MMO Site is reporting (and Smed has clarified in Update 2 below) that John Smedley sat down with Chinese gaming site 17173.com during their trip to China last week. The translation isn't that great but the interview has quite a few tidbits in it including the first timeline we have seen on beta.

When asked about the business mode and beta schedule, Smedley reveals that the game will be free-to-play, but it may not be the microtransaction type as he mentions the model of buy to play and Diablo 3's auction house. Smedley also thinks that EA's The Old Republic will be the last popular MMO with subscription fee. At last, the beta plan. According to Smedley, PlanetSide 2 will start large-scale test in US at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.

He also talks about the possibility of AI Alien invasions in the future. It also appears the game will be largely free to play according to Smed. Head on over to the full report here and as always, hit up the comment thread to discuss.

Update: The translations in the article are a bit off basti on the forums ran the original site through a translator and found the following.

John said "PlanetSide 2" will use the free model, the specific details of the charges has not been determined . Worthy of note is that free mode is not the same props charges, including content outright or similar Diablo 3, the auction transaction tax model so other charging methods.

Update 2: We asked for some clarification on the interview and translations. John Smedley got back with us a short time ago with the following.

On Auction House

We aren't doing an auction house like Blizzard. They asked me what I thought of that move by Blizzard and I said I liked it and thought it would help with farmers and that we were doing it years ago with Station Exchange. It has nothing to do with Planetside 2 whatsoever. Ive said before the game will be some form of F2P but we aren't announcing anything specific yet.



On Beta

I did in fact say we are aiming for late this year or early next year. No further comment about that. It's ready when it's ready and we are proud of it.



On Crafting

Not sure what they were talking about relating to “crafting” other than we want players long term to be able to make weapons. That won’t be there at launch.



On Payment Model

The game will be F2P. What form will it be? We're still working that out. But here's a hint - we like League of Legends a lot. (Source)

This clears up things a bit with the translations It also gives us a new tidbit on what type of payment model they are thinking of. Head on over to the forums to discuss!