Shut up. We're beta testing
In the most recent episode of Shut Up We're Talking, the hosts Darren and Karen talk with a few guests on the very same topic that every single other gaming website and podcast are discussing for the past few weeks: Age of Conan. The distinction here though, is that the members of this roundtable podcast are discussing their impressions of the game so far from the perspectives of open beta users vs. closed beta users. This is something that is very important to those players who may have had a bad experience with either of the betas, or the pre-order early access fiasco.
John, from The Ancient Gaming Noob, also brings up some great points from the perspective of someone who has worked in a related field, regarding the fact that AoC's beta seemed like one big marketing tool. He cites the example of this being done in Tabula Rasa's beta as well, where the information collected from the beta was seemingly ignored for the official launch of the game.
The AoC discussion is in the first half of episode 26, and is certainly worth a listen, especially if you're someone who was completely turned off to the game after your experiences with the beta.
