It’s been an amazing turn-out for our Beta Sign-Ups. We’ve been sharing access to the Beta through a few different routes, but through our website alone we’ve given out over 10,000 keys! We hope you’ll all be able to play on our first upcoming Beta weekend starting June 8th, but in case you can’t, we have even more opportunities to play the rest of June.
We also heard from many of you in Europe that the scheduled times were a bit too late for you--so while we can't make any changes to our first-weekend schedule we have added special EU times to later weekends. This applies to everyone of course, which translates to an additional four hours each day of the Beta starting June 22nd!
The Fractured Lands multiplayer servers will be initiated at certain dates and times, listed below (all times in Pacific Time):
First Beta Weekend*
Friday, June 8th 6:00PM-10:00PM
Saturday, June 9th 6:00PM-10:00PM
Special E3 Beta Hours*
Tuesday, June 12th 11:00AM-7:00PM
Wednesday, June 13th 9:00AM-7:00PM
Thursday, June 14th 9:00AM-6:00PM
Second Beta Weekend**
Friday, June 22nd 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Saturday, June 23rd 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Sunday, June 24th 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Third Beta Weekend**
Friday, June 29th 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Saturday, June 30th 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Sunday, July 1st 10:00AM-2:00PM 6:00PM-10:00PM
Likewise, lots of players have asked if they'd be able to stream their gameplay sessions during the Beta. We're thrilled you'd be interested enough to share your gameplay with your regular viewers! We do have a preference though that no streaming take place until the 6/22 Beta date. This is because we're testing our matchmaking on a larger pool of live players for the first time on that first weekend. We're not sure of the performance with that many people involved, so we want to be sure the game is optimal for that experience first before players judge the game.
A few players with current access to their own Beta key have asked why the install isn't producing a lot of data, and when run, the game shows an error screen. Currently, Fractured Lands will not run properly outside of the Beta Hours. We'll be updating the build and sending that update through your Steam Library a couple days in advance of the Beta Hours. Until then, running the app outside of Beta Hours might result in a crash of the app, or other error, but this is normal until the update goes live.
Thank you, everyone, for the feedback on our schedule, and we hope this makes playing our Beta a greater opportunity for many of you.
* (No Player Stream) / **(Stream Weekend)
Learning the Rules of the Game
Robert