In this context (and every MMO company does is slightly differently) "closed" meand "under NDA" and "open" means "no NDA." It is sort of confusing.
 

Q1 2009

That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it )
 

Im considering a new "law of delayed software project" and it goes something like this:

- When a release gets delayed it will be about twice as delayed as expected.

Hence the actual release of WAR will be somewhere mid 2009 :-)
 

Well, computer science just works like that :) Whenever you have a release date, add 50% of the time from the announcement to the estimated release date and you'll have the actual release date.

Or don't add those 50%, then you get a shitty and unfinished game. Unfortunately, there's too many distributors who press developers to go that route still, not realizing they're ruining their sales by saving some few weeks of developer time that would've gone into finishing and polishing a product. Games rarely get a second chance once they screw up the initial release.

I'm quite happy Warhammer Online doesn't seem to fall into that trap.
 

My prediction - when does WoTLK come out? it'll be the week before that.
 

This game needs to be delayed. I have played the beta quiet a bit and it just has a bad feel to it. As a gamer, I instantly noticed that there was no addictive pull to come back and develop my character further.

As painful as delays are, they are better than releasing and stumbling. Blizzard has set the bar so high for game quality, that you need to be nearly flawless on release if you even want to steal 2% of their customers.
 

I'm leaning strongly on a september release date now.
 

@haslo too true, I always do that with my boss.
 

According to EA Mythic. The "Open Beta" is in fact going to be the last step of beta with lots of participants. The "Open" part is that they play to lift the NDA for that portion of the test.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

As I'm sure all the other long-time fans of EA here will agree, BUR.
 

I do not see why people should be upset about this push back. Q3/4 is a much better release time for a new MMO, this gives time for exploits and bugs to be discovered by a more forgiving crowd than the younger crowd that would pick it up in the early summer. Allowing for people to level up to max and at the advent of summer a boom can arise (given if the game actually lives up to the hype).
 

You didn't give the collectors edition enough play. I was surprised to read all it includes. however, i was also disappointed. "12 exclusive titles", and I think "12 unique heads". I hate when they take and make content unavailable to those that don't pay more. Why should they only get those particular unique heads or titles? In CoH you had a unique graphic when you ran but it wasn't a big deal really. bah, I won't pay extra for that crap
 

people with more money deserve better things... If you want to live in north korea so everyone can get the same crap then gooooo ahead.. but for me.. ill be fine pre ordering it right now.