The Asheron's Call Beta and earlier development's status in canon is disputable. This article will attempt to resolve this issue.
Overview
Asheron's Call was in development for 4 years.[1] The beta testing lasted 8 months.[2]
Beta was split in to three phases. Beta 0 was private and by invitation only. It was confidential, and covered by an NDA.[3] Because of this, we know very little of what occurred during this phase.
Beta 1 was public, with sign-up available online. According to the Turbine beta site archive, it was planned to start in May 1999[4] During this phase, there was a character wipe on June 2nd, 1999.
Beta 2 was from August 3rd 1999 to October 25th 1999. Starting on on October 18th, it was open to all, with an installer freely available for download.
Early Development
According to the Beta 0 Introduction letter, all the features were done when Beta 0 became available.[3] This lines up with Gamasutra's Postmortem: Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call, an interview with Toby Ragaini, which stated that during beta the game placed in a code freeze, with only major bugs being fixed.[5] With this information, we have to assume that most content that was available at release was created prior to the beta 1 and 2, and possibly prior to beta 0.
Call to Arms
Wardiel's Campaign
Fire in the Sky
Analysis
Conclusion
References
- ↑ 1999/11 Asheron's Call Beta - Letter to the Players
- ↑ Postmortem: Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call Page 4: "Project length: 40 months plus 8 months of beta"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Asheron's Call Beta - Beta 0 Introduction Letter
- ↑ Zogblaster Archive - FAQ
- ↑ Postmortem: Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call Page 3: "Unfortunately, we were placed in a code freeze situation during the beta test, and only the most serious bugs were fixed. "