In my experience, "closed beta" = definite wipe, "open beta" = almost always wipe, "early access" = never wipe. So ARR's "open beta = hopefully no wipe" (as I interpret it) was a very pleasant surprise.

If they did only mean appearance, it's a very unfortunate translation, as in, I wouldn't consider it a point worth making a big deal about.

The 1.0 CE gave "1 week early access" as a perq. However, with every v1 purchaser and the rest of the planet in open beta, and probably carrying forward their character progress, it kind of serves no purpose to restrict logins to some of those for a week or so.

Anyway, I'll be glad if SE wants to clarify it soon. Might be better to get it out of the way before the headache of Server Transfer v2.0 descends upon us all.