Confusion has led to EVE Online fans being upset over preferential treatment of PSN users getting into the beta. FanFest attendees given keys ”first people in the door.”
CCP has said those currently playing DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 are in fact Sony veteran testers and not members of the general public. Loyalty will be rewarded, pledge CCP.
”Eve players who we gave keys to at FanFest, they’ll be the first people in the door,” said lead designer Kristoffer Touborg. ”We do have some PSN users in now. We had some Eve players ask, well, why are they getting first dibs on it?”
”They’re not people we’ve preferred because they’re some marketing partner or something. The people we have in the game now are essentially volunteer testers. They’re basically the first people PlayStation throws at a new product.”
”We have our own group called Bug Hunters, which is 100 or so volunteers who do a lot of our groundwork on new stuff. This is basically PlayStation’s equivalent of that. So the people we have in now aren’t necessarily there because we wanted to give them a beta key first.”
”These are the people PlayStation throws at new things to test before everyone else does,” he explained.
”It’s not a beta as much as, this is the first public thing and we sent the people who always break things at it first.”
The studio intends to invite more people into the DUST 514 beta, which includes those given keys at the FanFest, shortly. An open beta is expected sometime during the middle of the year with this year’s E3 expected to showcase a lot more of the MMO. ”Since before Christmas we’ve been able to play it on PSN,” revealed Jon Lander, senior producer.
There’s still no word on an official release date, or even a window. ”E3 will be a big moment for us, so we’ll show stuff there. When it’s at the right place for people to see it, at that stage, we’ll release it.”
”One of the things we learnt last year was, don’t just ship something because you said you were going to ship on this day. Ship something that’s worth shipping and let people then play it and get the real experience. But it’s looking good. It’s looking on pretty good form.”