by Stacy Jones on Aug 04, 2011
Red 5 boss Mark Kern lifted more than a few eyebrows this month when he stated that Firefall would release in December, but the good news just keeps on coming for fans. Speaking with The Escapist, Kern admits to being surprised that his confirmation of a December launch generated so much buzz around gaming communities, but Kern upped the ante a bit by confirmed that Firefall will be expanding its beta to include public testers in a unique once the team returns from PAX Prime later this month.
Firefall is already in a "Friend and Family" beta phase, but the game won't be having a traditional closed beta/open beta phase. The team will be bringing content up in layers for testing and as that content proves itself, more testers will be added. But the method in which the testers will be added may be a little different than you're used to. As more testers are needed, current testers will be given invite keys to send out to friends and fellow gamers.
The way this works is that we bring testers and content up in layers. As each layer proves itself out, we give our testers invite slots, which they are free to send to their fellow gamers. We use different criteria to decide when and to whom we release more invite slots. This process never stops, as it didnt stop for G-mail for a very long time. Its a great way to grow the game through peoples social networks, which is what we want for our team and clan oriented game.
For more details, be sure to check out the full interview at The Escapist and Mark Kern's letter to the Firefall community.
Sources:
The Escapist
Firefall website