Battlefield Hero's and time wasted to their beta key events.

If anyone has been following BF and their closed beta, which by the way, information is dribbled out to people - Their site has very little information other then to be released summer 08 and check for beta contests.

First things - If your going to have a beta key contest. Make it fair. World Wide. For everyone. Telling a north American consumer that the contest starts at XXX Stockholm time doesn't do anything for us. I'm sure the people in Stockholm know exactly what time the contest starts. - The rest of us have to look it up. And if your on a slow ass work computer that in itself is frustration. (Or, in the case of the last beta key contest which started at 10 am in the morning for those of us in north America - Well, I'm stretching things a bit, It started from 7am Eastern time right on to about 2 pm Eastern time, considering your location in North America. If you work for a living like and have no access to a computer during those hours, Your forced to sit out these contests or wait and hope it comes out some time this year)

Second - I applaud your trying to be creative with your contests - but enough is enough, Just Lotto the damn keys already. Making us put together a word from 9 different WebPages that couldn't have gone down faster if you had slash dotted them isn't fun. Seeing error with web page and 404 not found, Is reminiscent of the old radio station contests that would offer people money to do fairly embarrassing or painful things - Or as I like to call it, Who can NOT pee the longest. Win big money if your the last guy (Or Girl) with a ruptured bladder.

I'd like to point out something here - Your game while maybe be originally free to play - Will need to generate some revenue. This will most likely come from a paying source - Mainly parents or the people your irritating with this ridiculous contests. Right now, the only people winning these keys are kids or people who have the time to waste jumping through hoops. Me, I'll just go to your competition and play their FPS game - Who knows, I might even plunk down some cash right at the start just to own it. I'm sure Wal_mart or Ebgames won't make me do a dance contest, or humiliate myself singing a hit single at the cash register just to play the game. (Though, last time I checked Wal-Mart had Rock Band set up for people who were into that sort of thing)

Here's another thing to look at - With a parent like Electronic Arts [EA] giving the green for development - You might want to keep in mind that EA has cancelled MMO's with a far greater subscription base then this game will likely ever have - In fact, if you look at the history of Cancelled MMO's from EA (Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, The Sims Online) You'll see that they have a finite lifespan, and driving away people who want to play the game, but won't because they've been forced to jump through an unlimited number of hoops will only hasten the demise of a product.

So Battle Field Hero's. You get a big wet raspberry from me when it comes to your beta contests.
Lastly - Consider this - Mythos, A free to play MMo (Fantasy based) Has been cancelled (Though it might show signs of life soon) And Dungeon Runners (another fantasy) lifespan is looking gloomy - The time is right for the marketing of this game, Getting the people rebounding from the previous two products won't be difficult, but not if you make trying to get into the game about as fun as a root canal with out sedative.