Wow, Gameforge pulled a fast surprise on everyone by opening the website AND announcing that the open beta would start today at 6PM CET (that translates to 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern).
https://soulworker.gameforge.com/ to download the launcher (there is also be a Steam version). Install weighs in at 5.7GB. Registering during the OBT periods gets the following rewards at release:
Note: Gameforge has confirmed that the Steam client is not linked to the Gameforge account. Thus Steam Wallet is only available for the Steam client (and any Gameforge credits will only be available on that client). The Steam version of the open beta will only be downloadable beginning at 6PM CET (the standalone Gameforge launcher can be installed beforehand).
Additional Open Beta Test information
Update: NA server Tenebris was up and running but went down around 11:15AM Pacific. Around 11:30AM Pacific, no servers were available on the main client screen. So it’s just a typical open beta launch made worse by the surprise announcement.
Login servers have been mostly down since the above so only those who managed to connect to any available server while they were up, are the only ones in-game at this point.
Update#2: Gameforge finally got the login servers stabilized around 5PMish Pacific. I was finally able to play my Lily Bloomerchen character.
Update#3: Tenebris (NA) has been experiencing major lag (confirmed by Gameforge) since around 1AMish Pacific (February 27th). This is most likely a capacity/load issue since there is only a single NA server cluster handling the influx of players (the EU region has servers based on languages so the population is spread out some). The questing dungeons may spin up on multiple instance servers as needed but several times, I have received an error message on the client stating there was not enough disk space to create the instance (this is not a local error but actually a server side one). It seems these instance servers are being overloaded which also explains why there is sometimes no response when trying to enter a region to do the next story quest. The rest of design is probably under stress as well (database server connection for example).
Like MU Legend, the NA server is east coast located probably at a data center which also peers (major backbone) to South America (there are several connection points in Miami for example) since this server is going to be those countries best option ping wise. This server location adds further latency for west coast players in the process. Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) and South East Asian (SEA) countries literally have zero good options due to the lack of a regional server.
It would actually make more sense to add a South American server and co-locate the North American one to a central state like Texas. Market wise, Gameforge would need to determine if an Oceanic located server would be feasible for ANZ and SEA or whether it would make more sense for a regional publisher like Garena to work with Lion Games to bring the game to those markets.
SoulWorker’s combat is unfortunately very sensitive to latency where it becomes almost playable due to the delay between keypress and action (which is why I had to stop playing the Japanese version; once I got back, I’ll be able to play there again but not the Gameforge version)..
Update#4: Players are still experiencing latency and dungeon loading related issues requiring additional unscheduled maintenance.
