Posted on 11 January by Liam Quigley – European Product Manager, SCEE

ModNation Racers European Beta Incoming

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Hi everyone. My name’s Liam and I am the European Product Manager for ModNation Racers! As promised last year I can now finally reveal the dates of the ModNation European Beta.

On the 22nd of January 100,000 of you lucky folks will be able to get your hands on this amazing Beta test. Jump, boost and drift your way around tricky racetracks, picking up weapons with every twist and turn in a battle to the finish line, then have a go at creating your own courses and challenge the world to race on them.

So how do you get hold of a place in the Beta?
Well just simply be one of the first to log on to the PSN store on Thursday 21st and download the Beta. Once Downloaded the fun will start when the lights turn green on Friday 22nd of January.

Is it free?
Well…. Ermmm…. Hmmmm…. How do I break this to you?
YES!

What happens if I’m the 100,001 person to get to the PSN store and try to download the Beta?
Sadly the tracks will be full of racers and you will be out of luck. The Beta will disappear in to PSN Store history vault.

What’s in the beta?
If you’re one of the lucky testers, you’ll be given the opportunity to race on four premade tracks; two of which are exclusive to Europe as promised.

You can also enter the Creation Station and design your very own character, kart and an alpine themed race track, ready to share with other Beta Trial testers.

When does the fun end?
Sadly all good things do come to an end. The Mods will be melted down, the karts will be dragged to the pit stop and the tracks will be condemned on Valentines Day February 14th.

Will I be able to look at kart racing games the same again?
Dunno you tell us….

So get ready to start your engines, grab that controller, make sure your PS3 is hooked up to the net (and its working) and get downloading, creating and sharing!

Be Good

NOTE: this ModNation Racers Closed Public Beta Trial is still a work in progress and is not representative of the final game.

Tagged: modnation racers

Filed: PS3 Games

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133 Comments 10 Replies Add Yours

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:03 pm by vicheous

Cool, I want it!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:04 pm by ytevo79

First come first served i like that idea

Thanks i was only asked about this earlier today

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:04 pm by godsgift1888

what about users who have the US beta when the EU beta is live will the US one still be live or will it only be us that will have access

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:20 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi Godsgift1888

The US beta finished on Sunday! so only ours will be up and running later this month ;0)

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:05 pm by richard4481

Sweet!!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:05 pm by Rhysyboi

Cool, Can’t wait! I better keep checking the store on that day then! .

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:06 pm by addyjones1234

woop diddley woop wopp

when is the game out?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:06 pm by Mattiebo123

awesome hopefully i’ll be able to get it!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:06 pm by DiscoMcDisco

Region betas will be locked to each others regions i guess, so no playing EU to US… but who am i to comment…

Additionally though, I wonder whether the store is GMT or not… cos if so.. i’m gona be refreshing all the way till midnight to get this…

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:07 pm by richard4481

godsgift you should know better

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:07 pm by commuterzombie

Awesome, might have to take the 21st off work…

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:08 pm by Apnomis

“So how do you get hold of a place in the Beta?
Well just simply be one of the first to log on to the PSN store on Thursday 21st and download the Beta. Once Downloaded the fun will start when the lights turn green on Friday 22nd of January.”

What time are we talking about? Will it be available before 9am in the UK for example, some of us have got to work you know! Or will it not be available until the store updates, which is normally around 5pm anyway.

Knowing my luck it will updated in the middle of the day and will be snapped up before I get home from work, which is a shame as I was looking forward to trying this game (I’m thinking it will be a smash hit with my Nephews as their two favourite games are LittleBIGPlanet and Mario Kart!!!)…

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:09 pm by vicheous

So will it be there with the other store stuff that Thursday or what?
A hint would be nice (Or maybe it’ll be there 12:01 AM???)

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:23 pm by Liam Quigley

The Beta download will go live when the store update happens.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:09 pm by betahoven

Suggest updating the store early that day if you don’t want loads of NA gamers downloading the client from the EU store.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:11 pm by GhostViper

Oh my. Luckly it’s a day of all thursday. So I’l be ready when the stores comes up.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:12 pm by Thesnipergecko

Not cool for people who are at work all day!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:12 pm by almighty-slayer

Already played the US one…Hmm

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:14 pm by CloudStorm87

It’s about time!

I will checking the PS Store every 5 minutes on the 21st lol

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:17 pm by nutbear96

Please! The PSN Store is getting really unreliable now! A couple of months ago (maybe 6 months) you could go on at about 3 on the update day and NOW it doesn’t update until about 8! Please just create a set TIME (not date) for the PSN Store update. And is it for all of EU? OR for each individual store (for each county)?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:17 pm by somethingatt

If I’m not fast enough to get into this BETA……Well…..

*shakes fist*

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:23 pm by Archonik

Nooooooooooooooooo… I’ll be away from my PS3 from 19 to 28 January. You can’t do this to me ;(

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:29 pm by Liam Quigley

Well Archonik,

If you have your PSP connected and ready with remote play you can access the store, set off the beta download on your PS3 ready for when you get back…

There’s a handy hint for you all!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:23 pm by richUK

definitely looking forward to this.. some good pedigree in this team!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:27 pm by vicheous

Quote: “when the store goes update happens.”

Goes update happends?? LOL
Thanks for the quick reply, so sometime between 4 and 8pm on 21st then.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:37 pm by Liam Quigley

Amended :0)

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:33 pm by The_Shuffle

I have to say that in my opinion, this is a lousy way of releasing it. I know, I just KNOW that there will be a substantial amount of US gamers using EU accounts to get this.

On a sidenote, will I be able to actually play with my friends or is cross game world instances still blocked in the beta like I have read about happening in the US beta? It was one of the things I saw most complaining about, being randomly placed into different modspots than your friends every time with no way of joining them.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:34 pm by samich2007

Great Thanks! Can’t wait!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:35 pm by reakt

OK, so we’ll have to pester Mike to figure out what time the store update is gonna be happening on Thursday.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:40 pm by Liam Quigley

Yep… However I will try to be online and tell you when it’s up too.

Oh Exciting!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:36 pm by vherostar

Cool cannot wait for this

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:39 pm by TheAlp

your RSS feed is really slow :/ i first got this update now, i thought i could rely on RSS so i wont have to have all the news sites open all the time but i guess not..

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:43 pm by macbelonwu10

Thats not fair only 100.000 out of millions of EU PSN users!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:47 pm by GuttermouthSIN

Awesomme! I’ll be constantly checking the store on the 21st. How big will the download be?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:48 pm by spatsnaz

Nice! I predict complete server massacre. :–D

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:49 pm by makingdamage

Will the release of the beta crash the psn store on the 21st of January with all the people trying to download the beta when the store is updated?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:52 pm by Grannd

I’m with makingdamage here, I predict the Store will be unreachable hours before the update with people checking whether the update is already online or not.

It’ll get the people buzzing about ModNation Racers that’s for sure, now it’s just hoping the game is worth it.

I’m curious as well, I’ll make sure I’m one of the people clogging up PSN’s servers.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:53 pm by Capeview

@ macbelonwu10

100,000 people is a pretty good amount of people for the BETA. That is more than enough people to get an idea on server loads and how well the game will perform in Europe.

You’ll just have to be one of the first ones to get it from PSN.

Me, I work from Home and will definitely have this on my Calendar to download straight away. Looking forward to it.

With regards to the Beta though, is this locked to EU machines, or will the US be able to obtain the BETA as well as the Europeans?? Afterall, no point having the BETA if it’s not going to stress test the European side of things?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 4:59 pm by appie17

Yay

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:03 pm by oskarochfilip

I’m so gonna get this beta!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:05 pm by GekooktEi

Ooh, the Store always updates in the late afternoon, so I’ll make a chance to get it. I always start refreshing the blog page 10 times a minute around 5/6 PM to await Mister Kebby’s post saying that the update is live

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:08 pm by bennyboilu5

what so do you have to download it within the first 100,000 people or do you get picked randomly

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:18 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi Bennyboilu5,

Be one of the first!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:08 pm by SpiderMike_X

What’s to stop all the Americans logging on with their EU accounts and stealing from the 100,000 pot?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:09 pm by Deathvein

Too bad I’ll be in college.

Will there be a pre-release demo for ModNation Racers? The game looks good, but I’d rather try it before I buy it.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:10 pm by TheAlp

so will the creations uploaded get deleted and can we play with stuff that the US beta uploaded?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:16 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi The Alp,

After the betas are over, sadly all content is removed from the servers and disappear in to the PlayStation history books.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:17 pm by ninja_tom

Does modnation racers support remote play on the PSP?? That would be cool!

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:19 pm by TheAlp

@Liam Quigley not as far as what i heard from the people in US beta

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:28 pm by Alex_dlc

wait wait, isnt this a little unfair? the EU store isnt updated at the same time in each country. i think even the UK store has a slight advantage. in theory we all get the same content but some stores will update before others. i live in spain, and the uk store gets updated before ours.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:36 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi Alex_dlc,

I’ve been told by Mike, that there is a lag of about 5 minutes between all store updates. I think you will still get a place on this beta

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:33 pm by VitalogyPJ

Why a limited number of betas? That’s so absurd. What other way to test out the servers then a ‘no number’ of people playing on them?

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:41 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi VitalogyPJ,

The game is still in production and we need to run a number of tests, hence the beta. Opening up the beta to all registered users wouldn’t be fair on the development team and for you guys as the servers might constantly crash! We want you to have the best experience and get your feedback before we launch the game.

Hope that helps

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:33 pm by FGras

0:01 PSN will be out.

I’m almost sure.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:38 pm by Capeview

@ Liam Quigley

LBP Beta there were a lot of great levels created and if I remember rightly, a lot of these although stored on the servers were actually brought over for the Retail release of the game because of all the time and effort that went into making, what were some really stunning levels and would have been a shame to have them just deleted.

Would it not be good practice to have levels that the End Users wanted taken over to the retail release of the game??
After all, it’s not like people spend all this time and effort testing for no rewards or at least to see there efforts make it into the final game.

Thanks for any replies I get.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:45 pm by Liam Quigley

Hi Capeview,

I completely agree with you. It’s something I will deffo ask the dev team as I want to see the best content live on.

Hopefully everyone creates amazing race tracks, characters & karts and we see them live on when the game launches.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:40 pm by Capeview

@VitalogyPJ

I doubt there would probably be over 100,000 at any one time playing Mod Nation racers on a regular basis and I would be quite surprised to see 1million Europeans on at the same time.

100,000 for a Beta is a pretty good amount of people, and I can see a lot of people getting the Beta that really want it. It’s just the Americans using there European accounts that you have to worry about.

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:44 pm by guitain

What’s the reason, that we won’t be able to play the race-tracks, which are made in the beta, in the final game?

I mean, LBP did it, and that worked out pretty good, didn’t it?
Well, people didn’t know the tools as well, but it was still pretty great having a lot of content at the ready at an instant!

Just consider it… For me? =D

Posted on 11 January, 2010 at 5:45 pm by dragonmagician

Does the beta ending February 14th mean that the release date is close to this date. I know Februrary is crowded, but I can always work some kart racing into my gaming sessions. I’m exciting.