I already commented that under your Are bloggers "press"? post, so if anyone is interested you can check what I said there. :)

In fact much of what is said there overall applies here too.
 

I do not think they have anything more to hide than any other MMOG company, but are just taking extra precautions to keep the NDA enforced.

They will probably exclude some people that could write previews and reviews based on only what they would have seen after NDA was lifted and also actually wanted to help test the game.

But they might also avoid some trouble. It is better to be too restrictive if one wants to change at some point later, rather than allow too much and regret it.
 

Well I'm not in either & I'm a Aug 2006 newsletter subscriber as well as I signed up on the day beta was announced. Top of hte line pc as well, just alot of people signed up. Oh & their beta key contests are a joke. Winners dont get in when they win but at a time later tbd. Some people won keys over 6 months ago or at conventions and still are not in. What a stupid way to do it.
 

I think game developers could turn into some kind of "burned child". As I am generally interested in MMOGs but haven´t much time to test everything myself, I mostly rely on a wide variety of blogs (including this one).
So I´ve read quite a bit of Tabula Rasa. Most of the blogs were like 'yeah, its kind of nice, very action-orientated, but I won´t play it because its not deep enough for the money you have to pay'.

The point is: Because of comments like those I won´t play this game. But perhaps they are wrong? After all, most of them are no professional journalists. And even those sometimes write crap. Perhaps the game will greatly improve until release and I will miss that, because I already crossed it out in my mind.

I think thats the reason why they want no bloggers. Bloggers are subjective, they mostly don´t write about facts but about their feelings around those facts. Not every reader is able to deal with that.
I think game developers simply want people to try their precious games and have a look for themselves.

For myself, I don´t care. Time is money sometimes, so I keep on reading. The only thing they did for me is not letting me buy the game at release, but wait even longer, until everyone played the release version and could give some serious feedback.
 

I don't know how they are selecting their beta members in general; those restrictions for a contest though are not surprising -- they are probably advertising the contest on websites, fansites, blogs..... They *have* to restrict those members from the contest as a result, legally, to avoid conflict-of-interest. It would be very easy for someone who didn't get in to claim collusion if a blogger or volunteer for a fansite did. After all, a lot of those people know the devs. And you can't just list specific site/media companies -- much easier to just do a blanket ban.
 

Well I'm not a blogger, or press, or a member of a fan site, etc., and I am have not gotten into Beta either. While it might be possible that others haven't gotten in because they fell into those exclusion categories we can't tell if that is the cause.

I am also amazed by some peoples honesty about being a part of a fan site, press, or blogger even. Kudos I suppose :)
 

If you decide to stop posting about Warhammer Online, because of this, I'll certainly understand.
 

For the Metaplace alpha application, I put that I am a "member of the press" for the first time on any application. I'm still not sure if I was right to put it there. But I figured a company's primary reason for asking that question is probably to know how many other potential players might read my reviews. I get over a thousand visitors per month... so I'm not IGN or Gamespot, but I'm certainly not the Average-Joe who only talks to a handful of friends. Honestly though, I'm not sure if I'll list my blogsite on every application from now on or not.
 

... and the fact you have a blog that folks read makes you more appealing to EA Mythic why? Under the NDA you can't even talk about it so why invite you over anyone else?
 

NDAs get lifted just at the point in time when the marketing department wants the free hype from the internet, usually some weeks before release. Bloggers are subjective, but that is what makes them interesting as marketing vehicle. Because usually they err on the "best game evar" side of things.
 

Bloggers are subjective, but that is what makes them interesting as marketing vehicle. Because usually they err on the "best game evar" side of things

Any critic or reviewer of games, movies, theatre etc is also subjective, that is the nature of the game. One would ideally have to know the persons likes and dislikes to get a good idea how to treat the content of a review.

But I disagree with bloggers err on the "best game" side usually - rather perhaps stronger opinions in either direction, but not necessarily on the positive side.
 

They are absolutely excluding anyine they remotely think could be press or the pet of press - we tried to get my IT guy's hamster in but they said no.

Seriously though, it's a Mythic thing. Anyone not a "fan" is seen as an adversary. It's been frustrating for years and it's only gotten worse since EA.

They don't want ANYONE questioning their design before complete and have deemed those who play the games regularly to be the most competent to question - NDA or not.

Tis frustrating. They don't seem to understand that perhaps we just may want to see games succeed, not tear them down.
 

They have a lot to hide... trust me.
 

A blogger may well put someone off, but, is your average game player really the sort of person who reads blogs and makes their purchase based on that? I doubt it is a high percentage.

Look at any Best sellers list in a Games Shop (if you even trust those lists). Why do they display them? Because they want Little Johhny to go read that list and either choose a game off that list himself, or pester his parents to buy it for him.
The quality of the game doesn't seem to matter too much, but for Little Johhny, being able to brag that he owns that game is more important (the South Park episode with the toy/game/tv show marketing scenario comes to mind). We all know that most movie/tv tie-in games stink, and yet there they are on the best-sellers list every single time.

How many 'dancing on the postbox in your underwear' players read blogs, do you think?
 

How many 'dancing on the postbox in your underwear' players read blogs, do you think?

More than I'd like to. They are easy to recognize, because they all post under the name of "anonymous". :)
 

I know a lot of gamers, and I don't know anybody who is in the WAR beta yet. Pretty much everybody has signed up, too.
 

Now that I think about it, I don't know anyone in the War beta either. Might be that they don't want to rollout a large beta until they are sure of their release date. At the moment their release keeps moving until they can confirm the WotLK date.
 

There's no one in beta because it doesn't exist, we've all been fooled!
 

I know many beta testers who actuallly are on the beta. Maybe is different here (Europe) than the US but here peoples get their beta keys in the first week after registering.