said by Exodus:said by Koil:A) It's still a beta, back off hater
The term "beta" is so misused by the MMO games that come out. Beta is less about beta testing and more about giving the first hit for free, enticing people to buy the game. It's advertising. It is beta in a sense that people can play-test/stress-test servers, etc., but its primary focus is for marketing.
The NDA-style betas are the true beta-test for MMOs. Using a "It's still beta" excuse is not acceptable. Most games I've beta tested have only ironed out existing kinks. They don't really make any drastic changes. What you see in beta is what you'll see on release.
I agree the term is over used, and maybe I'm wrong, but this feels more beta than anything I've been in on before. It's definitely not ready for prime time, like I said, unless they've got a huge patch in the wings. Are they going to roll out a new engine...no....but there are a lot of issues that still need to be addressed, and they're making changes to large chunk, game affecting pieces. I'd call it beta, as I don't know what else you can call it....gamma?
Look at what was just added for this BWE...it was quite a laundry list of stuff, which is going to require more tweaking before its ready to roll.
If marketing (edit) is what they were doing, why not just open the flood gates and let everyone in?
While it may not be code level revision type beta, I'd definitely say it's still in a testing mode, for sure.