f13.net

IGN (sorry, there was no getting around saying it!) is having a contest to win an EQ2 beta account.  Thought some of you who have accounts there, though agressively shun it, might be interested.  :)



Good luck!

Hah. Well since you've posted it, I'll let the cat out of the bag.

We're going to be running the exact same promotion if I can get my shit together and actually fax the form back. Yes, that's right - f13 will have 30 beta invites to give away. It won't be a contest and new members can't even get them. Why? Because I don't want kiddies signing up just for an invite. Since they won't even get back to me til monday, if I see enough response, I may actually send the form back in.

So, is it safe to assume you're all interested or would you rather do the ign contest? ;-)

Seriously, do 30 of you care or have the time to play?

I'll trade you 6 gmail accounts for an EQ2 beta account!


edit: On a serious note, I too would like to have a go at the EQ2 beta.

30? Wow.

Yeah, you'll find at least 30 of us willing to make time to do so, I imagine. I've been interested for a while.

I look forward to wheeling Corky the special needs Shadowknight through a plastic Norrath.

Sure, I'll never turn down a free beta invite.

Since I'm already in the beta, can I get a second one for a friend of mine?

Bruce

I'll take a couple too.

But if we're not giving out group packages.  Just one for me.

Bruce, Don't be a fool. Hat, don't be bruce.

One a piece. None for your friends. This is for f13 peoples. Oh, as long as I'm posting, you need an SOE Station account (or you need to make one) and the email address has to be valid.

Ugh, where did I put it...

I would like the chance to see what EQ2 is all about. I would appreciate it if you could swing this for us, schild.

Uh, if those of us who aren't terribly active at posting count, and you have thirty to hand out, I would certainly be interested.

I'm torn on eq2.  My friends who got in hate it, and history tells me its going to suck, same as all the rest.  But the teaser video was almost enough sugar coating to make me think it may actually be worth trying out.

You might as well send in the form, too.   Worst case scenario, you'll be able to form your own fanboy man-harem.

I care and have the time to play. The revelation of PvP-only content on the "PvE" servers has really soured me on WoW.

I'd certainly playtest an EQ2 beta.  I've got more questions than someone who wasn't a hardcore caster can answer, and I believe I'm in their target demographic...  that of 'people who like the Everquest qorld, but got turned off by the nature of the system'.  I also have plenty of hardrive space I'm not using.

--
Alkiera

I'm not interested in beta testing it. But the idea of this boards population being able to tear it apart as soon as the NDA drops sounds intriguing.

I most definitely care!  I've been looking forward to playing EQ2 for a while.

I'd love a chance to bug hunt the game.  I doubt I'd actually pay to play that game when it finally goes live but I'd have a blast testing it out for SOE's customers.

It would be interesting to do a compare/contrast between EQ2 and WoW since these are the 2 juggernauts coming down the pipe.

I'd like to, but I barely have time to eat and sleep as it is.  Would be an interesting situation for me, though, catassing at work only to come home and catass at a beta.

Sounds interesting - plz. count me in. My "credentials" are to have played too many of them (but only AC1 and AO for a long time).

(Though I have received bad omens because both the Doom3 and Tribes: Vengeance MP demos caused my computer to lock up... 3D is scary.)

This is good.  I'd really like to level up a char and test out the guild content.  From everything I've read, there will be no PvP, at least at launch and while that is disappointing, I'd still like to see what the guilds have to offer.  There is NO WAY POSSIBLE EVER IN A MILLION YEARS that I would join the IGN guild that's been offered, so this is definitely promising.  Especially if MrHat is there playing a swashbuckling pirate and I can order him about with impunity. ;p  

I am very Yaaar-ticulate, you know.

I'd certainly like on please, it would be nice to know if I should go ahead and get the super-preorder or just skip the game. In exchange I'll happily insult Bruce much less often. Or much more. I'll leave that up to you.

I'd be up for giving it a go.

given that the only MMO I am currently playing is CoH, and given that i have never pleyed EQ1, I would be game for a beta account.

I think I would at least have some kind of "fresh" perspective on how fun or un-fun it is, considering I wont be tainted by the previous EQ.

Yes, please. The old dog died.

I'd like an EQ2 beta shot, if possible. Most likely my wife and I would split the account.

For those considering going to create a station account:

So long as you've played SWG, EQ or Planetside you've got an SOE station account.  If you remember your PW, login and make sure the e-mail address is up-to-date. If you don't remember it and your e-mail address has changed since you last played any of them.. well you get to create a new one.

Schild, looks like you've got almost 30 interested parties.  Just let us know what we need to get to you & when.

I got plenty of time to play if you'd like to send me one. I just quit CoH recently because I got bored of it. And im very interested in seeing how EQ2 works.

I want in.  I'm a sucker for Beta's.  Heck, I've been wanting a good reason to upgrade my video card anyway.

Now, about that station account.  I'm sure I have one, the question is what name and pw did I use?

Edit - found it!

Bah, you guess good.

I would be interested in one of the accounts. I would really like to evaluate EQ2 vs WoW for myself.

I'd be interested.

Now you see us lurkers coming out the closet fast :) Ive seen it at a friends house so miss me out if you oversubscribe but yeah I'd like a chance at it.

You will have to get more invites, schild, because those who don't get one will hate you.  Be sure to let all the ladies in first... you don't need THAT sort of hate.

If the lurkers are coming out then it will probably have to switch to a contest. At least that way we would only be hating "the man" for keeping us down, not schild personally.

This lurker wouldn't mind a chance toward beta

post count for "teh win".








Kidding.

Eh, fuck lurkers. If they only come out to get free stuff, then they're not much better than the random assweeds who'd register just to get free stuff.

Both myself and my friend the poster "Grind" are certainly interested.

Yep.  Delurking strictly for the free shit is fairly low class.

Definitely interested in an EQ2 beta spot Schild.

Cheers,
Grind

Correctomundo. The first thing we're going by interested parties is post count and input. If all of your posts are like 'hahaha wtfpwn' then no, you don't get a spot. Everyone who has talked knows if they'll get a spot or not.

Threatening me to leave when you don't get a spot won't make me care one way or the other btw. So yea, some people have priority. This isn't a contest. It's me passing on things to you all. Think of it as a thank you for support.

Edit: Bob, Gulp - the aggressive comments in there weren't aimed at you two. Just a general - don't delurk.

Edit: I also think it's important to note that due to some recent behind the scenes changes more stuff like this may come along. So if you don't get into this one, keep posting, you might get into the next one. I won't be posting the people that got in until Tuesday (as about 300 of the posters here only post on weekdays). Here's how it'll go though.

Fax in the form on monday. Hopefully get response on Monday as well.

The people will be added in 3 groups of 10. The 30 people will be chosen by tuesday (or wednesday, depending on My work schedules). The 30 people will then be broken into the groups according to post count and my own personal bias (mostly postcount, except for the 3-4 accounts I've already promised people). So if you aren't in the first group, don't take it personally.

Next week I will email some people about MxO, Guild Wars, WoW, and I'll try to get some news on Tabula Rasa for you all. Even if it's just a couple screen shots. I'll also be releasing some other news early next week.

Thanks for the interest in EQ2 - but if a single one of you break NDA after I give you an account, you'll be banned. So if you're a loud mouthed tool, consider yourself screwed. k?

I'm not interested, heh.

I'll just read yer reviews of it once NDA is lifted.  Same with WoW.

Both... its currently a toss up for me between EQ2 and WOW a beta account would help tons.

Dualy noted.

EDIT : Not only do I lose at life I can't seem to remember which boards allow me to attach names to quotes, lol.

Count me interested in EQ2.  It looks shiny.

I'd be interested in a spot, but reading this thread is like what happens when a rich relative dies.  Everyone is coming out of the woodwork!

hahaha wtfpwn!

... and I'll fucking leave if I don't get one.


Or not. Depending on what scares you the most.




Allthoug WoW seems more like my thing, I'd love to test EQ2 as well. If for nothing else, then the chance to play with some of you guys.

Hmmmm, this may piss a couple of you off pretty good.



Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Er, why the specification of UK? All of the UK is inside the EU. Or do they mean to include Commonwealth states like India or Uganda?

(Pity my Norway isn't a member. Welcome to Outside-Norway, obedient to EU but without representation. Or EQ2 betas.)

Yeah, going the route of national sovereignty and not having to kowtow to ivory tower bureaucrats in Brussels is such a drag...

Thankfully it looks like anti-EU sentiment in the UK is really starting to gain steam, much to Blair's chagrin.

Er, I think you misunderstand: Norway does kowtow to bureaucrats in Brussels, we just don't have any of our own. The economic agreement between Norway and EU is practically membership without the benefits (like representation). There is a theoretical veto when EU wants us to jump, but it has never actually been used, whether the Labour party or the current moderate coalition were in power

Anyway, I seem to recall Americans not reacting well to some states not wanting to kowtow to bureaucrats in Washington DC back around 1860... :)

Been busy this weekend so I'm probably number 31 at this point. ;) I'm definitely interested in testing out EQ2 beta if you can manage to fit me in one of the spots.

I will test it out. Right now my money though is on WOW.  Played EQ for a long time and actually got into it because PIKA convinced me it was the next thing beyond UO.  Still cringe at thinking that....

I guess I would have to be actually playing an online game again before I can make any intelligent comments.

This lurker will come out long enough to see if there are enough left to snatch one up...

..... why the heck would the beta contest be NA and EU only when they're planning on a worldwide release? That just doesn't seem to make much sense.

Well I would be interested since I am just about to graduate from grad school and will have a lot of free time while waiting for a job.

However since I am rather new and have a low post count, I guess I should just be one of those fringe people, if you have an extra account and other senior members didn't receive one then send it my way.

If you have any spots left I'd be interested too. If only to do a truly valid look at it to see how it compares to WoW. From what little I've heard EQ2 sounds quite interesting but there are some things I'd have to see for myself.

Pika has infected my mind with eq2 with his constant babble.  I'd like to try it, if only to tell him how much is sucks.

What?  Tabula Rasa?  Oh, wait.  Too early to ask for that one. :)

A hearty MEH to EQ2!

Add me and my pathetic post count to the list.

Ooooh free beta. I'm deffinatly interested.

After paying to beta SWG very little SOE does could still piss me off. Make me feel pathetic yes, piss me off no.

Actually I kinda like the whole 18 or older, though we all know the kids will still manage to sneak in like they always do.

I'd be up for a shot at one.

i'd love a shot - if you ever get enough to hand one down this far on the list.  thanks!

Ooh. Guerrilla marketing crack dealers.

I'll take the first hit as long as it's free.

Give me a call when there's an 18+ retail server, and when that age is measured to terms of intellectual capacity.

Also, with pr0n.

Hmm, I'm probably too late for this one (This is what I get for ignoring posts with "IGN" and "EQ2" in the title...2 pages long? I knew something was up).

Count me in if you can. Too busy to check it out as much as I'd like, but I'd like to know if it's as good as people are sayin'.

But it doesn't hurt to up my post count so that I won't be accused of being a lurker for the next beta giveaway of a game that might actually be cool :P

Not everyone on this list is getting a spot. So people should hmmm...I'm gonna change the title of the topic. Everyone should keep responding, in terms of who wants in.

Hi. Yes I'd like a spot.  I'd assume that was obvious, but covering your bases doesn't hurt.

I would be interested in a spot as well.

Having heard some interesting thoughts on this title, if a spot is free, I'm game to check it out and see how EQ has evolved.  EQ was my first after all, and you never first get your first.  Since then, I am no longer virginal and pure.  Oh the lost innoncence....

Xilren

Bah, pining over lost innocence is a waste.  I'm looking for the dirty girl that keeps you up till 5am with her 'friends'.

And in case I wasn't clear earlier. I'm intersted in a slot.

In.

I don't think it would run on my POS rig right now, so teh shiney would be lost on me unfortunately. Count me out.

I would love a spot. :)

Honestly, I think rewarding long time members and forum posters is a solid plan and would not think badly of this site if that is the way you will go.

That said, if you decide to pick names from a hat, count me in. Thanks!

Im still in for a spot, or does asking twice disqualify me?
.
.
.
.
.
DOH!

I didn't get over to Kinko's today. I apologize. Was beat after work. Will try to get over tomorrow. The sudden change in working afternoon/evenings to mornings/afternoon kicked my ass.

Should only take about a week, but ya, that's killer.

I lurk and read, but don't really care for a beta spot. Now, if you were giving away AC2 trials, then I might be interested!

Oh wait...

I'd like one!  I need new shiney!

Can I have Gith's beta spot?

I'll cast my line as well, though I'm perfectly aware that I'm too big of a lurker to qualify.

well i've been around forever i just dont post, will post count++ matter?

if not i'd like a shot

Lakov deserves a spot just for his avatar!

Bruce

Postcount for the in...

*laughs* I saw IGN and thought it was about some idiot posting there and never even read the thread ;)

I'd love a beta account.

Heh, this is going to be like one of those one day sales for wedding dresses, where you see a horde of females racing through the store, all heading to the basement, where the racks of dresses are waiting for them.

Screaming, pushing, shoving, yelling, feinting.

Except it won't be women, it will mostly be pasty faced geeks, who haven't left their house in three months, all running towards you with their hands outstrenched, desparately trying to grab a beta key.

Dude, change your mind, while you still can - run!

But if you decide to go ahead with your plans anyway, I'd love to have a beta key.

Speak for yourself.

I happen to have a rather nice tan from this summer even though it was a pretty mild one here in PA. I am a geek though. There's no denying that. *sigh*

As a relative (post count) newb to these forums I have no expectations. But, I figured I'd chime in to express my time and interest. For the next few months I have more time than I know what to do with.

Worst case, there will be a wad of reviews when the NDA is lifted.

And thank the gods for holidays off, imo!

Anyway, if there's still room, I'd like a spot. I've already pre-ordered the dern thing.

Count me in. You got me all interested with your Q&A thread, Schild.

I'm doing the opposite going from early mornings to late night. I feel your pain Schild.

I pre-ordered the collector's edition. *shudder* Does that make me a bad person?

I'm up for some rat bashing. (As a ratonga for the irony win of course).

Yikes, $90.  What exactly does the Collector's Edition come with?  I checked the EBGames website, but it didn't indicate what was special about it except that it comes in a nice shiney tin.

Hmm.. from memory,

A statue of Antonica or Lucian for your player house
A dragonette pet for your house
A cloth map

There's a few other things I remember being listed in there as well, but I can't remember them at the moment.

You're not a bad person, but I'd hope you feel some shame.

I pre-ordered it to and I know I do.[/quote]

Long time lurker, oft time quoter. Count me in coach.

It's a statue of antonica AND lucan.

soundtrack

and other crappy goodies.

The best preorder gift of all? Access to the Guild Wars weekend and a magic bow on day 1 for my scout. Diablo style lewt 4 teh win.

Found it at the Station store.



Y'all reply too fast for me to bother editing my above post.

You get J-Boots.  That would be the best thing IMO.

The pre-order is about inline with WoW Collector's Edition (which I also pre-ordered) except EQ2 is giving up the in-game goodies. But really the 80 for WoW and 90 for EQ2 are justified by the art books if they are well made. IF...

WoWs giving an in-game pet (What kind has yet to be announced. Ideas tossed out by the devs were a Mechanical Pandaran and a Zergling.)


I got the WC3 CE, (It was there, and only $10 more than the 'standard' version) and it was worth it. The signed manual will be like the wc3 one, the back cover will be printed with their signatures. The CD of music was "meh" in WC3 but the art & production book Blizzard put together was definatly worth at least $20 more.

Good luck everyone.

/crosses fingers

Raven

It's always nice to hear of new developments and such for the games you want to play. I hope I can get one of the beta accounts. Even if I can't, the open beta can't be that far away.

SOE is neither confirming nor denying an Open Beta. :(  Those dodgey bastards may, infact, not have an Open Beta near or around launch time.

Word is that SOE is giving 30 beta keys to a large number of fansites.  This may be their way of approximating an "open" beta.  It also justifies their charging people (not directly, but in essence) for a spot in the beta by not having a free open beta.

The company has years of experience with high traffic online gameplay support.  If someone has a shot at getting this right without using a free stress test, I'd hope that it would be them. Then again, it is SOE so anything is possible.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. That's why I preordered. The game may be total ass, but just in case it's cool, I don't want to go through that shit again imo.

Do we get jboots for the beta, too? Daddy don't like slow movement speeds (see also: DAoC).

Can I have a key so I can betatest the experience of an antisocial 2-boxing loot whore prz?

I'd love to get into the EQ2 beta in some way. I'm back to playing EQ original at the moment whenever I need a poker break. I'd like to figure out if EQ2 is going to be worth getting once it comes out.


Edit: Does it make me a lurker when 80% of my post count comes from the online poker threads?

No, that makes you a gambling addict.

I'll toss my hat into the ring. But since this is page 4 I'll probably get the 'ya, sure, we'd let ya in, IF YOU PAYED ATTENTION LOOSER!" award.

*shrug*

Alright. I've got a list down, i'll let people update this through noon tomorrow and modify the list if some surprise people sign up. But other than that, You'll get the first round tomorrow. Two of the people you will not know as they are friends off the internet. I limited it to two though. So don't worry about that. 28 more to go around, if you don't get picked and REALLY want in, just send me a PM.

Thanks for the interest.

Heh, jboots.  

/chuckle

As those who come ot the beta will see...well...nevermind.

As some of you may remember our guild in SWG, anyone interested in getting together in beta should message me on the EQ2 beta boards and we' ll hook up.   I'm "Jon" on those boards.

I like this game.  A lot.  I  think it will be successful.

I hope I made the list, if not, there's always a chance I'll get one of the 20 slots that another MMO website is giving away.  Yeah, right.

Put me in the "not paying attention" category.

But if there's still room on the list, or whatever, then yeah, I'd like to beta this.

If not, I'll just hope people can tell me whether it blows.  Eventually.  Once the NDA lifts.

yeah, I'll be another asshole coming out of the woodwork. Like others before me, I also think that the big posters should get priority, but if some of the invites are going to be randomly done, I'm interested.

it's not my fault the post count is so low, I promise! it's just that everyone is generally as caustin and cynical as I tend to be. scary.

You realize this thread lends weight to any dev scornfully calling us the "beta community".  I mean, some of these names I can't recall seeing after the implosion at SND.

Well, if you look at our collective commentary on the existing games, it's fairly evident why we stop playing when there is no longer much of a chance of the game changing significantly for the better.  Once the game goes live, the primary design decisions seem to be pretty much etched in stone...  Any change of a major system requires too much dev time/artist time/designer time, especially given so much of their time seems to be spent fixing the minor problems with the code/art/design.

Many of us are backseat game designers...  As Schild mentioned in another thread, he posted about his issues with EQ2 systems repeatedly, until he got tired of reading the responses of the SOE family members and fanbois.  We understand design choices much better than the average MMO gamer, and frequently as well as (and sometimes better than) the devs who made them.  We can also elucidate our feelings about the game with a resolution greater than 'It sux', 'meh', or 'It rox'.  Experience has shown us what we don't like, and discussion here has forced thought on what we DO like, and why.

Most of us have spent a good bit of time actually subscribed to online games.  Unlike the Vault, our problem with MMO's is generally NOT the monthly fee.  We understand the concept of disposable income, and methods of obtaining such other than begging from mom and/or dad.

We don't need a game that doesn't cost anything to play, we're looking for a game that's worth paying for...  and do what we can, in a beta, to achieve those ends.

Frankly, were I a game developer, I'd love to know of several 'beta communities' like us to have hit my game.  Ideally there'd be a decent amount of spread between the 'ideal game' of one community and the next, to help weigh comments.  The collective experience of a large group of experienced online gamers is bound to be much more helpful than an equivilent sized group of people with an average of 'little' experience.

While at some point a group of 'new users', unexperienced players, is useful, their comments on much past 'the newbie experience' should be looked upon dubiously, at best.  When designing a new gun, a gunsmith doesn't pull a random person off the street and say 'here, try this out, tell me what you think'.  He goes to military, law enforcement, and hobbiest experts, and finds out what THEY think.  The same is true of any industry small enough to have hobbiests.  Contrary to investor desire, MMOs are never going to extend beyond the hobbiest level.  The general public gets together to eat, to go to movies, to watch TV, but not to play persistant games.

--
Alkiera

Please don't take offense or misunderstand me, alkiera: I consider myself a part of the "beta community" as it is.  My remark was general reflection on what easy targets we make ourselves.  I'm surprised how so many names I recall "back in the day" suddenly show up for the EQ2 beta and in the back of my mind I'm thinking "a lot of you fuckers want to demo this game, not beta test it" when I myself feel that beta testing a MMO should be a taxing affair that would cause many to in fact never want to play the game come release, since they are so exhausted by the experience of bug-finding and retesting and retesting ad nauseam.

Erm...basically, I want them to suffer.  I'm a sadist...

And if I were a developer, I'd be reading the websites/blogs/forums of communities who can express themselves in a sensible fashion more than my own forums filled w/ worshippers who think I can do no wrong.

Well, maybe everynow and then when I need an esteem boost.

And that is where the common NDA system bites devs on the butt.  If there's an NDA, then the only place players can comment and discuss is the company 'beta forums', which is, really, just a pre-birth Whineplay, in most cases.  Allowing beta players to talk about WoW anywhere lets them see what their players REALLY think when discussing the game with people they know.

--
Alkiera

To be fair, playing an MMOG, even in release, is very much like suffering.

Haemish,

I think that point comes, and the quicker it arrives the worse the design plays from my perspective.  I still enjoy COH... something I did not think would happen.

Alkiera,

Like the comments, but I want to stab your avatar with sharp objects.

quick question-

is the voiceover stuff in the beta?  i mean is this like an *8 GIG* download?  that may make a few people less interested.  or does this let us get beta CD's?

thanks-

Yes, it's a full 5 gig download. All the voices are in (that have been made) and every thursday there's a new voiceover pack with the patch. So about 600 megs of changes a week.

(http://img78.exs.cx/img78/6705/SUSPENSE.jpg)

I clocked 6 GB's, but I'm crazy like that.

<does a semiquick post count poll and wonders, giving everyone suspicious looks>

Only just?  I did it last night.. I was #30 by postcount in this post, but there's only 28 spots. D'oh.

If it's first come first serve, I'm doomed.

Don't worry Merusk, I declined.

Oh man, that was kinda depressing. I post a lot imo. *scurries off to get some work done*

Then you probably made it. I post more than I thought I did. I give myself a 50/50 chance to make it in.

Wow... only schild posts more than me.

I come to this site alot but try desperately to avoid certain posts (IE most of the political ones lately). That and I have a bad case of internet assholiesh which I struggle to keep in check. (See my remarks to Schild about SOE). Sadly it's mostly meant to be joking but over the net it doesn't come across that way.

And most of those are in private messages. If you'll notice, the private message cap is set at 700 messages. That's because I keep adding a couple hundred when I max it out.

Scary.

I didn't realize this counted PM's.

I am still a /sadf.

I know, I discounted the folks who said 'not interested'.  Either way I'd still be 1 slot behind. I am sadf since it's far past noon, and I imagine schild has done his issuances.  PM time I s'pose.

I think this is the first time I have even really bothered to look at my post count. Wonder how much money I have been paid by my work to post here... hummm.. food for thought.

I hope I get an invite, but I wont be "OMG crush my soul" if I dont get in.

I would hate to think that all my wasted time here was for naught! =P

Actually, I am just glad to have somewhere to post and hang out while I wait  for users to contact me. Backwater help desk jobs can have their benefits I guess.

If I had to guess, I've written between 600 and 700 private messages. Thankfully only about 10-20 have been what one would call 'disciplinary.' Haemish has me soundly beat since he responds to every thread just about twice. 2pm EST is the Haemish show when I pull up f13, his name covers "last post" for unread threads on the right.

It's like primetime television, but better.

Guess I better get more obsessive and start posting more

That's my feeling as well.

Heh, I got the form faxed in to SOE. I'm still at work. I'm not playing the Excel Spreadsheet game here. SOE is only handing them out once per week anyway. The promotion started this week, so the first people probably won't here from them til monday.

I now understand why you went with Mr. Ripley for your name in COH. Evil Schild. Keeping hope alive for us.

I went with Mr. Ripley because Ripley's Game had just come out. But your bit works too.

Did you ever get them to add Talented as a title?

The dev who I'd been in contact with may or may not have gotten back to me after I quit the game. I may come back to CoH one day. But not right now, too many other (seemingly more interesting) games on the horizon to play the online beat-em-up.

Wish I'd been there for the Christopher Reeves memorial. Seems like the only proper way to honor the guy. Other than preempting Smallville tonight with Superman 2 or something (which I hope they didn't do...).

I didn't hear about the memorial, what did they do? As for preempting Smallville I wouldn't mind. I may have to go buy Superman 2. Something about him being gone made me want to buy it.

Speaking of Superman II, I had a weird moment on Monday when I heard Christopher Reeves had died. Was returning some merchandise to Best Buy and they were playing Superman II on the TVs, which made me wonder how he was doing. The news on Monday wasn't quite what I'd been thinking of and gave me a bit of a creepy shiver.

That may be why they played it. All I know is that usually when Actors die I'm kinda like "That sucks, no more movies from them" but I was legitimately sad when he died. I truly thought he'd walk again.

Sorry, I'll try to do a better job!

Bruce

On virtue many wore a red cape as tribute.

I need the following people to send me (ONE) PM with thier name (first and last), SOE station name (your login for sonyonline.com), and email address (tied to the station name, and working):

Merusk
Big Gulp
MrHat
Rasix
Shockeye
Trippy

Next week I'll put up another handful. These are the people I already don't know the information for. If you don't already have a SonyOnline.com account, just go here (linkie (https://www.station.sony.com/secure/en/registration/registration.jsp?returnURL=http://www.sonyonline.com/index.jsp?null)).

Edit: BBCode is hard. And added someone to the list who I left off. Counting is hard.

Thanks for your interest.

Grats folks.

--
Alkiera

You do realize this isn't really a contest and I'm not punishing people by not letting them in. I'm just picking in order who I think contributes enough to get an account. There's still a boatload more to give away. Unfortunately Sony only wants to do 10 a week. I didn't think they were understaffed. Maybe/obviously wrong.

Who were the other 4 people?  Just curious. :)

Bruce

Still waiting on Shockeye and the Gulp. First person to PM me gets in today's mailing. Second person gets in the Monday mailing.

The other people for next weeks group will be announced Monday.

And the Gulp wins. Shockeye, get me your information so you can be in the Monday Group.

I'd like to thank my agent, my partner Troy, and especially the academy.

If it counts PM's, then I am definitely teh win. The scary part is I actually have my visits here timed, based on how busy I am at work. I try to hold off my first visit til about 10 am, because that usually gives me an hour to 90 minutes of entertainment. Then either before or after lunch (which is your 2 pm, schild). I've just had lunch and had about 40 minutes of either CoH or EQ2 lately, so I'm hopped up on either optimism or total despair at the MMOG market. Then I read a politics thread and the snapping sound is heard.

If work wasn't so dead and boring, I'm sure I'd never have the post count numbers I do.

If you cancel the Haemish show, I will be super pissed. First Veritas, then Miracles, then Wonderfalls and now this? No, just no. Stay at your boring job.

I'm going to have to second that.

After what happened to Undeclared, I don't know if I could handle the cancelling of the Haemish Variety Hour.

I need more of you EST types to work OT and post until 8pm your time...this place is a ghost town after about 3:00 Pacific.

Oh, and count me out, I suddenly got something else to do.

That is, if I was ever considered.

Hum.

This awoke me from my lurking slumber. Cool contest.

It's not meant as bait. But we will be doing more stuff like this in the future. With both online games and single player games and hopefully console games. Once again - I'm too lazy to get on mailing lists. Sigh. Anyway yea, in the future these contests will either be more interesting or in the least go to supportive people that are in good standing that haven't won a contest before. I may not invoke the last part of that rule for the next "contest" because well, EQ2 is big. That and I didn't warn the winners beforehand. My mistake.

Oh, and for all the people who have sent me a PM who didn't get one back. Yea, there's about freaking 20 of you. Don't pander for accounts. That's lame. The list of people who get them is already picked out. 2/3 of them don't know. Well, 19, since Shockeye is lazy. Anyway, yea, don't do that, begging gets you nothing.

Edit: added more to the first paragraph.

I only pandered because you said to on page 4:

And you don't know if you got picked yet. In other words. Don't send me PMs until you know. Sigh, and here I thought we were a step above VN in reading comprehension.

I'm not mad at people for sending me PMs. I just thought that there was perhaps, a memo I missed along the way.

Howdy ya'll. The people who uhm, "won" zee contest should have gotten their invites. Enjoy, everyone!

Roger, thanks.

You guys who got the PM should check your emails.

Schild, how often do you run into problems with not being able to log into the Station?  I keep getting the "technical difficulties" message, and in the client it keeps giving me a timeout message.  This happen to you at all?

Just started happening tonight.

Damnit.  Considering the size of this bitch I'd like to just get the DL going and leave it on overnight.

Schild. I think people (like me) read your post on page four that read "if you don't get picked and REALLY want in, just send me a PM."

So, if you are getting a TONNE of PMs, this may explain it. Sorry for the spam.

Cheers,
Grind

My point was, how do you know you weren't picked?

The above message is not meant to inform you of if you were picked or not, Sorry if I caused yet more confusion.

I'm fashionably late.

Can I put in a preemptive post for MxO?

You don't want what you're asking for.

Nifty.  I wasn't especially interested in EQ2 but I look forward to what you dig up in the future.

This



and this



...now has me officially confused. And since postcount apparently matters, I can't just sit here and keep my confusion private.

schild has 30 invites to give out but he can only give out 10 a week. Or more accurately only 10 people get account keys from SOE a week (he could've named all 30 at once I suppose). The top quote is in reference to the people who got invited (got account keys from SOE) this week. There are still 20 more people to invite but he hasn't said who those people are yet. That's the reference to the second quote. In other words, he wanted people to wait until after all 30 people were named and invited before sending him PMs if you really wanted to get in but didn't get picked.

I'm guessing you're asking if he sent PMs to everyone that is picked or if he just sent notification to those for this week?

I didn't actually send PM's to anyone. Too lazy. If there was a mass PM option in PhPBB I might have, but there ain't. So, I posted.

Schild.. is your Avatar from Call of Cthulu?  I seem to have a memory of that damn avatar and I dont think it is strictly from this site.

Naw, it's from some wonky t-shirt. I think I have all the pictures in my orkut profile.

Schild I'm interested in join y'all to shakedown the crafting & resource gathering.  Please keep me in mind during future rounds.

No pandering, no postcount++, just qualifying myself :-)

I am pretty sure postcount wasn't the highest priority requirement (not that it should have been in the first place). Just a heads up for those of you who feel the need to spam the boards to improve your chances.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't as well. However, I daresay that people with already decently high postcounts (100ish and up) are already the types who tend to post so accusing people of spamming is a bit juvenile for the most part. Unless you want everybody to be self conscious ("Omg will Schild think I'm posting only to inflate post counts so I can get into this beta which will probably be over in a month or so anyway?" ) when they post.

 Just let it lie.

At least we haven't seen any spam on the forum to the likes of VN where "ROFLNOOBLER" qualifies as postworthy.

Correct. It wasn't just postcount. If it had been, I would have just gone to the first 30 people on the list. Which would be dumb.

Just so everyone knows - don't think that the people who got the betas are role models. Coincedentally, they are the ones who have been around the longest, as such, I chose to give most of them the beta spots (yes, some went to n00blers). :) Point is, we appreciate all the support, and instead of doing this in private (of course I knew 30 people were interested), I chose to do it out in the open so that people could see we weren't just gamemongering whores and whatnot.

Anyway, If things go well there will be another pseudo-contest soon. We'll see. Oh and if anyone bitches for not getting in, consider yourself banned. I hate that kind of shit. The vaults where you need to be if you can't deal with the world being unfair.

Sounds good to me. I sort of figured that was how you did things (IE your explanation I snipped above).

Can you give us any hints as to what you have in mind for the pseudo contests? I'm just curious.

As for bitching, nah, I'll save that for other things like the presidential race maybe.

I hope not, if I wanted to read about politics I would go to a political forum.

I didn't mean in this thread/forum. To be honest I am avoiding posting in the politics threads because things are a bit heated and I'm afraid if I get involved I'll be sucked into the anger.

So the real question is how the hell do I find you people. Haemish knows my name from Shadowbane, if he remembers it.

Long time lurker here.  Can't wait until the NDA drops and read all your unrestricted opinions about EQ2.

er, did it just get lifted?

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_archive.vm?section=Headline&id=192

SUPER SEKRIT FORUM UNLEASHED ON MAN

EQ2 rocks, but it's not solo-friendly enough, the performance isn't great, and the quest system is extremely unwieldly do to the stuff already mentioned.  I much preferred WoW's quest interface and I hope EQ2 at least copies some of it.

Bruce

EQ2's quest system is the last thing worth complaining about. With this last patch the game runs as quickly on my machine as WoW does.

Pick your complaints better.

Fanboi.

Bruce

From what I've seen so far it's EQ done better, much better.  What that's worth is in how you view EQ.  Personally, it's been my favorite MMOG until I got ahold of CoH (which also isn't everybody's cup of tea).

If I had to pick one or the other I'd go with CoH, mainly just because I love the settings, the action based gameplay, yadda yadda.  However, I can also see having this as a backup for nights that I don't feel like wearing the tights.  My opinion probably isn't worth that much, considering that I've only played it for one day, but the EQ feeling is definitely present.  

My biggest gripes are with the character models.  From Luclin onward I really think EQ needs to find better people at doing the character art.  Surprisingly, though, the animation of those models is fantastic.  Combat feels similar, but much more hectic, and there are of course extra attacks and combos for the melees.  Really, though, that's a small change.  There's an almost UO-like method to crafting; you can harvest your own wood, mine your own metal, etc.  I've never really been big on the crafting, but this is much better than EQ was.

In a nutshell, though, it's EQ done better and with a facelift.  Caveat emptor.

I agree, and there is a lot else about the game that I find arcane and awkward. I can see the quest system from the point of "not everything should be handed to the player," but there has to be some compromise.

I can see a really rewarding quest being obscure in details, but when I'm sent to go collect snake skins, I shouldn't have to write down who I talked to on paper. Although they have fixed some of this, there's still tons more to sift through.

I have been playing since F&F, and I have been ultimately bored by the lack of fun I've been having. Of course, a great chunk of my playtime was spent prior to the exp change, where grinding was especially dull. The way things have been going lately, it's seems to be shaping up into a fine game. If they can fix some of the clumsiness, I'll most likely play at retail. As it stands, I just can't see myself enjoying it enough to pay.

The thing is there's so many quests that you don't always know what zone they were in, either.  And when you enter a new zone, there's no easy way to see what quests you currently have that are on a step that is in that zone at that moment.  So I as well have to resort to pen & paper to keep track of quests.  With WoW, I didn't have to do that.

Bruce

Just out of curiousity does EQ2 have zones or is it mostly seemless gameplay like WoW is?

EQ2 has zones.

Bruce

They load faster than EQ1 zones on my rig, though. (p4 2.4 w/ 512 RAM & Nvidia FX5700)  They seem to be much better optimized in this engine, and zoning seems to take just a little longer than it does in COH. I'm having a small problem with crashing randomly on zoning, however.

I'll give them props, this engine is FAR, FAR superior to the SWG engine that lagged the hell out of my machine and made everything  feel very slow-mo and unresponsive. I was really expecting it to be that bad in responsiveness, and I'm plesantly surprised to find it's not.

Hmmmm....I don't like the sound of that. I prefer seemless gaming when I can get, zoning tends to break my immersion. How large are the zones? Can you give me a rough feel at least?

"Loading...Please Wait."

*quit*

The city zones (you start in the city and don't leave for a while.) All seem to be about the size of Neriak Commons or East Freeport from EQ live.  I can't speak for the larger zones like commonlands, since they're 'teen' level zones and I'd die quickly if I tried to explore them.

Antonica is probably the size of the karanas put together, easily.

Which ones? Surely not the Commonlands or Antonica. (Something that Smedley tries alleviate peoples fear of here. (http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=216327&view=by_date_ascending&page=1))

See, now that is you not having the patience of steel that comes from playing, well, almost any PS2 game in existence.

It is always a pleasure to see how the developers have implemented the inevitable loading animation.

Err.. the Luclin and up zones. Sorry, I should have clarified.  Before I quit, I hadden't gone to Commonlands or Karanas in almost 2 years. No reason to.

I need the following:

First Name
Last Name
SOE Station Name and Email account tied to that

From the following people:
Evil Elvis
Liquidator
Toma Levine
Lanei
angry.bob
WayAbvPar
Hanzii
Shavnir
Soukyan

Yes, there are some n00bler low post count people on here. It was random. If you didn't get it - blame karma. There will be more next week. Yes, I know it's only 9 names - if you remember, Big Gulp beat Shockeye in the race for the PM.

Anyway, I'll get these out as soon as everyone private messages me the aforementioned information.

And this isn't a contest. I can't stress that enough. Don't spam the boards with congrats to the people that got accounts. Thanks.

Oh, and here's the shortcut for SOE Station registration (https://www.station.sony.com/secure/en/registration/registration.jsp?returnURL=http://www.sonyonline.com/index.jsp?null). Yes, that rhymed.

I'm stickying this because it seems a number of you just don't want to send PMs. HELLO, MCFLY, YOU WANTED THE ACCOUNT. Plz send it in, kthx.

Slackers!

If they don't PM you, can I get that account for my friend? :)

Bruce

Do you hire people to come up with this stuff? It's a riot.

(http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/images/bttfi8.jpg)

Sorry I was on 28.8 over the weekend.  Thanks for the invite btw.

A couple people still haven't responded. If you don't by the end of today I'm filling it in with real life friends. In other words - you're screwing other people on the site. YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THAT, DO YOU?

Jeezus! Come on guys. Send him a response. I was camping my fricking email all this week in the hopes I would get a chance to start testing by this weekend. *sigh*

Me too. :(

Well, if you want me to take a slacker's spot I'm game :) I have all the SOE garbage ready from Planetside.

Didn't see it posted but it looks like FilePlanet has a limited amount of EQ2 beta keys to give out to subscribers over the course of this weekend. It's on the FP front page.

Those keys for today went FAST. Holy cow. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I'll be sending out the keys for this site on monday. All you people that get to wait a weekend, thank the fart knockers who just got their info to me.

if I get in I can gurantee you won't have to wait all week to hear from me.

Gah.  Was hoping I'd get to at least download it and log in once before the new week :(

Thanks fartknockers! I guess I can go out and party this weekend... even though I had cancelled all plans in the hopes of checking out EQ2. God, I'm such a slut for these MMOGs.

I have dreams where Natalie Portman says that alot.

I got lucky and got one of the vault keys. (I feel dirty.) So you can drop me from the list begging for one here :)

Game's pretty good once you get a few levels.

Meh, I missed this, it's what I get for having my net down for a whole fortnight. If there's still a place open I'd be very surprised, but pleased to take it. I'm not above scabbing places people lost through slackness.

I tried for one of the vault keys but wasn't quick enough.  Still feel dirty for it though. Well, at least there is one more round here to go.

Aaaand the game's being released on the 8th of November. I bet anyone who subscribed to Fileplanet specifically for EQ2 must be pissed now.

I subscribed to Fileplanet specifically for the World of Warcraft Stress Test. :)   The EQ2 giveaway was total crap.  Why the hell couldn't they at least say when they were going to open it up?  Having subscribers check an EQ2 fan site for the time of a giveaway is insulting.  Whatever.  It's only $5.  They give away enough free MMORPG and other betas for it to be useful.

I didn't get an e-mail for the EQ2 key from this f13 contest tonight, so I guess it will be coming in the morning sometime.  I hope... not much time left to play. :P

The guy said they all went out. Check your spambox or whatever, f00.'

Nada yet.  Hopefully it's just the net being slow.

Nothing here either.  I don't have any spam protection set up so nothing gets lost - the email address I gave ya hardly gets anything.  <sniffle> I hope it comes through ok.

Edit:  As of 11:30pm PST I have received no e-mail.  Has anyone else?  Oh the humanity!

Did you all get your keys yet? (I sent out the information yesterday)

No email received yet.

Still nothing as of 9:00am PST.

Alright. Emailing sony. Sorry for the delay.

let me know, seems I got a second key.

Yep, looks like the Sony rep managed to completely email the first group again. Not sure how that happened. Dealing with it as we speak. Will update as the day progresses.

It's a different key though.  I have 2 unique keys.  Should I go ahead and give away the second one, or will it be taken away?

Email the extra keys to me, I'm sending them back to sony...maybe.

Edit: email is schild@f13.net

Keys going out now. Sorry for the wait.

Woohoo! Danke.

Key receieved.  Thanks schild. :)

Just got the email. Thanks again.

Got it!  Thank you.

Are there still 10 more accounts to give out?  Or did the releasedate change negate that?

Alkiera

Still 10 accounts.

The people should get emails on friday...once I ask for their info (tomorrow).

So did you end up with an extra 10 keys or did those keys have to be redistributed?

I'm hoping the former but expecting the latter...

Hopefull and waiting!

Names will be going up in about an hour. I need your information by 4pm tomorrow or it'll go to someone else. Thanks. I'm going to be putting 20 names up. First 10 in get it. Racing is FUN.

Edit: Make that about 2 hours.

I'm guessing schild got distracted by GuildWars.

Alkiera

I'm guessing he's just messing with the people who have been sitting there furiously clicking Refresh for the past three hours.

I am not your refresh monkey! Oh wait, yes I am.

Didn't he say in another thread he was still at work? Work probably takes priority.

Work takes priority. As does Guild Wars, Dead or Alive Ultimate, and Taito Drum Master. Booyakasha. Anyway, lemme get to work on the list. Incoming.

Aslan
kemmyn
Rodent
Nebu
El Gallo
Daeven
Gong
Disco Stu
Zetleft
Phred

- This was done by lottery. I figured one should to be fair to the n00bs. I mean I did give away ~20 accounts. If you didn't get one and REALLY want one, send me a PM. I'll scrounge up some uhmmm....corporate leverage.

man, accuse Schild of sucking Sony cock once and you miss the EQ2 beta.



(just kidding)

Sent you a PM schild.  Looking forward to a sneak peek.

Thanks for the invitation, I appreciate it.

See I'm teasingly snarky with Schild and you're nice to him. Making me look bad.

How is Taito Drum Master? That game looks really slick.

Haven't opened it yet. Still deciding on whether to return it or not due to lack of playing time. It does have the song Katamari on the Rocks on it though. Which is AWESOME.

Oh, everyone has til 4pm to get their information in. :)

Let me know what you think if you do get a chance to try it out. I bought Katamari Damacy to play and I don't even own a PS2. Bought it for a friend and I just pop by once every couple weeks and play it for several hours. Best $20 I've spent in a long time.

Katamari is superb. The new ps2 is fucking amazing. I will probably open Taiko sometime next week if/when I find time. DOAU is still one of the top 2 fighting games of all time for me with Soul Caliber 2 tied. It's a close race. But DOAU has swimsuits for the girls and like 15 outfits per person. It's pretty. And there are panties. Japan loves me.

Thanks schild, I'm gonna take back some of the things I've said about you.

Win people over with teh goodz!!!

I'm sending the EQ2 list in to SOE in about 75 minutes (from the time of this post). Four people have sent me their information. The information minister is not happy. If I don't get the other 6, I'm just sending in the four people or replacing latecomers at will.

I'd ask you not to pee on my contests, but I think this is just more of a reflection of our EQ2 forum opening to the public. Which is funneh.

Hey, I wanted in. Whatever ;) It's only going to be for a couple days, anyway. I'd rather not be excluded for something longer than a week because of this, which is why I haven't bugged you at all about it. It's just annoying to have actually wanted in and watch every week as people don't get back to you about it.

I still would like to get the chance to try it before I buy it.  If theres a spot that doesn't get filled in I would appreciate it.

Station name is Murg (don't know what else you need).

If you still have slots that the people you initially chose aren't filling in, I'll put myself forward as part of the group of people that are actually still paying attention, and would like a chance to try the game out before they put down fifty bucks for it.

I don't post much, but it's better than just throwing 6 accounts away, I figure.

Thanks, schild. You are a generous man.

Sorry, should have posted eairler but I pretty much ignore all threads over 3 pages in length. Anyway its probably not an issue now but I got my hands on a key so I don't need to be included in the contest. Sorry again.

thanks for the key schild!