Limited Mythos Access - 04/22/08
If you are a member of Mythos' Closed Beta Test, we hope you're enjoying the early taste of our free-to-play MMORPG. And we'd like to reassure you that the closed Mythos Beta continues apace.
In fact, things are going so well we'll soon release Mythos to a much larger audience -- we'll open our doors and our test. However, before we can truly call our Beta open for business, a few things absolutely must happen. The top of all our lists say the same thing: "Who gets to play?"
Please understand that the Mythos Closed Beta Test was designed for English speaking audiences (North Americans, really). When we do open our Beta, we simply cannot have certain countries playing a semi-functional Mythos designed for territories that are not their own. These people won't be getting the ideal localized experience we intend. Furthermore, we do still need to establish distribution deals with third-parties in foreign lands to ensure Mythos gets published and supported in the absolute best way possible.
Because of this, this week the Mythos Beta Test will no longer be made available to the following countries:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Cambodia, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mongolia, Macao, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
We sincerely apologize to you if you currently reside in one of the above listed countries and can no longer play Mythos. We hope you understand that this is very much a test and has always been a test.
Thank you for your patience. If you feel the need to vent, please send an email our way. Your plight won't fall on deaf ears.
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Country Banning Newsletter
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And now, a PSA from our Executive Producer Max Schaefer!
Greetings!
There are a lot of misconceptions about our limited access. Unfortunately, the newsletter got sent out with some slightly incorrect information, for which I take the blame, as I was supposed to proof it.
The way Mythos is being released is that Flagship Studios, the developer, is self-publishing the game in the non-Asian territories. The publisher for the Asian territories is Hanbitsoft. Our commercial release and beta test dates are not simultaneous. In the Asian territories, a good deal of the popular success of games depends on how well they do in their Open Beta Tests. The Open Beta Tests are much more organized and in some ways more important than they are here. For this reason, they do not want all their beta testers to have already played in the United States beta test months in advance of their internal testing. We agree with this preference, and also believe that Asian gamers testing in their native language will help make those localized versions tighter and better.
We are not limiting people because they don't speak English. We are still serving many non-English speaking European gamers, for example. We have enjoyed having gamers from all over the world lending their advice and support to our testing up to this point, and we are convinced our game is better because of the international participation in testing. But as we approach our commercial release, we have to start separating the players into the different regions where they will have their servers permanently based. There's really not much more to it than that.
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Max Schaefer
Executive Producer, Mythos
Flagship Studios