rank speculation about future MMOs, BioWare

Anyone want to make guesses, spread rumors, etc.? It seems like people always know far more than I do about any given MMO that hasn't even gone into beta yet. Where do you get this rare information? I have no idea.

Stuff we could talk about: Conan, Warhammer, Tabula Rasa, etc. etc.

Or one that I want to get EXTREMELY speculative about is the upcoming BioWare MMO. For one, I trust BioWare more than any other RPG company out there, and I believe that they have the know-how as well as the credibility/clout to successfully change up the MMO game. I don't think that the successful MMOs of the future will out-WoW WoW; I believe that they'll have to innovate and distinguish themselves.

The area that I am hoping to see BioWare revolutionize is story. WoW's story is, to me, practically non-existant. Just when I think I'm beginning to see some connections and an over-arching storyline that connects things I've been doing for tens of levels, it disappears completely and I'm sent to some backwater to get medicine for Auntie Susan's big toe. I end up deciding that I imagined any plot that seemed to be emerging.

Obviously, a single-player game has all the advantages in telling a compelling and ongoing story. I just played Baldur's Gate 1 the other night and advanced the plot to a new chapter, which involved a voice-over (and these days would more likely involve a cutscene). It also triggered the opening of at least one new area for me to explore.

There's no reason that an MMO couldn't do the same kind of thing. In WoW, for instance, you generally follow a more or less set progression through different areas by following the various quests that you're given, but also because where you can survive is driven by your level. You complete certain quests and reach certain levels before moving on - generally. As long as the game is somewhat on rails, why not create a strong narrative thread that holds it together? If you're going to have group instances, why not have the biggest plot developments occur during those instances? And why not have cutscenes after each one, that summarize where we've been as well as presenting new information about the task ahead?

There are games that I have played primarily because of the story, and games that I have played in a more committed manner because I was dying to see what happened next (Halo 1&2, believe it or not).

Create a central plot for your MMO, and have it run through some of the "normal", solo-able quests, where what you are doing (please not killing 10 rats) makes sense in the context of advancing the story. If you do that, I suggest that you can still make tons of side quests where we fetch the water for Farmer Brown (or better yet, let's arrest a dangerous criminal or something dignified), but they will be far more palatable.

Anyway, feel free to comment on this or any other future MMO talk.

I dont know whether a Jade Empire MMO (or that style of combat MMO) would be a good or bad thing.

I definitely know one thing that Bioware will ad to the MMO genre that I will absolutely detest. All of their RPG's follow the Ultima mold where once you get to a new town, you have to talk to everybody. And talking to some people will get others you have already talked to new things to say on the other side of town. This will also happen once you finally get the quest and have completed it, in order to get your reward.

WoW has some backtracking and fedexing. Yet, it never layers it on top of itself 5+ times. Oh and god help us when we try to complete a chain quest in a Bioware MMO.

Check out this page title. Innocent? You be the judge, dum dum dum.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

WoW's story is, to me, practically non-existant.

Wait... WoW has a story?!

The question, Fang, is whether it'll be Ultima (or Elder Scrolls)-style crossed conversation trees, or if it will be FF1 bologna.

I think the format of the MMO almost precludes good storytelling for two reasons.
1) Everyone wants to take things at his/her own pace; and
2) Not everyone will stay in character enough not to break things.

1 might be a no-brainer, in that there will be unemployed people and kids playing 38 hours a day, while some of us can only muster a couple hours per week.

2, however, is a problem I see in that there won't be discovery of where the bandits are hiding. Odds are, you'll just ask some other player. He'll say, "Oh yeah, three screens left and two north. I just killed them yesterday. Try to attack from the left and use (items) and (type of attack). You get (reward) for it." You could even be trying to ask in character if he's seen anyone outside of town that looks suspicious, and the other player could, with the best intentions, ruin the story for you.

BabaGanoush wrote:

Check out this page title. Innocent? You be the judge, dum dum dum.

That's not the future, that's living in the past.

Now, as for my dreams of forced-RP UO2 (or 3)...

You make an excellent but different, imho, point about spoilery and non-RP playing, words. I WANT the excitement of new discovery, and what some people consider a vague hint I consider to be outlandish spoiling. While I don't know that player behavior can be altered in those ways, I believe that better story will push the MMO genre forwards. Also, like I said in the Destiny-Locked thread, I believe that good story will cause people to pay attention. And if they pay attention and enjoy the story, then I believe that some of the behavior you describe will correct itself.

For instance, why wouldn't someone spoil things in WoW, because honestly - what's to spoil?

You are right that MMOs may inherently have a problem with some people wanting to rush rush to the next thing, and that may always be the case. I think a good story would mitigate that, and the other thing would be to just try to find a person or two (or group, etc.) to play with that has a similar philosophy to oneself. I found a GREAT group of fellows to do instances and various quests in WoW with over the course of several months. I imagine that my style of play is "slower" than some, faster than others. My wife doesn't want to see what quest-givers have to say at ALL beyond knowing what the quest requires. I want to understand what I'm being asked to do and why. Unfortunately, I'm usually poorly compensated for taking the time to read the dreck that has been written for any given quest.

Mr. Uber Smythiness wrote:

The question, Fang, is whether it'll be Ultima (or Elder Scrolls)-style crossed conversation trees, or if it will be FF1 bologna.

True. Which begs quite a few questions/thoughts:

Which is a worse timesink, grinding mobs or backtracking+inane conversation sequencing? And what are your audiences percentages? (60/40%, 20/80%)

There will also be discrepancies since there are adjustments you can make to alleviate some of the monotony of grinding mobs. Also there are lots of things you can do to conversation trees and rewards/incentives you can give at each step to keep the interest of the player.

There is one excellent quest/chain in the Draenei newb lands in the WoW BC expansion. Its a quest that involves a tour of the rather large island you have just entered. If you were to try and complete this quest on your feet it would take ~20 minutes. However, the tour is broken up into flying/gliding sections, swimming sections and stealth running sections with buffs that triple your speed. The story is great for the quest as you have to "read" a primer on the native's language that give you vague but straightforward instructions. It is really a slam dunk quest and shows what can be done in WoW with time and care.

fang - sure, WoW could have good quests with time and care. Any game could have good writing. I get the feeling that WoW needed more time in the oven in terms of content, but they wanted to get it out. I know that's contrary to Blizzard's rep, but seriously, 90% of the quests fall into "Kill X ______s" or "Gather X _______s", which are terrible.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

fang - sure, WoW could have good quests with time and care. Any game could have good writing. I get the feeling that WoW needed more time in the oven in terms of content, but they wanted to get it out. I know that's contrary to Blizzard's rep, but seriously, 90% of the quests fall into "Kill X ______s" or "Gather X _______s", which are terrible.

The catch is that if you look at quests in any MMO, that's all they really are. FFXI was chock full of them, same with EQ. The catch is that in both of those games, quests weren't a primary means of pre-cap advancement, so it never really stood out. After all, when you got to the point in FFXI where you measured your level in kCrabs killed, you didn't think much on having to kill crabs or some other leveling mob for hours on end to get a coffer key for your armor.

I'm not saying they're the greatest thing ever, I'm not a fan of them myself. I just don't think it's honest of us to bash WoW for doing something that everyone else is doing, just because it's noticeable.

As to WoW story in general, there's plenty of it there. The problem is that WoW is the first Warcraft game for a lot of people. That's a lot of lore to have missed out on from the first three games. Sure there's plenty of 'Go run this errand because I'm too lazy', but there's also plenty of 'Go slay this incredibly powerful dragon because I can't' as well. All in all, it's part of being a grunt, which is something that blizzard could work on a little bit; I personally think it lends a bit of humble joe to the game, which gives it a little flavor IMO.

Nothing dishonest about it, J - it sucks in any game that does it. I pick on WoW because it's the one I know the best, and it does happen to be the most prominent. The MMO I've put the second-most time in actually didn't do it - DDO. Man people have heard me prattle on before now, but DDO was a tragedy, because they had awesome instances that actually featured fun exploration. The quests were basically to explore the various instances or complete some task inside them.

I think WoW's biggest problem with story is that they are expecting everyone to have played Warcraft 3. Warcraft 3 was a culmination of multiple simple plotlines in Warcraft 1 and 2, mixed in with the completely new Night Elf and Tauren lore. The Night Elf lore btw is pretty strong considering it was just introduced in WC3.

I think that is one key towards a successful back story and it tends to emulate history. Devs should start with simple core conflicts and introduce role players. Then as the games get sequels or expansions, expand the conflicts with siblings, heirs and other relatives or close friends.

I really like WoW's lore because Ive fought numerous battles as/with/against the likes of Jaina Proudmore, Thrall, Cairne Bloodhoof, Sylvanas Windrunner, Arthas and Illidan. Some serious crap went down in WC3 and seeing my favorite characters brings forth a lot of nostalgia.

*****SPOILERS******

I fought as Arthas to get the unholy Frostmourne sword that corrupted him into a Death Knight. The same sword he used to assasinate his father with.

I fought alongside Sylvanas as Arthas vainly trying to find the route cause of the scourge. I also hunted down Sylvanas and Death Knight Arthas and captured her and turned her into undead. I felt her plight as she fought nobly against the betrayer only to be royally screwed into evil servitude.

I fought as Thrall in the events leading up to his best friend sacrificing himself to leave an openning for Thrall to kill the demon lord that was the source of the Orc's Bloodlust, thus freeing the orcs.

I played as Jaina Proudmoore, the mage daughter of the hero of earlier Warcraft games. She was an ally/friend of Arthas and was left holding the bag in trying to save the humans from the scourge once Arthas betrayed them. Her father, Admiral Proudmoore seemingly did little to squash racist commanders under him that pursued and tormented the newly freed Orcs.

I played as Kel Thelas, the blood elf prince who was left little option but to ally with Illidan and escape to the Outland once Arthas betrayed and destroyed the elf's homeland and primary source of magic.

I played the Priestess of the Moon that freed Illidan from his imprisonment so that he could help stave off Arthas and the scourge. I then played the Warden that chased all over seeking revenge against Illidan who killed the wardens guarding said prison.

****** END SPOILER *******

So despite popular opinion on this board, there is quite a deep soap opera of intrigue surrounding WoW's lore.

The problem is that WoW has a good storyline and Lore.. but the design of the game and the ease of how quests are handled means you never really have to read anything.. stuff will drop thats clearly marked.. and quest NPC's have a notification when your done above their head.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Nothing dishonest about it, J - it sucks in any game that does it. I pick on WoW because it's the one I know the best, and it does happen to be the most prominent. The MMO I've put the second-most time in actually didn't do it - DDO. Man people have heard me prattle on before now, but DDO was a tragedy, because they had awesome instances that actually featured fun exploration. The quests were basically to explore the various instances or complete some task inside them.

D&DO is something I look at in the same vein as SWG; pure unadulterated tragedy. Both games had such huge amounts of potential, but ultimately were cut off at the knees. I think the ultimate problem with D&DO was its location; Eberron was practically brand-new compared to some of the other settings out there, and noone had really heard of it. Speaking personally, my reaction was 'Eberron? WTH is Eberron? Why not do Planescape, or Forgotten Realms?'. I think had they gone with one of those two routes, where many RPG geeks, and especially D&D geeks are more familiar with the setting at hand, it could have been much more successful.

SWG was a tragedy for a different reason. I think had the developers tossed balance to the wind, and let the dice fall where they would, the game would have been outstanding. Beyond that, more content would have been nice, but ultimately, SWG was born as a 'Sandbox' MMO, and was wonderful at it. There was a huge social aspect to it all, which I really enjoyed. With the way resources shifted from week to week, there was a never ending stream of things to discover, which I personally loved. The community on my shard was outstanding(Radiant), which is really what kept me in it up until about the same time they were testing speeders. A whole lot of nerfs hit the game, and I ultimately cancelled.

It's not really Bioware making the MMO, mind, it's some buncha Texans. On the one hand, Bioware usually chooses partnerships wisely; on the other, it's possible it was a move mandated from on high, now that they're owned by Lord Bono and others.

I'm happy that more and more MMOs are going to non-subscription-based payment methods. I know it's not all that popular, but I'd rather pay $60 once for the game and some neat stuff than pay $15 a month.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'm happy that more and more MMOs are going to non-subscription-based payment methods. I know it's not all that popular, but I'd rather pay $60 once for the game and some neat stuff than pay $15 a month.

Perhaps Guild Wars' pissing in the pool has done as much as the MMO glut to make companies consider alternate pricing schemes. Or are you rejecting the Korean "pay for shiny stuff" model as well?

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

I'm happy that more and more MMOs are going to non-subscription-based payment methods. I know it's not all that popular, but I'd rather pay $60 once for the game and some neat stuff than pay $15 a month.

Perhaps Guild Wars' pissing in the pool has done as much as the MMO glut to make companies consider alternate pricing schemes. Or are you rejecting the Korean "pay for shiny stuff" model as well?

Just out of curiosity, what other MMOs are completely free beyond the box price? Most of the Korean MMOs out there are pay for the pretty things. Albatross 18, FlyFF, Maple Story and others come to mind here.

As to Guild Wars, I can't say I was terribly impressed with it overall. Sure, there were content releases on a fairly constant basis, but what really turned me off to it was the lack of interplay between the different boxes. I realize that some content carries over, but unless something changed, you can't bring the same character through all three of them, since they're independent of each other in that respect.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

It's not really Bioware making the MMO, mind, it's some buncha Texans. On the one hand, Bioware usually chooses partnerships wisely; on the other, it's possible it was a move mandated from on high, now that they're owned by Lord Bono and others.

I'm under the impression that BioWare has opened a studio in Texas, so that would be BioWare. I'm all ears if I'm mistaken.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

It's not really Bioware making the MMO, mind, it's some buncha Texans. On the one hand, Bioware usually chooses partnerships wisely; on the other, it's possible it was a move mandated from on high, now that they're owned by Lord Bono and others.

I'm under the impression that BioWare has opened a studio in Texas, so that would be BioWare. I'm all ears if I'm mistaken.

Well, they're not going under a name other than "Bioware Austin," so I guess they're sorta Bioware.

I'm going to guess that some of the leadership will be from BioWare Edmonton, and that the honchos up there will be working to infuse them with BioWare's culture and game-making philosophy. I understand that some companies have multiple studios whose output is somewhat different, but there's no way we'll know which way this one will go. I'm going to assume that it really will be BioWare's take on an MMO until I've reason to believe otherwise. After all, an MMO is a huge undertaking, and they're putting their name on it and staking their credibility to the result.

By the way, Metroid Prime was also developed in Austin, and I can't imagine it having been a better game than it was, or truer to the series and the Nintendo standard of quality.

AnimeJ wrote:

D&DO is something I look at in the same vein as SWG; pure unadulterated tragedy. Both games had such huge amounts of potential, but ultimately were cut off at the knees. I think the ultimate problem with D&DO was its location; Eberron was practically brand-new compared to some of the other settings out there, and noone had really heard of it. Speaking personally, my reaction was 'Eberron? WTH is Eberron? Why not do Planescape, or Forgotten Realms?'. I think had they gone with one of those two routes, where many RPG geeks, and especially D&D geeks are more familiar with the setting at hand, it could have been much more successful.

Ravenloft, sucka!

But I think they chose Eberon because they wanted to have a cleaner slate to build on. Not sure it was a good call, but I think that was the argument.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I'm going to guess that some of the leadership will be from BioWare Edmonton, and that the honchos up there will be working to infuse them with BioWare's culture and game-making philosophy. I understand that some companies have multiple studios whose output is somewhat different, but there's no way we'll know which way this one will go. I'm going to assume that it really will be BioWare's take on an MMO until I've reason to believe otherwise. After all, an MMO is a huge undertaking, and they're putting their name on it and staking their credibility to the result.

By the way, Metroid Prime was also developed in Austin, and I can't imagine it having been a better game than it was, or truer to the series and the Nintendo standard of quality.

Reading between the lines in the Gamasutra article makes me think they wanted to capitalize on Austin's deep game-development roots. Some of my favourite games came out of Austin. It'd make no sense to locate a studio there for any other reason if I were BioWare.

I actually thought the Eberron thing was cool. I think there were several problems with DDO, one of the biggest being that it was not a big, open world like people are used to in WoW.

I've said it before - DDO should have been an entry in the Neverwinter Nights series. Those dungeons were AWESOME to explore with a cool group of people. Somewhere on GWJ there's a story about me running from a group of goblins in a desperate bid to escape and resurrect my fallen party, one by one - and I did. It was an exhilarating and memorable experience, unlike anything I've seen in, say, WoW.

So expectations were against it. Also, you really had to play in a good party to have fun with it, and that's not always easy to come by in an MMO.

To this day I wonder what kind of fun one could have by going through the whole game with the same group. The problem is, you could probably only play together once a week (people have other stuff going on), and yet you're paying a monthly fee no matter how much you play. Also, if you miss a week, it's not like you can just solo the dungeon or go grind some mobs to make up the XP difference and catch up to your friends - eventually, things could get out of balance.

I think it really was a great representation of D&D's dungeon-diving online, but it shouldn't have been an MMO. Imho.

TheGameguru wrote:

The problem is that WoW has a good storyline and Lore.. but the design of the game and the ease of how quests are handled means you never really have to read anything.. stuff will drop thats clearly marked.. and quest NPC's have a notification when your done above their head.

I somewhat agree. I enjoyed the Warcraft storyline but quickly lost interest post WoW. This is probably because of the way the story is told between War 3 and WoW. The bulk of the lore that is just crammed into quest logs and chat spam is just becomes a chore, I play a video game to experience the story not read it like a book. More NPC interaction with some voice acting would go a long way. From the original War 3 lore, the added raid instance plot lines, to the expansions lore I was at the point where I couldn't even remember who the demon in the cinematic was and I cared even less to rehash it all. (please no one waste their time explaining the story.)

As for a speculative aspect of the game I would want a new MMO to have, no hard fixed factions. The more I think about it I really don't see how fixed factions help a game especially compared to a more open system where players can choose who they play and chat with on the entire server instead of the 30% or 70% whatever ratio your faction has.

I don't want an mmo to give me my story, I want to give my story to the mmo.

This is why Pirates of the Burning Sea has so much potential in my opinion. With the focus on "realm" pvp (and pvp in general), with the notoriety that some of the players will be able to generate, I'm hoping that it'll generate its own stories through the playerbase.

I have this utopian image of sitting in a back corner of a tavern, incognito, listening to the victim of my latest plundering run tell his tale of woe. Or of me participating in a recounting of a massive fleet action as the port of Barbados fell to the British, or something of the like.

Granted, I know that it won't be completely immersive. Some moron will be running around hopping from table to table with all his clothes off, shouting "Lerooooooooooy Jeeeeeeeeenkinnnnnnnns!!!", another person will be hawking their gold-selling website, and a pary of players will be cybering behind the tavern where they think they've got privacy.

But those issues aside, my point remains, that I want to be a part of a player-created and player-driven ongoing story, much like what the EVE universe has turned into, only set in the age of sail.

Yeah, for what it is, EVE seems the best fit for my hardcore RP self. Sort of strange, but when the idea is greed and power struggles, then the RP is easy enough even for gold farmers to be part of.

wordsmythe wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

D&DO is something I look at in the same vein as SWG; pure unadulterated tragedy. Both games had such huge amounts of potential, but ultimately were cut off at the knees. I think the ultimate problem with D&DO was its location; Eberron was practically brand-new compared to some of the other settings out there, and noone had really heard of it. Speaking personally, my reaction was 'Eberron? WTH is Eberron? Why not do Planescape, or Forgotten Realms?'. I think had they gone with one of those two routes, where many RPG geeks, and especially D&D geeks are more familiar with the setting at hand, it could have been much more successful.

Ravenloft, sucka!

But I think they chose Eberon because they wanted to have a cleaner slate to build on. Not sure it was a good call, but I think that was the argument.

I was searching for that earlier, and couldn't think of it. I kept coming up with Riftworld, which is a fancy name for post-rifts earth if you're familiar with Palladium. Overall, I can agree with wanting the clean slate, but that really canned expectations :/

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I actually thought the Eberron thing was cool. I think there were several problems with DDO, one of the biggest being that it was not a big, open world like people are used to in WoW.

I've said it before - DDO should have been an entry in the Neverwinter Nights series. Those dungeons were AWESOME to explore with a cool group of people. Somewhere on GWJ there's a story about me running from a group of goblins in a desperate bid to escape and resurrect my fallen party, one by one - and I did. It was an exhilarating and memorable experience, unlike anything I've seen in, say, WoW.

So expectations were against it. Also, you really had to play in a good party to have fun with it, and that's not always easy to come by in an MMO.

To this day I wonder what kind of fun one could have by going through the whole game with the same group. The problem is, you could probably only play together once a week (people have other stuff going on), and yet you're paying a monthly fee no matter how much you play. Also, if you miss a week, it's not like you can just solo the dungeon or go grind some mobs to make up the XP difference and catch up to your friends - eventually, things could get out of balance.

I think it really was a great representation of D&D's dungeon-diving online, but it shouldn't have been an MMO. Imho. :wink:

Having to have a group of players that didn't have their heads planted firmly in their hindquarters was one of the things that drove me nuts about FFXI. Wonderful, wonderful game. Just eventually fell flat due in large part to morons and their extreme closemindedness. For the hybrid classes in WoW, if you think beng forced into specs was bad, this was far worse ><

For the record im 34 years old. I started playing online games back in 2000 when a friend asked me to play Everquest with him while i was stationed in Okinawa in the Air Force. I was hooked from Day one. I played EQ religiously for 3 years, mixed in with a little Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot. I stopped playing online games for ahwile not because i wanted to but when i got out of the military and moved back home my mom and dad only had dial up internet. So when i moved out i started playing SWG, didnt get very far cause i was drawn back to EQ but i played it nonetheless. Little did i know that a new online game was coming out that would suck me in full force.

I played warcraft 1, 2 and 3 but had no idea they were making an online version of the warcraft universe until i read in a PC gamer magazine about it. It looked amazing, and was getting rave reviews. I had to have it! When was it being released! I bought that game on day one of release, i still remember like it was yesterday. I knew the story and history of the warcraft world so i was excited to see it implemented into this awesome game. For me Blizzard didnt dissapoint. This is by far the best MMOG i have ever played, and i dissagree with some of you saying there is no story here.

The drive in this game is to lvl fast, really fast so you can get the phat lewts and i would say this is more true now, but when the game first came out that wasnt my drive. I read every quest, i did every quest i could, and really felt like i was part of the game. People playing now for the first time or people who have been playing for a long time are not taking the time to read what there doing. Prime example is my girlfriend who i just recently got playing with me, when we play together all she does is gets the same quest as me and asks me what we need to do. I tell her to read the quest as it will add more enjoyment to what your being asked to do, but she dont care, she just wants to kill stuff and get shiny things.

Even now i am a loyal WoW fan and subscriber of 2 accounts, i dont see myself leaving anytime soon, this game has everything i could ask for in an online game and until some company can come even close to distract my interest from WoW, im not going anywhere. I dabbled in that Korean game that came out last year, forget the name, but you could be one of 3 races set in a sci fi universe, small little humanlike people, elf looking people, and the robots all fighting against each other. I played it for 2 days and went back to WoW.

Now i did just receive my copy of LOTR from newegg last night and plan on dedicating some time to it this weekend. I am optimistic about this game because of the story and world this is set in. Without Tolkein none of this Fantasy stuff would have ever came together, so i feel like i owe it to the great man to play in his mind if you will the world he imagined.

For those of you looking for WoW history and stories, go to wikipedia.com, every single peice of lore is there. Blizzard imo has done a great job in integrating the wow history and lore into this game, this was something i realized even before i made a blood elf and ran down the dead scar for the first time left by Arthas the betrayer so he could rez the warlock he killed in the sunwell hence destroying it. The stories are there, the exploration is there, the new content is there, and its only going to get better. Soon we will be fighting in Northrend, with Arthas being the ultimate goal.

I cant wait for that day!

strader69 wrote:

Without Tolkein none of this Fantasy stuff would have ever came together

IMAGE(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/apollyon_noir/con2.jpg)

Last year was the 100th anniversary of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan; the Conan MMO is due this year.

Knowing not just the history of a genre but some of the wider context makes you more aware of possibilities -- and in my case, a more anguished searcher. You've played most of the AAA games, but none of them really got to the essence of why the genre exists.

Im looking forward to Conans release. I have high hopes for that game, from what i have read it looks to be good so far. But we will see soon enough. I cant wait to try it out.

Have they announced a release date yet?