based on the roadmap...Follow

shouldnt we be on phase 3 by now? or at least this week?

It all depends on how well the current stage is going, if they need to take longer than thats fine. What about stage 2, I've only seen anything about when it started. Figure they would tell us when each phase starts and send out more invites.

Where is the post mentioning that?

Which was 3 weeks ago. Which is the max length projected from the road map. At best Phase 3 would start next week or the first full week in May, depending on how much down time they need between phases, assuming your assessment of when phase 2 started is accurate.

Game Development is always a rough schedule. Better to get the kinks worked out now and take the player feedback and the beta time to improve rather than ignore it and push it out anyway. Right, 1.0 team?

...1.0 team?

From the Live Letter, it sounds like it's gonna be extended, not due to phase 2 testing, but due to phase 3 (and the PS3 version) not being ready.

Just my guess though.

assuming my assessment of what Phase 2 started is accurate? Dont YOU know? I mean I coulda sworn the start of Phase 2 was announced via Live blog or letter from the producer was it not? Thus everyone here should know when/ii Phase 2 started

Based on original roadmap, ARR should be out by now.

Not allowed to tell? Lol if it was posted in a liveblog or letter from the producer for ALL to see then I dont think that information is under NDA... sooo not allowed to tell? ookay

I'd expect the open beta by the 7th-15th of next month. I'd tell you what phase they are on if I wouldn't get censored for a document that I never had the privilege of agreeing to.

Even though I have wanted to desperately play this game for 3 years, I have started to become a bit more wary in the last couple months. SE as been overly selective of those that get to participate in the closed beta, which is fine. The problem is the majority of their beta has been testing one part of a supposedly huge game. Yes, phase three is supposed to bring in the other cities, but that doesn't leave much time to have people test all of the content the game will offer, especially the end-game content. If there are some major issues that might need to be addressed I don't think that they will have the ability to test those issues again before the beta ends. With a large portion of their playerbase going to be ready to tackle this content (and it being one of the biggest contributors to the downfall of multiple recent MMOs) you would think that they would spend more time with this content open to testing.

WoW does it every expansion. The first tier anyway. Subsequent tiers are tested by anyone that wants to on the Public Test Realm.

Here's why not testing XIV's endgame in beta is a problem though: Legacy players exist.

The XIV team doesn't actually have the requisite 3 months or so before people work their way to endgame content. The legacy players aren't losing all their levels, and many of them have multiple max-level classes. Those people will be looking at endgame right away. It needs to be ready.

XI has open beta content on the test server on a regular basis, actually. Well, open to anyone with an account.

Well, in the Live Letter from Mr. Yoshi, he made it seem like there will be a lot of marketing for phase three, unless I was reading it wrong. Like a new trailer, some footage of our new classes, etc.

So, when you see another marketing push, you can assume we're in phase 3. I can't wait!