Geez Downtown, keep your pants on.
It's called "hype management".
They've been building it up, gradually increasing the trickle of information, the screenshots, interviews, strat model, the planes, the pricing model. Now I hear the Alpha Testers have been at least partially released from their NDA. My guess is they'll slap together a spit FM, maybe something for them two planes pictured friday, and kick out a beta before the end of the month, if not the week. If you let those alpha testers go for more than a few days, they'll get ornery and start whinging about what the thing doesn't have.
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I love idle speculation. Without doubt, the deciding factor for the Beta release is going to be how much beer is consumed Tuesday night.
A. Less than a six-pack: out thursday/friday
B. 6-12: give it a week.
C. >12: maybe first week in october.
Other factors, such as the amount those guys post to the UBB, the movements of relatives and in-laws, the presence of suspicious-looking vehicles on the HTC lot (Hmm... black mercedes. Is someone trying to bribe the artists into doing certain A/C in "their" squad's colors? or is that just the orthodontist next door?) should be carefully studied. Consider putting on some dirty clothes, going down there and getting "the word on the street". Take a cue from the professional industrial spies, ask the dentist next door what those guys are doing, maybe the ratio of flight data/beer cases that pass through their door.
But in the end, I ask you: it'll be an early beta; stability is dubious, planeset limited, eye-candy questionable. They might not have a working bombsight; the strat model probably won't be there. All the FMs are most likely going to have interesting details that allow them to fly like "Close Encounters" extras. In two days, you're gonna be whining about the temporary connection to the server.
And yet you're checking in here every 30 minutes from work, to see if you can subject yourself to this torture?
At least you got company...
