they have what, 3 developers? is as they got out of alpha these weeks (no, they didn't. they do did another preview event before, that are in the videos you saw).

The developers are trying to take it easy to begin with, so they can make some money to stabilie their funds, and so they can do everything right, because rushing in a project always finishes in displeasure and uttelry chaos.

Also, if we see this way: less people = less players that are only here to play, and not to help, because they seen that is quite ahrd to wina gains others if there are no others, because the people are more concerned in helping while palying (at least, i do this way. i'm here to help with ideas and bug reports, and in adding content to the wiki after i got a good equip set to play around).

lastly, if you say that other closed betas that you played where more open to the public, and more popular, then you where playing a open beta by mistake, or where playing a closed beta in its last stages, ready to go to open beta...just by curiosity, tell me some of those closed betas that you palyed (i love beta testing).

You'd put the ball on a leash, but where would you attach the collar?

Spherical kennels are also hard to come by.

Get Nick to inject the tears of Derek Smart directly into his veins.

Hmm. I had no problem finding the forums and wiki -- they were in the signup emails I got. Maybe the emails have changed?

Yes, the front page could tell you a little more about the game. And, I wouldn't call this a "closed beta". Beta implies a lot more progress than this.

This game is past alpha (it no longer crashes; it runs on a variety of systems; it's stable), but no where near feature complete, nor balance complete. It is still getting lots of additions and tuning; the future direction of the game isn't really clear to the players yet from what has been released.

It's like: We've got the basic main gears, now we need the detailed little gears.

Or not.

thanks for the clarification, cory, but, still, it's not a pletora of people >_<.
about the closed beta: the game passes through these phases while in development:
-Alpha: when the game is known only by the people that are working in it and between some friends, to help them build the game for the public.
-Closed Beta: it's when the game is open to a minor part of the public, and most people don't know about it, because people don't talk about it. It is the time for these small number of people to make the history in the game, helping eith ideas and major bug reports, that can't be tested in such a small scale as 5 or 10 people, at max (Alpha).
-Open Beta: ahh, the part where most people misunderstand with the full game, because now the game is beggining to get its fame, and a more numerous number of players is coming to make part of the game. this section is most based in bug fixes found when a majority of players play the game at the same time, and also to begin to add some small contents, but more about tweeking previous content, and balancing the game, trying to make a stable economy inside and outside the game (for the people that are working on it).
-Full release: the game is there, almost every bug was wipped, and future bugs will probably occur because of new contents added in the future. The game is totally playable for long periods of time, with lots of things to do, and with a quite balanced gameplay. It's the time when the developers give a pat on their backs and say good job, for getting this far.

Now, to clarify: open beta is also a proof of resistence, when the developers see if the game will be well accepted or a complete failure, and is exactly at this time that the game decides to close it doors, or to continue and see if it will get worse or better, depending on the issues.

Now, to answer you, Lost: i don't know why, but i had a hunch that you would say about Earth Eternal...mostly because, seeing what you wrote, i was tottally sure that you was talking about an OPEN BETA GAME! EE was at open beta at the time of that fatal accident... thus, it is because of the fact that they where at open beta that the game had more advertising: because they wanted more people to test features. If you were talking about the game being closed, so surelly you played it till the end.
Also, most of the guilt for they being closed goes to the developers theyselves, as they made an horrible mistake: they let people gain points to buy things before the near end of the beta. They surelly didn't had a stable economy to do that, and also, after they put the exange system, then everything fallen to the end. See, they tryed to please the players, but the players wanted too muc, and they were too concerned about the players that they forgot to see the budget. At the time, they were paying for us to play the game, for about 6 months! What i mean is, they were using theyr money, instead of the money gotten through the cash sold, because they were really concerned with the player. They had the hope that the server would be bought by a game company that would make the game continue forward...but this same game company simply said no, bought the server, and deleted the game...

Talked too much, but, resuming: it was open beta, not closed beta, at the time when they closed, and probably you just played it at pen tilll the end, like i did. Don't know if you knew me, but i was Cianpnir Narbridge, and also had a character named Cianpnir Hrodvitnisson, if this ring familiar in your ears.

open for the comunitty to coment, without they being able to play would fill up at least an entire server with topics like: "I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME, PL0X!1!"....and the developers would need to basically ignore all the topics in such public thread, thus making it worthless. I like it as it is now, closed this way. Let's just wait till the developers fell confortable with they work, so they can begin to spread the word.