Cyan Employee Bill Slease posted this message to the Uru Live forums;
Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving! I just wanted to quickly let you know where we are, where we’re going and how we’ll get there.
Right now, we’ve invited less than half of the number we’d hoped to invited by now. The problem isn’t that the servers can’t handle more (there were more players in beta than there are in the Prologue right now), but that there’s a bug causing spoilers when you play online. As soon as that bug is squashed, we’ll be back on track ramping up to one full shard. I’m not at liberty to say how many accounts equals a full shard, but I can say that there are enough of you waiting that not everyone will be invited while we have only one shard.
When one full shard is running well, we will start bringing other shards online. As those shards come online we will be evaluating our confidence in supporting the entire Uru Live demand. When we feel the systems and infrastructure to support the full demand are in place, stable and secure, we will have our grand opening. If you’re familiar with how other MMO’s have launched, this grand opening is more of what you’re used to in an MMO launch. Everyone with a boxed game will be able to play online after the opening. Subscription fees are planned to being one month after the grand opening.
Regarding the invitation process:
Katie has explained this elsewhere, but I’ll repeat it because I still see posts where people are confused. On the days that we invite people, we look at all the accounts that have been created. We pick out prior beta testers and invite them first, any remaining spots are filled on a first-come first serve basis. When we invited the first batch of explorers, there were more invitations going out than there were beta testers who’d created accounts. That’s how some non-betas got in earlier than some beta testers.
One of the main reasons we’re inviting beta’s early is that there experience in finding and reporting issues is invaluable to us at this crucial juncture.
Regarding “Don’t Worry, You’re Not Missing Anything”:
Obviously from the reports of people in the game this isn’t entirely true, there is something going on. There is a story unfolding, mainly with a handful of live actors. There are, however, no new Ages or areas that the betas have not seen planned to open (excepting some sneak previews to whet the appetite) until the public grand opening I talked about above. Also, the best picture of what Uru Live will be won’t be available until that grand opening. What we’re doing now is really about working with what we have available right now to entertain people while ensuring that Uru is ready to go at the grand opening. So yes, you’re missing something, but don’t worry, you’re not missing anything.
Questions I would have after reading the above, followed by the best answers I can give right now:
Q: When will the other shards come online?
A: After the first shard is full and running smoothly.Q: When will the first shard be full and running smoothly?
A: Before we bring other shards online.Q: Why didn’t you tell us all this before?
A: I have no excuse, sir.Q: Who are you?
A: I’m CyanBill, or simply Bill, the live content director at Cyan. During the creation of Uru I filled many roles but the longest and deepest was that of lead technical artist.Thanks for your patience during this unprecedented restoration project.
Bill Slease
Live Content Director
Cyan Worlds, Inc.