOE stuff ready that we need to accomplish before starting beta 3 -- we are also making ready ships, turning on part of Qalia, finishing a revamp of Diplomacy, and finishing up some major optimizations aimed at medium settings (what most testers will use) so FPS won't be nearly the problem it has been in earlier betas.

Also of significant note is the ability for beta testers to invite groups of friends and guilds into beta 3 -- we really need to get critical mass on one server ramping up as well as community (and then when that is in place, the player driven economy should start to form).

All of this is happening fast, and like I put in the FAQ, I think beta 3 will start by the end of July. If it slips into early August I will let you know, but I don't see any signs of that happening at this point. The team is really getting a lot done preparing for Beta 3. Tweaked systems, higher framerate for average gamer machines, easier access via SOE's front-end and patcher, most quests focused on levels 1-35, many UI changes and much work on the newbie experienece (which includes UI mods as well as quests that intro you to the various spheres of gameplay), and much more.

Thanks Steve -- didn't think you did

No, we will start pulling from all pools, including the magazine pool, for phase 3 (and even possibly the very end of phase 2.5) depending on our needs, and this will likely not be long after E3.

Is that how most of you feel really?

Should I remain silent when someone calls people whom I know and are good people and people of integrity 'lying sacks of crap'? Do you want Nick and other Sigil moderators to stand by and do nothing when board posters start calling each other names like this? Should we all not, including me, attempt to set a high standard for the community we want to evolve around this game? Should I remain silent because this person is a potential customer?

These are great questions. Undoubtedly, there will likely be some disagreement.

This has been one of our tenets from the very beginning, when we put up our FAQ quite a while ago:

-------------

5. The collective long term happiness of the playerbase and therefore the overall health of the game is always right.

(This is in reponse to the assertion that the 'customer is always right'. The assertion is correct, but since players are in a world shared by other players, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one or the few; likewise, what is good for the game long term takes precedence over the short term, in that it's in both the developers and players interest that the game retain its long term health).

-------------

I think my reaction was in line with the above assertion, except I wasn't trying to protect the long term health of the game, but rather the community that has formed up so amazingly before the game is even out.

I do absolutely try to stay out of volitile situations on the boards -- that's what Nick and the moderators are for. In this case, I broke that rule of mine and spoke up (as I have on occasion, both here and on other boards). While I don't question my motivation (to protect the community), I may question whether in my role as both CEO and the primary spokesperson for this game I should have let somebody else handle the post and remained silent myself. I don't know. I am giving it serious thought, that is for certain.

I'm here to promote this game, this community, to answer questions, to be up front with you all, to manage expectations... to clarify news when its released and can be interpreted in different ways... I do a lot of things here, but no, I am not nor should I be a board moderator.

Thoughts?

I think we should have worded it differently when we were made aware of the wording, and therefore took responsibility and apologized that we were not more diligent in reviewing the verbage. It was an oversight, it was *not* to hide that there might be delays. I have always been upfront that we don't announce beta phase dates and the like because the dates may change. Steve may have interpreted our oversight when reviewing the language as a desire on our part to hide that there might be delays, but he is incorrect in that assumption. We had and still have no date we can announce as to when that phase of beta will begin (although I can now say it will be shortly after E3) and I have always been up front about that sort of thing and am straight up to you guys when things take longer than what was planned (e.g. delays).

I still maintain that I don't believe they meant to mislead anyone, but rather that they used 'sales language' as you put it to hype the opportunity. Again, we should have caught that and asked them to re-word things, and we didn't -- that's our bad. I don't consider, however, their motivation or wording a lie meant to deceive. Nor do I consider our error in not correcting the verbage a lie on our part, though it was certainly a screw-up, an oversight, and again, I apologize and we take full responsibility for it.

The problem I had with the other poster was with that person calling them 'lying sacks of crap' -- if a person believes the language was misleading and expresses that, I respect their opinion and they are free to post their opinions. Going past that and being derogatory to that degree is what I had a problem with. If you equate our oversight with a lie and also feel it should be ok to call people 'lying sacks of crap', then we will have to agree to disagree. If you or anyone else wants to disregard how we have handled community to-date, how up front and honest we have been, our entire track record in terms of how we have interacted with our community on these boards and elsewhere, and accuse us of being liars as opposed to having made an error and not being sufficiently diligent when reviewing that language, you are free to do so of course, but I don't think it adds up.

I would humbly ask anyone who feels that way to remember that a screw up is usually more likely than malice and ask that you also then accept our apology. In fact, in the very first thread about the Vanguard cover that I started, when I read the verbage myself for the first time (when I got my copy of the magazine) I immediately began posting to try to clear up any potentially misleading verbage before the magazine hit the stands (I received an advanced copy).

Choosing instead to believe our motive was to mislead or to be dishonest, despite our track record, is again up to the person.

But I still stand by what I said: I don't think calling anyone 'lying sacks of crap' in reaction to something like this is an attitude that the Vanguard community wants. They can speak for themselves, of course, and they have in this thread and elsewhere already.

In summary:

1. We did not mean to mislead nor lie -- it was not our intention.

2. We did indeed have the opportunity to catch the potentially misleading wording and failed to do so, for which we apologize and for which I will take full responsibility.

3. Knowing the folks at CGM, I don't believe it was their intent to mislead either. Their assertion that we approved the verbage to hide potential delays, if that is indeed their assertion, is in accurate and I feel our track record here on the boards supports my assertion that we straight up with you guys.

4. Even if that is their assertion, I still have major respect for CGM and its people and have known them for a long time and they are people of integrity.

5. I don't think leaping to accusations and using wording like 'lying sacks of crap' is good community. And I also know that we will undoubtedly make errors in the future, being both imperfect and human and also very busy working on this game. So if something like this is going to elicit accusations in the form of calling people 'lying sacks of crap' from a very small subset of the community, then it will likely happen again the next time we screw up. Perhaps this is indeed unavoidable and one could argue I shouldn't therefore have reacted the way I did. Please understand that I am very proud of our community, these boards, how they have worked, etc. If I can manage expectations, be up front with you all, and have the opportunity to explain when something unplanned occurs or when we screw up or whatever and also apologize when needs be, then I think we can continue to have a very productive community. I may be naive here and too idealistic. It is arguable that what we have now cannot last forever, hence our thoughts about shutting down the boards after launch and doing board-based customer relations using message boards owned by others. Somewhere in my heart, however, I hope not. And in the meantime, I'm going to do everything I can to support and encourage the best pre-launch community on these boards as we can.

I don't know if that made sense, and even if it did, you may still disagree, and we may have to agree to disagree. But I needed to say it, to try to explain, and to be up front with you all, because that's who I am, and that's who Sigil is.

thank you,

CGM didn't lie about anything and honestly if you feel so strongly as to bad mouth their magazine like that, I'm not sure Vanguard is the right game for you, nor the community we are trying to foster building around Vanguard, making it much more than 'just' a game, but also a home, a virtual world where people don't just play the game but also meet friends, develop very real relationships, get to know people all over the world, etc.

Actually, more specifically, we have never announced an 'open' beta. There will be no beta where anyone can play the game. There will be, however, final phases of beta that are going to require a LOT of people.

Yes, thank you

First, if you are reading this and haven't already read my posts re: this issue on other threads, please do so.

Now let me add this:

Steve and everyone at CGM are awesome -- I've known them for years and have a great relationship with them. They have always treated us right, and their magazine is top notch. They are also people of high integrity.

If there was something that could have been worded better or more clearly, I take full responsibility. The buck stops here. Steve has no need to apologize for anything.

The idea here was to promote Vanguard and give people who don't normally post on these boards and who were not part of the original pool of people a chance to be in beta. Anything that might have been interpreted as 'immediate access' to beta simply was not the intent, neither CGM nor Sigil's intent. As you all know, Sigil is committed to a long beta and releasing this game when it's ready. We will also honor the promises we have made -- people who use the CGM code will be in beta, people who have attended the Fanguard events will be in beta, and we will also draw from the general pool of board posters (as we have already been doing). But given that we don't know when the future phases will begin today, we certainly didn't know when they would begin when we worked with CGM for the Vanguard cover months ago; rather, we knew less.

Beta for Vanguard will likely be 5 phases, not 4 as originally planned. I don't have any dates right now, but the last phases will require a LOT of people. The second to last beta will require filling up an entire shard, and we are guessing 4-5k per shard, meaning we will need 10-15k people just for that. Then when we hit the final phase, we will be opening up multiple shards.

With EverQuest 1, phase 4 involved over 25k people. Again, while I can't begin to guess an exact number at this time, Vanguard having a large and seamless world and due to the nature of the way the world is laid out, it being group centric (but with plenty of solo/casual as well as raid content too), etc. I am guessing the final phase will easily exceed what EQ 1 required, and by a lot.

So to wrap things up, as Steve said, if you bought the magazine and used the code, you *will* be in beta – it’s just a matter of ‘when’, *not* ‘if.’ The most accurate I can be in regards to ‘when’ is as follows: We will begin processing the next batch of beta people from our available pools of applicants, including the CGM code folks, shortly after E3.

Finally, if you look at the numbers above, assuming you are not already in beta, and assuming you don’t buy the magazine, I still think you have a very good chance of being in one of the phases. Like I have said, we will need a lot of people, especially in the latter phases, to make this game as ready as we want it to be, and as ready as I believe you all want it to be as well.

Thanks all,