Blizzard's World of Warcraft Beta Goes Live

craenor writes "Perhaps the most anticipated entry into the increasingly crowded PC MMORPG market, Blizzard's World of Warcraft, has just reached the live Beta stage, for those select players lucky enough to be picked. In a distinct change from the existing trend in Beta tests, they are not going to require NDAs for participating players, and everyone will have read access to the official Beta forums while testing takes place." The WoW site includes a basic game FAQ for beginners, and BitTorrent is now live as Blizzard's Beta distribution method of choice, as the mentioned earlier on Slashdot Games.

Honestly

[DaLiNKz]

Does anyone actually see how it could be fun to play this game massively multiplayer? I enjoy MMORPG's that are based in medieval or old oriental times.. but the idea of commanding groups of crap around some big world just don't really appeal to me.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you Star Wars galaxies is a lot better these days (vehicles, ridable mounts, player cities, a lot more content). Their start just wasn't perfect, but neither was any other MMORPG start. Let's hope Blizzard can get it right!

Re:FreeC****

[RedLaggedTeut]

FreeC**** is not really shut down, it is named stratagus now. There is also a game named Magnant(www.insectwar.com) which isn't free though but based on stratagus. Probably means more trouble to come when someone will try to freeclone Magnant.

Re:Shameless

[Bill_Royle]

Nothing wrong with capitalism - but it's probably safe to say (considering their past) that Blizzard could easily make this guy's life difficult. Why someone would be dumb enough to do this is beyond me, aside from the need for cash. And considering the high profile that this release has, the seller might have to make some additional cash to settle, if Blizzard is as cranky as usual.

Have you seen the videos?

[OgreFade]

The gryphon riding looks really cool. Another thing that seems rather inventive is the death system, where upon your death you become a ghost and wander/go resurrect yourself. That seems interesting to me, and it'll be fun to see mountain giants from UNDER their nose, rather than from DOWN their nose. It seems to look good, I'll have to get the game before I can tell any more really.

Review from alpha tester

[Daniel Vallstrom]

Here is a positive review [graffe.com] from an alpha tester.

Death - Diablo II HARDCORE

[andy55]

Once brought back to life, you can go back to your corpse and grab your stuff, assuming someone else hasn't looted it.

I was a "hardcore" mode Diablo II addict (in HC mode, you only get one life to live and when you die, that's it--you lose everytihng and you're level one again). I'd go for days w/ minimal food and rest--it was insane. Anyway, that's beside the point--I never had more fun with a game. It was the first time a modern game went beyond a FPS shooter game (ie, instant action), while combining a persistent character, while causing you to exhibit real survival-like behavior. When I played for those hours--and days straight--I was having *tons* of fun and laughs constantly and consistently...

So many of these games these days have you sit there for hours w/o even raising your heartbeat--I don't understand how people let themselves play them! In Diablo II hardcore, I'd stand up after a few hours of play and feel like I just had a two hour-long workout (and I'm shape, before you jump on that one).

Looking back, there wasn't a *single* hour or loss of a character where I didn't have hoots of fun. What other games (and/or game formats) can boast that? Sure, some of the deaths were painful and sad at the equipment I lost, but that's what real battle and gaming is--it goes beyond fun and enters the realm of glory.

Glory isn't something that you can save to file, accumulate from killing a high xp monster a hundred times using hours of free time, or get from nice equipment. It's when you and a couple others that you've been fighting alongside with rush in a room where the outcome is unknown and is also for keeps--you get one and only one chance. And when you fought off the odds, the glory was yours. And when you didn't, and fought to the end, the glory was still yours. I bowed down--and fell in love--with a game that could let your experience that.

Re:Open source when it's profitable...

[dnoyeb]

Blizzard just gets a little 'governmental' for lack of a better term.

They didnt like the free battle net software because
1. they couldn't control the gaming experience/viruses downloaded through it, etc.
2. they couldn't advertise for their games and other stuff inside of it.

The downloading software portion does not directly bring in any money, so they might as well use torrent. Not to mention if you used blizzards torrent you know it first involves downloading their torrent program, which is another place they can put advertisements...

They only want it if they can control it.

Re:Maybe...

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Blizzard ussually always get the game right! The only problem they have is that they tend to have problems balancing the games... Look at Warcraft III and Diablo II, still not close to being balanced even after 10+ updates!

Re:Maybe...

[Diego_27182818]

I can tell you Star Wars galaxies is a lot better these days (vehicles, ridable mounts, player cities, a lot more content).

Can I get in a ship and fly to a differant planet? Can I get in my X-Wing and blow up TIES? Can I flee in terror from the horror that is an Imperial Class Star Destroyer? Until both space combat and space travel is there it's not Star Wars.

Re:Screw Bnetd

[Queuetue]

I didn't accredit fault - I indicated where it would be proper to apply pressure to fix a situation, and I think I did it in the right order of importance.

Yes, arming the citizenry would provide a deterrence to assault. Yes, dressing less attractively will reduce your chances of rape. Both of these carry personal and societal costs that may or may not outweigh the value of the solution in question.

It has nothing to do with fault, but with reality. The fault in this situation is obviously in the hands of those that did illegal acts. The best prevention in this situation would have probably been better technical protection.

And, still, none of this has anything to do with Bnetd, except that Blizzard used the DMCA to kill the project.

Nothing new to see here?

[Teh Suq]

The quests vary from killing a number of a specific monster, to exploring an area, and to collecting a number of specific drops. There are also some more interesting quests, such as protecting an npc while he walks from one place to another and gets ambushed by some bad guys, or others where you have a limited time (complete with a timer on screen) to kill a few things.

Is that it? They can't be more creative than that? You just described the quest system in every MMORPG that exists for the most part. Heck, even Asheron's Call 2 (which most consider a failure) has all those quest types in game. Please tell me something that is different about this game!

reasons for playing on Bnet.d

[pwarf]

While I never played on Bnet.d, I have to disagree with you about there being no other reason to play on it. Blizzard servers may not be strained now, but when I was playing Diablo II lag was sometimes a real problem, especially for playing hard-core (once you're dead, your character is dead).

As previously mentioned, there are plenty of reasons other than not owning the game to want to play on non-Blizzard servers. A chance for reduced lag is one. Having different standards of acceptable behavior is another. Also, having a smaller pool of players makes meeting people online more likely. Moreover, if this is hosted for a local ISP, you are more likely to meet people in your area.

The comparison of BNet.d writers/users with virus writers is unfounded; a better comparison would be with the writers/users of no-CD hacks or software. Some people may use them for pirating, but many others use them for convenience. Given current hard drive sizes, there is no reason to require a CD or even DVD to be in the drive to play a game or use software. It adds only slightly to the security against pirating, and removing it is a convenience to the end user. (Requiring the CD be in the drive, but providing no copy protection on the CD, which I've often seen, is silly; real pirates will just copy the CD and the rest of your users will be inconvenienced.)

Another major thing you've missed about "improving the game experience" is that Blizzard was changing the balancing with each patch, which made a few of my friend's characters impotent (excessive concentration in skills that were nerfed with a patch). I don't know whether each patch was reverse engineered or not, but I assume that each server running Bnet.d had the choice of whether to implement a new patch.

Also, from the ISP's point of view, every player they could get on local Bnet.d servers was less external bandwidth they had to pay for. I don't think Diablo II was that bandwidth intensive, but it probably didn't hurt.