Betas gone on for too long

Tanitha: Just a "players" reply to some of the above comments.
The beta has gone on for too long.
Not really, Its pretty common for beta's to go on for 18 months or more.
Closed phase 1, closed phase 2,3,4, open, etc.. But the structure is different for each game.
A lot of players dont usually find games until the game hits open beta, and they don't realize it had already been in closed beta for so long before they found it.
I think I played/tested wow for almost 6-9 months before "open beta". But it was a while ago now, so its hard to remember exactly.
Yes in most games a lot of players have had enough for free during the beta, that they no longer pay to play after release. This is more common in pay to play games though, with a free to play there is no real reason to not play after release. With pay to plays, after 18 months of beta you are then asked to pay $50 and $12 a month to continue playing. Its extra incentive not to continue on release.
After 18 months of beta testing "wow", by the time the release came id lost a lot of interest, but I still played release for about 4 months.
Lotro, after beta I played for about a year but only because there wasn't much around at the time.
DDO, Ryzom, Age of Conan, Playing beta was enough and I was gone on release.
But then again, some games like UO "Ultima Online" lasted me 7 years.
Beta's are what they are, and I assume they work well, because its the way everyone does things, and new games continue to do things this way.
The beta's are good for many things, finding bugs, getting knowledge of the game out there.
But a lot of more obscure things like funding. Most game manufacturers need a lot of funding to pump out a finished game.
How much can they borrow is depending on how much they can expect to be able to repay.
1 million beta testers, who are potential customers, is a asset that can be borrowed against, in the form of potential earnings.
There is many reasons for beta tests, not just the obvious ones.
But anyway after 4000 wot games, Ive been in a no grinding stage for a while now, At the moment, I'm only playing 10-30 games a day and trying to stay fresh for release and clan wars.
Just wipe and release now.
At the moment the way the game is now, I don't think there is any reason to pay to play.
At the moment, the highest earning tanks are around T5. The exp and credits you earn is dependent on your tanks tier, compared to the tanks you are killing. It doesnt really matter if you are a T5 playing against T8's, or a T8 playing against T10's. At the moment there is no real need to pump in $$'s to level quicker and have bigger tanks, as having a bigger tank has no advantage, if anything you earn less after going into one.
IMO, the only need to have bigger tanks, is for clan wars. For clan wars, it will make a difference if you are in a T5, or a T10. With clan-wars there is a need to be a paying premium member to get the bigger tanks quicker, and to use those in clan wars to gain land and the advantages of owning that land.
At a guess, having clan wars in the game would double or triple the amount of paying players, % wise.
But Russia is released, release here too.
As above, I doubt the game has a high enough amount of paying players % wise.
So id guess, releasing to one country, provides some initial cash, to keep them going through to a full release.
But it would be much more profitable to release to the world, with a finished product, that includes clan wars.
I wont be paying to play on release, because of x, y & z.
Free to play games, usually work on a 10%/90% system.
10% of the players pay 90% of the income earned.
IE 1 mil players, 100k of them would provide 90% of the income the game earns.
The other 900k are free to play casual players, and play the game within the free to play limits.
So you wont pay on release? its a shame, but 90% of players in any FTP games usually don't pay.
They are losing their paying customers with the beta.
Atm there is about 800k Russian players, and 250k players around the world.
Out of that 250k world players, less than 1/2 are American. But say 125k USA, and 125k europe.
If they can get 800k Russian players, with a unfinished game with no clan wars.
Id guess they can get 1 mil easy from USA with a finish game, with clan wars.
Similarly a mil with Europe too.
So out of the 2+ mil players on release. only 250k are currently in beta at the moment.
Some of those 250k are old timers who are getting a bit bored, some a reasonably new.
At the moment by looking at the forum numbers, The world servers are currently going up about 12.5k users a week. (25k last 2 weeks)
The Russian server is going up about 53k a week. (106k last 2 weeks)
All in all, the 250k "world" users they have here at the moment, Should be a drop in the ocean compared to the players they should end up with.
Of course WOT needs to keep their existing players, and keep them happy, just saying that id guess most of their paying members on release, haven't even seen wot at all yet.
All in all
I think the next step is server upgrades, and server splits into USA / Europe.
The swapping to open beta, with Increased PR, to bring in the player base and big numbers of players.
The introduction of clan wars, and a thus a reason for premium and people to pay to play.
Then a release with clan wars.
10%+ of the players pay, But the more the better.
Successful game.