Open Beta is LAUNCH for a F2P MMO

wordiz

My thread title is true 9.9 out of 10 times.

I can't begin to describe how mind-boggling it is to see people talking about Open Beta like it's a new concept, or treating it like it's an actual beta. The practice of Open Beta is years old at this point and has been used in many F2P titles, especially by Asian developers like Perfect World, Aeria Games and many others... 

I understand this is a growing community and we have new people coming in all the time. (It'd be a bad sign if people weren't)

SO, here is my attempt to get some education out there about the subject.

People defending NW for it's problems by using the fact that it's "Open Beta" though every Perfect World game has an Open Beta and always gives access to the item mall and doesn't wipe character progress. They are far from the only company that does this. For a F2P game, this is a launch. Open Beta is nothing more than a promotion to get people excited and playing ASAP, and at the same time, and excuse for developers that are knowingly releasing an unfinished product.

I don't know if it's to get some extra needed funds to wrap up development or due to project deadlines or if they're rushing them out to beat competitors. The reasoning doesn't matter.

These are facts. And no, this post's purpose wasn't to target NW or anything, that was just one example. 

When I keep hearing people ask, "Will there be a wipe in Open Beta?" for F2P games, especially ones produced by Asian developers, it's obvious to me that someone needed to put this out there. I'm sure some are just double checking to be sure, but for others it's not the case.

Lets get past this hump and get wise to the industry practices already.