Just over 1,000 spots remain available for gamers who'd like to participate in the end of Beta One celebrations. "The active testers in this phase of Beta will automatically be included in all future rounds of testing," said Marc Laukien, President of Mutable Realms. "Still building up to our goal of 5,000 simultaneous users this month and with all the event activities, it's the perfect time to apply."
The first round of Beta was originally scheduled to run until the end of February, but is now planned to close at the end of January with a final load test of 5,000 simultaneous users during the Story Arc. Thereafter, the Wish team will refocus on development, taking into consideration the highly valuable feedback provided by the first round of testers.
Wish defines a new category of online game, the "Ultra Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" (UMMORPG). Unlike existing MMORPGs that confine players to a server with only a few thousand other players, Wish's highly-scalable server cluster infrastructure allows the game to support tens of thousands of simultaneous players in a single shared world.
Wish is planned for release in Q4 2004. More information about Wish can be found at http://www.mutablerealms.com and a Beta signup form is located at http://www.themis-group.com/wish/beta_app.phtml.