That sounds mysterious doesn’t it but really I have been wondering how some of the latest MMO betas are coming along and how the games, that we are all looking forward to, are REALLY shaping up and not just want the development team’s PR department wants to tell us.

For example you had Vanguard which was all hyped up just prior to release but really was still many months from a finished game but to anyone not in the beta – i.e. on the other side of the “curtain” it looked to be shaping up nicely. Gods and Heroes was another – the hype machine was rolling about 6 months before the game was “Cancelled” but to anyone on the outside it looked like it was about to release or at least very close.

I am personally a little worried ( I worry too much) for some of the latest games that are due to be released in 2008 – I am concerned that most will have further delays and some might not even make it in 2008 or ever !
I am in a beta at the moment and the development team might lead you to believe the game is running nice and smooth and things are coming along very nicely thank you…but in reality the beta testers haven’t been able to test the game in months as the test server has been down and the last client release(released March / April time) was almost unplayable – this game is due for release Q1 2008

I do think this is happening more and more….all hype and not a lot of substance behind the “curtain”. Will Conan and WarHammer be like this ? – we hear that they are delaying these games to improve the game further but is this really that the game is nowhere near a releasable product and that the hype machine has just peaked too early ?

…saying all this LOTRO was a really good beta ( except for the way you logged bugs) and the release was pretty smooth with no real surprised to what we were told we would get…..so it can be done !