a) THERE´S NO CONFIRMED HOUR FOR THE START OF THE GIVEAWAY BUT IT WON´T BE BEFORE BEFORE 15.30 GMT (PM)
The giveaway will start at an unspecified time "later today". Most probably after 15.30 GMT to 18.30 GMT. Make of this what you will, but likely this morning won't be it.
At 9.45 GMT the Editor has stated - "THE GIVEAWAY HASN'T STARTED YET AND WON'T BE STARTING IN THE NEXT 6 HOURS."
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b) YOU´LL NEED TO PRESS A BUTTON ON THE GIVEAWAY PAGE WHICH WILL BE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SITE WHEN IT'S UP ON MONDAY.
The page won't be up until the keys are available, and the front page of Eurogamer will have a news story about it, pinned above the others, on the right. Click on it to read the story, then click the link to the page where the giveaway is taking place. The amount of keys left will also be displayed on this page.
There is the chance the giveaway page IS the news story, but nobody will know until that goes up anyway!
This isn't the page -
http://gamers.eurogamer.net/giveaways.php?id=27 - it's just a test page, nothing more, nothing less. So don't hammer F5 on it because nothing will happen.
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c) THE KEY WILL BE DISPLAYED TO YOU AFTER YOU'VE CLICKED THE GIVEAWAY BUTTON. YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE.
Nobody on either the moderation staff or editorial side know when the keys will be sent. The servers have been bumped up so hopefully everything will hold up.
(this is a correction to the earlier report - staff have told me you'll have to take it from that page, no email or PM will be sent)
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D) THERE WILL BE 20,000 KEYS, NO MORE, NO LESS - FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.
So there's plenty of chance you'll get one. If not, better luck next time, or preorder. If you've got friends on the beta, and you don't get in, well - nothing EG can do.
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E) PLEASE NOTE - YOU WILL NOT GET A KEY BY BEGGING ON THE FORUMS.
You will only piss off the mods and regulars and chances are you won't get one because of this. Opening new threads just for yourself to plead, for example, is severely frowned upon. Chances are you MAY be banned if you keep harassing the forum members... and in doing so lose your chance for another beta in future.
PARTICULARLY, don't believe ANYONE that says someone has a key. NOBODY DOES unless they declare it themselves on the forum. Do NOT PM ANYONE with regards to the beta, forum regulars, mods or staff. They won't have a key and you may lose your chance to get yours.
However...
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E) USE THIS THREAD TO BEG IF YOU WANT TO RISK IT...
...and do so nicely... who knows, if you're not being an annoyance, you'll probably get one.
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F) I'VE GOT MY KEY, HOW DO I USE IT?
Turn on the Xbox and make sure it's connected to XBL. Flick over to the Marketplace page and click "redeem code", and enter it there.
Your beta should then begin to download.
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G) MY KEY DOESN'T WORK! I HATE EG!
Wait! It's not EG at fault. Contact Activision for help. EG really can't help you as they're only offering the keys, not the service.
With regards to US and global readers, I've just had it confirmed by the editorial staff that the Beta WILL WORK FOR YOU. So stop asking!
Let the games commence!