Stop attacking each other. People are upset and frustrated, which is understandable and acceptable. People want to vent their feelings, which is also understandable and acceptable as long as they don't violate the Terms of Use. What is not acceptable is attacking other players on the forums.
Why not open the server anyway? Several reasons. The first being that we'll get a flood of bug reports on things we already know are bugged. While we'll get that anyway when the external playtest server opens, it won't be quite as much as if we were to open the gates now.
The second being we only have one shot at a first impression of CR2.0. It still won't be as polished as we'd like it to be when we open the external playtest server in January, but we need to get it out anyway. We sat down a few weeks ago and identified every issue that had to be fixed before playtesting and worked to resolve those issues. There are a few left, so we won't open it.
How did we define those items? Let me spin you a scenario: We open the playtest server and the community gets to see CR2.0 in a slightly broken form. At that point, a number of players say, "This sucks" and never log on to the playtest server again. Or worse, decide that this is all they can expect from this major change in the game and leave MxO completely.
Will some players already be frustrated enough with the delay now to leave? Probably, but we hope not. Do we think a bad initial impression of what combat is going to be will cause even more damage? Absolutely.
There is no one more upset by this delay than the team: When you've been pounding your head on an issue and cranking out as much code as they have, you become invested in the outcome. The team wants the community to see it, but we came to the agreement that you shouldn't see it as it is. The feedback would be too focused on things we already know we need to fix and the initial impression wouldn't be close to what we want.
With that, I return you to your regularly scheduled thred. No flaming, please.
