Today’s SOE announcement was the PlanetSide 2 Alpha Squad, a deal by which you could get into the PlanetSide 2 beta, get some Station Cash, and get a few special early adopter perks, including a “Founder” title, all for $39.95.
Join Alpha for Beta!
Good stuff, and I know some people will jump right on that.
But down in the FAQ section, we appear to get a reveal as to the expected launch date for PlanetSide 2.
Q. I’ve purchased the Alpha Squad Package. When do I get my items?
A. Your Beta access starts immediately, and you will receive 4000 Station Cash immediately! You will receive your in-game items upon the launch of PlanetSide 2, on or before December 31, 2012.
That seems like a pretty firm statement to me. We shall see if that comes to pass.
All I have to say is that at least it isn’t launching into the pre-holiday mess with all the other launches and expansions.
Addendum: Heh, I actually suspected as much based on what Smed has tweeted in the past, but I could not resist declaring a ship date:
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Actually, that sounds less like the planned launch date as saying that PS2 will launch sometime this year.
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@WN – Indeed, but working in software and having watched the industry, I have to ask, how often do things launch early? Not very often from what I have seen.
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Since the NDA is gone I can say that I’ve been in the beta since, I think, it started. I haven’t played much, not because I don’t want to or because I didn’t enjoy it the few times I did but because there just so damn much going on all the time right now.
I never played Planetside1 so I can’t compare it but I would definitely play PS2 if I didn’t have one million other MMOs on the go. The time I’ve had in it so far has been highly enjoyable, although I had no real clue what I was doing. (No change there, of course…)
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@Bhagpuss – Ever the problem I run into as I get older, too much to do, not enough time. I try to explain this to my daughter (who was pretty much allowed to play Minecraft all day for two days straight last weekend while the wife and I worked on the house), and she doesn’t get it. She wants to get older so she can have more free time. It just doesn’t work that way.
I played a bit of PlanetSide 1 when I had Station Access. I never had to buy the box for some reason, even back when you were supposed to. I couldn’t tell you if I was really, really bad at it, or if I was there during the high point of the hacks.
Could be both as easy as either one.
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I hope you are wrong about the date.
Having played a few hours of the beta, I can confirm that is most certainly is a BETA.
There are many things missing and bugs that need squashing before I can relax and have a good time with this one.
I also hope they aren’t finished adding vehicles to the game. As it stands they are missing at least 6 ground vehicles from the first game. =(
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