[DE translation]
[RU translation]
[url= http://www.wolcen-france.com/planning-beta/][FR translation][/url]

Hello everyone!

We’re approaching the end of September, and it’s time to give you an update about the Beta transition.

These last 6 months, our teams have been working really hard to provide you with a brand new game:

• All the architecture of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has been remade from scratch.
• Environments, characters, items, creatures, animations, FX, design and art direction are all new and shiny.
• We now have an enhanced code, which means fixing and optimizing will be easier for us, and hotfixes will come faster for you!

It also means that a lot of our old assets are outdated and don’t fit the actual architecture, so there is still work to do to have some features that were present during the Alpha phase.

We plan to deploy the Beta in several patches over time, starting with stress tests that we need, in order to check our servers’ stability and spot the most important issues related to Multiplayer implementation.

We did our best to achieve everything we promised you and release it for September, but the truth is: it’s not all done yet, and we need a little more time to make a clean and polished Beta release for everyone. For that, we’re once again calling for your help.

We came up with a plan to allow you to test the work we’ve already made in a controlled environment at first to ensure a satisfying release for everyone, matching our quality goals, and make you proud of supporting us.

So, how can you help? Simple! You just have to participate with your friends, and break everything 😊

Experimental Beta

The experimental part of the Beta will be in 2 technical phases of one week each. Between these phases, the servers will be closed to focus on bug fixing, then we'll re-open them for the next phase.

Note that you will still be able to play the Alpha during all the testing phases and in-between until the Beta is released for everyone.

Phase 1 starts on October 11 and will last untill October 17, and you will be able to play the Beta if you follow these steps:

1. Open Steam and go to your game library.
2. Right click on Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, and select "Properties"
3. Navigate to the "Beta" tab and select "experimental" from the combo box.
4. Close the properties window.
5. Play!

Once the experimental Beta is installed, you will be able to test the version, break it, stress it, and provide us with your crash files and bug reports on this dedicated forum.

Also, the Trello bug board is now purged and all known issues will be added on it too.

Although we will provide you with the list of available features once we approach the planned phases, we can already tell you now that you will be able to experiment Multiplayer with your friends during this Technical Beta!
The offline mode, however, will be deactivated on the technical Beta, so you won't be able to play Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem's Beta, without an internet access for the moment.

Phase 1 content

For this phase, you will be experiencing the new dungeon generation system and a few skills/weapons in solo and multiplayer. For that first test, we’re mostly interested in making a stress test for our servers to see how it interacts with our code in real conditions of use, and how the new dungeon generation system is fitting in this environment.

You will be able to discover a few revamped skills, a new character model, new animations and FX so you can have a glimpse of the gameplay we’ve worked on for you. The balancing will not be final for this version.

Phase 2 content

We will make several additions for this phases so you can continue testing the new Gameplay in a controlled environment, but we will tell you more about the phase 2 content as we approach the date of its release.

Beta release for everyone

We want to make sure that we can provide you with the best experience possible for Wolcen. We hope these tests will be enough for us to spot the most important issues, fix them to release the Beta for everyone, and finally shut down the Alpha quickly after Phase 2.

Of course, we will keep you updated on our progress, and tell you as soon as possible if we consider that additional time is required for testing. Although we're a much bigger team now, we're still smaller than ideal, and we hope that you can help us with these tests. Depending on your feedback and how many critical issues we have in the Beta, the final release date might be postponed. Like you, we strongly hope that it will not be needed, but we can’t shut this possibility if we want to be realistic and honest.

Beta future updates

We don’t plan to leave you without any updates once the Beta is out.

We will tell you more about the future Beta patches later, but some features will not be in the primary Beta launch and will be added through time, so we can polish them and give you something new to test while we continue working on the other Acts of the game for the Final Release.

We're all eager to have your feedback about the new content you will be experiencing, we've put a lot of heart into it and we're confident that you will appreciate it a lot.

As always, thank you for your support, for your patience, and see you very soon for more news on the first Beta phase!

Useful links : Wolcen's Global Roadmap: 2018 Edition Wolcen's Beta Roadmap Wolcen's Bug tracker Wolcen's Community Suggestions Wolcen's Official Website Wolcen's Official Facebook Page Wolcen's Twitter page Wolcen's Instagram Page Wolcen's Official Discord server Wolcen's FAQ Help us fix crashes here Community websites: German Fan Site : wolcen-game.de French Fan Site : Wolcen France