October 2009 - Asian test, rest of the beta sessions were English. Some menus include images of character faces. No idea of what the purpose of this would be. These images never appeared again.
March 5 2010 The first English closed beta. 10 levels, 34 tracks, car shows and cruises popular. 2 of the tracks, Rosewood Drive and Rosewood Hillcrest (Most Wanted hot lap tracks) never appeared again. Portions of the completed map, such as the bus terminal and Hwy 142 were blocked off by barriers, but players could reset to get past the barriers. Bus terminal was a somewhat popular meeting place during the early betas, despite the barriers. The typical progression for cars was Charger, Elise, Gallardo, M3 GTR. (No three car slot limit in most of the beta sessions).
Mar 19 2010 10 levels, much less than 34 tracks.
May 3 2010 barriers blocking outer map changed, requiring teleport instead of reset to get past them.
May 14 2010 no major changes.
Apr 7 2010 no major changes.
Apr 30 2010 - 20 levels, new power ups, and new skills. Cars are faster, BMW top speed increased from 173 mph to 199 mph (with no skills). Top speed skill (need for speed) was broke if set to 2/3 or 3/3 (cars got stuck in next to top gear). Since it was a high level skill (18 or higher), players usually discovered this on the last day of a beta session. The bug was never fixed or even acknowledged in the release notes, so it ended up affecting many players in this and later betas.
May 14 2010 EA attempted to lock out tier 3 cars by setting them to level 30 (only 20 levels), but the tier 3 cars still showed up as random rentals.
Jun 2 2010 tier 3 cars locked out, this time no random rentals.
Jun 28 2010 - 11 new cars added, no tier 3 cars. Point Camden and Gray Point added to the map. Hickley Field meeting place function added to game. Generic controller support removed from game. Game now looks for specific controller names. The number of free car slots reduced to 3. Emulation of speed boost allowed players to buy 2 more slots for a maximum of 5. A player could buy 3 car slots before reaching level 12, for a total of 6 car slots. This was later fixed.
Jul 2 2010 The first open beta, 50 levels. Tier 3 cars unlocked.
Jul 14 2010 The last open beta (2 days).
July 20 2010 First day of game play for pre-order players, called head start. The top speed skill (need for speed) was fixed by increasing power (acceleration) and reducing the increase in top speed (from 20% max to about 6.5% max). Rep and cash amplified by 66%.
July 26 2010 During what should have been the last day of head start, the servers were shut down for 4 hours, then brought back up with the rep and cash amplifiers turned off.
July 27 2010 First day of game for free to play players, who were limited to level 10 in a last minute change to the game. This resulted in some pre-order players getting the negative rep bug, which would change the players total rep to a negative value that corresponded to a level 10 rep. The problem was eventually solved, but EA would not restore players rep, and players with the bug had to grind through the game to level back up again. The bus terminal ramps were blocked off by posts as a temporary fix to keep players from parking on the busses or upper ramp during pursuits. Other locations where parking for pursuits could be done were not modified. The posts were never removed. For a few months, players could use reset to get onto the ramps.
Aug 10 2010 Single player race gold, silver, and bronze cards removed, only blue cards can be won, to reduce rewards for single player races.
Oct 26 2010 - Downtown Rockport, Kempton, Fortuna, and the turnpike bridge were added to the game, leaving only the connector roads linking Kempton, Palmont, and Rockport to be done, but these were never added.
Sep 8 2010 Level 10 cap for free to play players removed.
Sep 18 2010 Oktoberfest first holiday theme visuals for NFS World.
Sep 28 2010 several cars added to game, including Evo X, a tier 2 car with the highest pro upgrade unlock level, 45. The Elise with pro upgrade was the dominant tier 2 car, and with only 3 free slots, an Evo X with pro upgrade was extremely rare. The uniqueness only lasted to Nov 16, 2010, when version 5 switched from upgrades to parts.
Oct 27, 2010 BMW M3 E46s in players inventory (garage) were replaced by slower versions. The old BMWs were removed, replacement BMWs were added, which changed the order of cars in a garage and the car sequence id, which is related to the order of cars purchased by all players. The replacement BMW was 5 mph slower, from 192 mph down to 187 mph without skills, and from 204 mph down to 199 mph with max skills. I dont know what else was changed.
Nov 16 2010 - Version 5.00. Performance upgrade kits removed and replaced by performance parts. This was the first of pay to win and gambling aspects added to NFS World. Durability nuisance fee added to game play to sell insurance for speed boost. Players willing to buy performance parts for real money can't just buy them, they have to gamble for them via purchased card packs, with low odds of getting one of the top performance parts and very low odds of getting a specific part. The converted tier 1 and 2 cars ended up with about the same performance and slightly higher top speed while most tier 3 cars ended up with reduced performance, less grip, less acceleration, less downforce, but about the same top speed.
Dec 15 2010 - Night mode was added. The snowflake 911 turbo, sold for speed boost only, was released. This was the first car with special effects.
