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Games Entertainment

Warcraft 3 Expansion Beta Signups Announced 217

Posted by CowboyNeal from the bring-out-yer-undead dept.
Clomer writes "Blizzard Entertainment has announced the signups for the beta testing of the upcoming expansion set to Warcraft 3 called The Frozen Throne. The beta will be online-only over battle.net, requires the full version of Warcraft 3, and is only open to US residents. Signups will be at battle.net starting on Friday, 14 February and will last a week."
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Warcraft 3 Expansion Beta Signups Announced More

Warcraft 3 Expansion Beta Signups Announced

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  • I've signed up for betas for the last 4 products Blizzard has put out. I actually want to know how many people get into beta tests. So, /.'ers have you beta tested for Blizzard?

    • Re:new goodies that i never get to see (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The link states "Approximately 10,000 beta testers will be chosen randomly".

      With Age of Mythology they had a 10,000 player beta test, with 100,000 people signing up. Id guess quite a few more people will be signing up for Warcraft.

    • Re:new goodies that i never get to see (Score:5, Informative)

      by argmanah ( 616458 ) <argmanah AT yahoo DOT com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:01PM (#5298808)
      I was in the Warcraft 3 beta. Unfortunately they have to keep the number of people in beta down so they can keep the test server loads down.

      Of course, waiting til the end to test server load can be a Bad Thing(tm). Anarchy Online's last minute load test, and WW2 Online's post-release load "test" proved that 1) stuff WILL break when more users sign on at once and 2) if your stuff doesn't work at launch, there goes three quarters of your subscriber base.
      • Can Part of what makes these games enjoyable is that there is a rich multiplayer aspect to the application. When a development team takes on such an application, good software engineering will tell you that testing that this requirement has been fulfilled should be just another step in the process, like testing any other requirement. Furthermore, load testing should commence as soon as there is a prototype because if it's not and the testing is put off until the end, then you could end up with a system that has to be completely redesigned after a few thousand users brings down your alpha software.
      • Of course, in this case waiting to the end to test server load, or even not bothering to test server load at all with this beta will have no effect at all because this is an expansion that requires an original copy of Warcraft III to play. They already know what the maximum server load will be.

        The beta tests that Blizzard run are mainly for balancing issues anyway - with the exception of the Diablo II stress test (the only test I have been officially involved in, because it was worldwide). But the stress test didn't help much anyway because playing on battle.net at launch was about as much fun as trying to load up a beta test application form...

    • Re:new goodies that i never get to see (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I beta tested Warcraft 2 (Mac), Starcraft (Mac), Starcraft: Brood War (PC), Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (PC), and Warcraft III (PC). One of the coolest things about beta testing is the opportunity to meet and make friends with some really talented and (for the most part) mature gamers.* But I usually find that once the game opens to the general public, the maturity/civility level always drops precipitously.

      *My gaming group, Clan Burning Blade [burningblade.org] was formed during the War 2 beta and is still going strong.
    • I played in the War3 beta as well. I loved the game, but for some reason, I never bought it. Cheap bastard! ...wait, that's me. (My favorite part was when my ally, with only a single Tree of Life, ate his way through a large grove of trees to the middle, where he set up camp ... took a long time for them to find him.)

      I also signed up for the Diablo 2 beta both times and was accepted for the second one. I never did it cause I would've had to download 100MB over dial-up. Not for me.

      incripshin

    • I was in the same boat as you until the Warcraft III beta; I was actually pretty suprised that I got in.
    • I've signed up for betas for the last 4 products Blizzard has put out. I actually want to know how many people get into beta tests. So, /.'ers have you beta tested for Blizzard?

      Back in '96/97 I remember my friends and I (who were Mac/*nix only at the time)were stimied by the inCREDIBLE delay times in Blizzard shipping Mac versions of their products. We were salivating over their then unreleased Starcraft.

      So, we got our hands on the Mac Beta of Starcraft and played it for over a year while waiting for the Mac version to come out. When the final product shipped, we all (eagerly) bought a copy and started playing that. But, oddly enough, we noticed very little difference (if anything at all)between the shipped product and the beta (if memory serves). We all sort of figured that most of the changes were done under the hood.

      Off all of the games that went in and out of fashion on my apartment building's LAN at the time (ca 94-98), only *craft games had any kind of staying power. We played WCII and Starcraft for YEARS (as have many) after they went out of style. Blizzard games were alwyas the most fun to kill brain cells to. Now that my friends and I live all across the country, Blizzard games are actually the main way we socialize

      It's good to note however that Blizzard has improved considerably in shipping their Mac products. WCIII shipped with Mac/Windows on the same CD.
  • I think they should call the beta: Warcraft III: untested orcs
    • "The frozen throne" - what is this then, the quest for the Eskimo's toilet???

      • Re:I got a name for it! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jaysyn ( 203771 )
        The bad guy Necromancer s trapped in a block of ice, but is still causing problems for the humans. Hence the name. Features include: 1 new hero, 2 new units per race, A buildable shop. Neutral type Heroes that you can recruit. A whole lot of multiplayer maps. No new races. WarCrat III is Ok, but Infoceptors version of Warcraft III (on the StarCraft engine) was just more fun to me.

        Jaysyn

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:02PM (#5298813)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm signing up for the beta testing and I hope they don't pick me.

    My grades would be hurting if they do...

  • Can I just submit a bug? (Score:5, Funny)

    by person-0.9a ( 161545 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:13PM (#5298870)
    Can I just submit the bug "Doesn't play nicely with bnetd" without having to sign up for the beta.

    • Re:Can I just submit a bug? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How about "Doesn't play nicely outside of the US?"

      (don't mind me - I'm just sore that I live in Australia - home of the "it's out in the US, so we'll get it in about 3 months")
    • Who needs bnetd? If you want to play a game over the internet with your friends as a LAN style game over a wide area network, just tunnel the UDP broadcast packets from the server to the clients.
      Its simple. [morpheussoftware.net]


  • Full inclusion, (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrLint ( 519792 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:13PM (#5298871) Journal
    Unlike with the beta for the inital release they are acually allowing the macintosh uses to test this time.
    • I'm going to sign up, but I'll not be the best of testers, since I'll be running it through WineX (or at least trying to).

      If all else fails, I'll just have to boot that Windows partition I haven't used in 6 months.

    • Re:Full inclusion, (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:44PM (#5299052)
      "Unlike with the beta for the inital release they are acually allowing the macintosh uses to test this time."

      Ooo that's good news for a handful of people!
      • Y'know what's great about that joke?

        "Unlike with the beta for the inital release they are acually allowing the macintosh uses to test this time...." Ooo that's good news for a handful of people!

        *laughter (it's funny.)

        "Unlike with the beta for the inital release they are acually allowing the linux uses to test this time...." Ooo that's good news for a handful of people!

        *it's about time those bastards let us in!!

  • Remember BNetD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <charlie@@@semiaccurate...com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:16PM (#5298889) Homepage
    Before you go out and praise blizzard, sign up for the betas and give them your money, remember thier stance on open source and the use of DMCA to supress it.

    Before warcraft 3, I purchased every piece of software they ever made. I did not buy WC3, and will not buy a blizzard title again until they 1) apologize for thier abjectly evil behavior 2) demonstrate, not say, that they have changed that behavior 3) promise to stay changed, and demonstrate that behavior. I would recommend that anyone reading this, if they like thier freedom, put thier morals where there mouth is.

    Boycott blizzard, they deserve it. It would be easier if they didn't make such damn good games though. I will miss them.

    -Charlie

    • Re:Remember BNetD (Score:3, Informative)

      by kmac06 ( 608921 )
      Yeah, what are those jerks doing trying to protect their own software before it is even officially released to the public??

      Just remember that until War3 beta, Blizzard didn't touch BNetd. It was only because it was being used so so very widely for the beta that they fought it. I agree they shouldn't have brought out the DMCA thing, but I'm guessing it was Vivendi's lawyers that did that (but hey, maybe Microsoft will buy em out, then they'll be all good again, right?)

    • I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Matt Ownby ( 158633 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:29PM (#5298969) Homepage Journal
      I truly believe that Blizzard went after bnetd solely to stop software piracy. The online CD key system used by Blizzard, Valve, Id, etc is the best way to combat piracy and the only feasible way for pirates to get around this method is to offer their own "cracked" servers which don't authenticate the CD keys.

      Furthermore, I also suspect (sorry guys) that the majority of the bnetd/warforge users (who are still using today, well after war3 has been released) did NOT buy the game and are using bnetd primarily to circumvent the CD key copy protection.

      It just doesn't make sense that the majority of bnetd users would be legitimate war3 CD owners. Why would you play on a small server instead of battle.net? The argument about lousy battle.net performance simply doesn't hold water these days. I play on battle.net ALL THE TIME and the performance is a lot better than warforge EVER was (yes, I was part of the warforge 'unofficial' beta test, and yes I bought the game the day it was released).

      There are some cases (DeCSS) where a free alternative is desperately needed and the people protecting encrypted DVD's really are Evil. (hehe) But in this case, I truly don't think Blizzard is trying to stomp on the open source coder. Blizzard is only concerned with software piracy and their concern is very warranted, I daresay.

      • Bah (Score:2)

        by m1a1 ( 622864 )
        I played on bnetd to play the WC3 beta test because I wasn't in the "official" beta. I read a lot of comments from official beta testers who were enraged when they saw other people getting to play the beta. I thought that was funny. Now, it is all good and well for Blizzard to want to stop piracy, it isn't all good and well to trample other people's rights to do it. bnetd IS NOT a copyright circumvention tool. It is a way for people to play blizzard games on their own terms. I love blizzard games, but I won't make excuses for such low behavior.
        I am not saying it is wrong to want to protect your copyright, but they hurt a lot of honest players too when they killed bnetd. I hope with all my heart there is a special place in hell for the jackass who made that call.

        • Re:Bah (Score:2, Interesting)

          by cicatrix1 ( 123440 )
          How is stealing honest? You can set up LAN games. You can play on Battle.net with thousands of other players. There is not really 1 single good, legal use for bnetd, and you fucking know it.
          • How is stealing honest?
            Why you gotta play it dat way, man?
            You can set up LAN games. You can play on Battle.net with thousands of other players.
            sigh... Have you ever played on Battle.net? If you had, you'd know that Blizzard spends as little money as it can maintaining the Bnet servers. They regard it as a money sink, a big fat expenditure swallowing up their spreadsheets. Bnet is free, and has a lot of fellow players to join up with, but is otherwise poor-quality. Most of my Bnet experience was with Diablo II, and quite often (a couple times a month) one literally could not access Bnet -- and when one could play, lag was often unbearable.
            There is not really 1 single good, legal use for bnetd, and you fucking know it.
            As I've outline above, Blizzard's free multiplayer service, Battle.net, is not ideal, or even desirable. Being able to access servers of one's own choice, run by persons other than Blizzard, is certainly a good use for bnetd. In the legal arena, I certainly have the right to do whatever the fuck I want to with software I have purchased. If I want to pop it in the microwave, use it to send TCP/IP packets to some server, or mod it to hell and gone, those are all legal, and more to the point, entirely moral and ethical actions.
            • Yeah, I play warcraft 3 on it every day. It's been rather trouble free -- good enough that I would pay a few bucks a month to play on it. Also note that they generate some revenue from it, since they run ads at the top. To your credit, I DO remember having lots of lag issues with Diablo 2.

              I remember playing the beta unoficially, and I remember how hard it was to find games on the smaller servers. It just seems that since you can host a game over the LAN, there isn't a need to have a small personal battle.net. Sure there are some rare legit cases, but Blizzard obviously does not want it to happen because we all know that 95% of all of the servers would be for pirates.

      • Blizzard didn't let bnetd use online CD key system (Score:5, Insightful)

        by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:39PM (#5299196) Homepage Journal

        I truly believe that Blizzard went after bnetd solely to stop software piracy. The online CD key system

        The bnetd developers asked Blizzard if they could hook into the official online CD key verification system. Blizzard denied them that.

        There are some cases (DeCSS) where a free alternative is desperately needed

        And for those behind university firewalls that don't allow traffic on Battle.net ports across the connection from the university LAN to the Internet, how is a free alternative not desirable?

        • Hmm well if they block bnet ports, that probably means they don't want you wasting network traffic playing games. So, it would be a violation of your Universities AUP anyway. So, it's probably good that you can't play, instead of getting banned from using the Internet.
        • The bnetd developers asked Blizzard if they could hook into the official online CD key verification system. Blizzard denied them that.

          Yeah, giving BnetD (the place where cracked copies are played) the opportunity to look at the code for Blizzards Copy Protection Scheme and then complaining about it has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard on /. for a while. That's not even some left wing "let the people be free" crap. That is a justification for piracy. The poster should be ashamed for trying to justify stealing a video game. After all people, IT IS JUST A FRICKING VIDEO GAME.

          People, Blizzard makes good games. They deserve to be paid the going rate for that. They are not a charitable organization out to benefit the people that play cracked copies on BnetD. If ya don't like Battle.net, then don't play a Blizzard game.

          Some you want it your way, you little thieves out there. You want a Blizzard game, but you don't want to pay for it.

      • Re:I disagree (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by Fnkmaster ( 89084 )
        Sorry dude, this is not insightful. Reverse engineering is a sacred right. The DMCA is wrong, period, in all its uses. The bnetd folks wrote their product from scratch. If the Blizzard people couldn't make a secure system on their own, fuck em. The law should not be used to prevent people from using products as they see fit, as long as they legally purchased the software. Bnetd was never a copyright circumvention device. Was it needed? It was certainly useful for those of us who wanted to play the beta before the official release. Did many of us still go out and buy the final release? Of course. And those of us who didn't would have warezed the final release before we bought it anyway. Bnetd didn't cost the Blizzard folks much UNTIL they turned it into a publicity nightmare for themselves. Fuck em, serves 'em right, and I hope they rot in hell.

      • Re:I disagree (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Yorrike ( 322502 )
        "It just doesn't make sense that the majority of bnetd users would be legitimate war3 CD owners. Why would you play on a small server instead of battle.net? The argument about lousy battle.net performance simply doesn't hold water these days."

        We run a bnetd server after hours here at work. You get to have a localised Starcraft ladder league, not use company internet bandwidth and boast to your fellow collegues about just how far behind they. It's great fun, and just so you know, we ALL own Starcraft & Broodwar.

        There will be some people out there who pirate games, and they always will. But bnetd did not hurt Blizzard in our case, in fact, it encouraged people here to buy SC/BW.

      • Re:I disagree (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mattite ( 526549 )
        Perhaps their intention is not to harm the OSS project, but an association has been drawn between 'free as in (root)beer' and 'free' as in pirated. This isn't the first time they've gone after legitimate software, either; if you have image mounting software like daemon tools installed, the latest update of War3 won't even allow you to play the game. Blizzard ass_umes that anyone using that software is a pirate. What Blizzard did sucks. How else should it be said? So they didn't intend to cause trouble. How does that fix the situation? Let me use myself as an example of someone that legally owns War3 and can't use Battle.net: I use linux, and so I have to emulate the game with wine. It works fine for LAN games, but not for Battle.net. Good intentions can and have caused some serious problems, so Blizzard doesn't get any brownie points there. They want to go after piracy; good for them. What they are missing is the fact that anything they engineer can be reverse engineered. People that write software hacks do so with binaries decompiled into assembly. Blizzard can mess around with all the petty irritations they like, but the fact is that they aren't seriously preventing a pirate from doing what a pirate does. What they are really doing is making things harder for the legitimate user. I do respect your stance, however. Many friends of mine that rely on software for their livelyhood feel the same way.
      • I disagree with the use of CD Keys and any other anti-piracy measures since I am not a pirate. However, if I purchase your software you still treat me like one. No thank you.

    • Re:Remember BNetD (Score:2, Insightful)

      by adpowers ( 153922 )
      Maybe BNetD shouldn't have violated the EULA which says that you are not aloud to reverse engineer their protocols (or something similar). Whatever it said, it was still something that BNetD violated.

      • Maybe BNetD shouldn't have violated the EULA which says that you are not aloud to reverse engineer their protocols

        For one thing, residents of in some countries aren't allowed to contract away the right to reverse engineer mass-market software. For another, where's the "consideration" that Blizzard gave up to make a valid contract?

      • EULA == nonbinding, unenforceable, illegal contract. Sorry bug, try again. The right to reverse engineer a product for interoperability is a fundamental right, and without it, we'd have no technology industry, period. Those who try to take this right will reap what they sow. Fuck em.
      • Well, that depends if you think EULAs are enforcable or not. Personally, I think they are are not real, signed contracts they should be unenforcable. That being the case your do have a right to reverse engineer shit. See IBM v. Compaq in relation to the cloning of IBM's BIOS.

    • Re:Remember BNetD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:41PM (#5299034)
      "... remember thier stance on open source and the use of DMCA to supress it."

      Also remember that they weren't against Open Source, they were specifically against it being used to allow pirated copies of their games to be played. While we're remembering stuff, let's also remember that it was Vivendi (Blizzard's parent company) that filed the complaint. Finally, let's also remember that it was not a DMCA case, it was plain old copyright.

      "Boycott blizzard, they deserve it. It would be easier if they didn't make such damn good games though. I will miss them."

      Boycotting Blizzard is probably the least effective way of getting your disapproval across to them. Exactly how are they supposed to know why you didn't buy the game? A drop off in sales will likely be explained by sagging economy and other factors affecting every single game company on the planet. Besides, it's Vivendi you're after. Send THEM a letter. Don't be a tard and give Blizzard reason to stop making those good games you like.
      • Finally, let's also remember that it was not a DMCA case, it was plain old copyright

        They have since amended their claims to include DMCA references. [bnetd.org]
      • Also remember that they weren't against Open Source, they were specifically against it being used to allow pirated copies of their games to be played.

        This is the line Blizzard/Vivendi hid behind but it flies in the face of the facts. Bdnet asked to use Blizzard's key authentication system and Blizzard said no. Of course Blizzard is under no obligation to do so but it is heavy handed the way the came down on bdnet. The only reason bdnet was so popular in the first place is bc battle.net was so hopelessly broken at the time. Really Blizzard has only themselves to blame for this whole mess anyway.

        • Re:Remember BNetD (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cicatrix1 ( 123440 ) <cicatrix1&gmail,com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:28PM (#5299404) Homepage
          Bdnet asked to use Blizzard's key authentication system and Blizzard said no.

          People always rip on them for this, but seriously think about what the repurcussions would be. If they let one group have access, would they not have to let others? Also, the code for accessing these cd-key query servers would be open source. What would stop someone from easily writing a program to generate and check CD-Keys? Why don't you hand someone the keys to your private SQL database?
        • "Of course Blizzard is under no obligation to do so but it is heavy handed the way the came down on bdnet."

          Can I have the keys to your car? No? That's a bit harsh!
    • of course had they just released their own dedicated server, this would have been a moot point. or if bnet was actually stable and usable upon the new release of one of their games.
    • Before you blindly boycott Blizzard for their parent company's stance on IP infringement/DMCA issues, please keep in mind that 1) Blizzard has very talented designers, artists, and developers, and 2) They worked extremely hard to create some of the best RTS/strategy games on earth. 3) All of the legal threats were initiated by Vivendi, NOT Blizzard. 4) The people who actually created the damn games have very little control over what goes on at the ownership level (especially when the economy is poor and their parent company changes regularly). 5) Vivendi will probably go bankrupt before they would ever change their stance on this issue. 6) Vivendi is currently trying very hard to sell their games division. 7) Supporting them now will help the company get new ownership (maybe even an actual game company who understands gamers!). There is no reason to punish the game developers for something over which they have no control, and there's no reason to stop supporting Blizzard when they need our support the most. Just my opinion...
    • "Before warcraft 3, I purchased every piece of software they ever made. I did not buy WC3, and will not buy a blizzard title again until they 1) apologize for thier abjectly evil behavior 2) demonstrate, not say, that they have changed that behavior 3) promise to stay changed, and demonstrate that behavior. I would recommend that anyone reading this, if they like thier freedom, put thier morals where there mouth is."

      So your questionable principles outweighed the desire to encourage Blizzard to make good games?

      Sorry, I'm not taking your advice. Boycotting Blizzard would put them in a position where they'd have to make 'guaranteed money makers' instead of spending the time to make unique games. They'd go the way of Westwood.

      Besides that, you are horribly, HORRIBLY misinformed.

  • Damn it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 403Forbidden ( 610018 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:24PM (#5298935)
    Well, I WAS gonna sign up, but if it's posted on slashdot then 10,000 slots seems slim to none...

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:25PM (#5298946) Homepage Journal
    Do they really need beta testers for an expansion??? Or is this simply traditional and an inseperapable part of their marketing?
    • I dont know what it adds to the game, but if its like diablo2 then yes they need a beta test, diablo2 exp add more caricters as well has higher resolution (in windows), lots and lots of new items and many smaller changes

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zaffir ( 546764 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:19PM (#5299116)
      A game with a huge following like Warcraft can suffer greatly from gameplay balance issues. When you have 30,000+ people playing at any given time, the most powerful strategies will be found and exploited like you wouldn't believe. And with many, many additions to the game in this expansion pack, Blizzard will need alot of manpower to iron out all of the problems (of course, classic WC3 is still horribly balanced, but the word is they'll be fixing that with the expansion).

      The beta tests are not only for working out bugs, but also making sure the different races and units are as balanced as can be.
      • I'm sorry, but you are wrong when you say it's horribly balanced. Some things could be tweaked to offer a broader variety of strategies, but everything has a counter. If this wasn't the case, the ladder stats would reflect this. All of the races are rather equally represented among the top ladder players.

  • US only? (Score:4, Informative)

    by giminy ( 94188 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:34PM (#5298993) Homepage Journal

    Where'd you read that? From the bulletin board [battle.net]:

    This is open to the whole world, not just USA/Canada. But there will probably not be a beta test server in Europe which means you might lag if you don't have a high quality connection.

  • Single or Multi? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thinmac ( 98095 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:36PM (#5299008) Homepage
    The important question here, at least for me, is: is the beta test single- or multi-player? Personally, I hold my own against the bots, but any attempt to even try out battlenet play, and I get completely stomped. The dregs of battlenet are far too good for me (and most other people I've talked to who've tried this).

    Are they using battlenet mearly as a way of letting people play the beta for a temporary period (keeping all of the maps and scenarios on the server), or are they letting people play battlenet games using the new units?

  • I've seen this before (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sevensharpnine ( 231974 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:44PM (#5299047)
    I wouldn't get too excited people. I was a beta tester for Warcraft III. Yes, you'll get to play the game before most other people. You'll also get to see the bugs, be subjected to the glaring imbalances, and have a less fun time overall than with a polished commercial product. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from signing up; I just want you to understand that the signups are for beta testers and not impatient people that don't want to wait until the final retail release. In short, if you don't plan on actually submitting bug reports, please don't waste a beta slot on yourself.

    That said, the last beta test was something of a joke. Ideas and opinions from the community were largely ignored. About halfway through it became apparent that the only reason they even had a public beta was to save money on real QA testing. If blizzard wants to do that, they absolutely have that right. But I hope they're more honest this time around. If they actually want ideas/input/suggestions, then give us feedback and let us know you're listening. If you just want our BSOD'ing boxes and the bandwidth we throw at the server, say so. Vague thank-you's and promises of "careful considerations" of the community's ideas are no way to further your fanbase. Be open with the fans. This doesn't have to turn out as bad as the last beta and subsequent official launch.

  • Brrrrr (Score:4, Funny)

    by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:45PM (#5299057)
    upcoming expansion set to Warcraft 3 called The Frozen Throne

    On reading this, I can't help but think of sitting on the John in winter.
    • "On reading this, I can't help but think of sitting on the John in winter."

      Thanks for putting the image in my head of George Costanza shouting "Shrinkage!"

  • p2p (Score:1)

    by tabby ( 592506 )
    I guess it will be on Kaaza by next week then ;-)

  • WC III (Score:2, Informative)

    by msfodder ( 610252 )
    What a waste of time and $$ that game is. Not to mention that it's as boring as the original.

  • Excellent! (Score:4, Funny)

    by X86Daddy ( 446356 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:36PM (#5299184) Journal
    Signups will be at battle.net starting on Friday, 14 February and will last a week.

    Now I have something to do that day!
  • Where does it say open to US residents only???

  • new stuff (Score:3, Informative)

    by Whitecloud ( 649593 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:42PM (#5299209) Homepage
    So whats new?

    One new Hero per race, each possessing powerful spells and magical abilities A host of new units, each equipped with new abilities and spells, giving players the opportunity to create diverse strategic and tactical forms of combat Player-built shops, unique for each race, equipped with items carefully designed to improve and aid the units of every race Neutral Heroes, available for recruitment by all players, that can supplement and strengthen a player's army with all new spells and abilities Expanded multiplayer options over Battle.net® including multiple new game types, clan and tournament support

  • Warcraft 3 really needs the expansion pack (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hibiki_r ( 649814 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:47PM (#5299239)
    During the last few months, Starcraft players in battle.net outnumber Warcraft 3 players at least 2:1.

    Blizzard needs to spice up the game a lot if they want to have good sales. Warcraft 3 games are too similar to each other, the races too one dimensional, so many people got bored in a matter of days. I've read the announced changes, but I'm still not convinced that the changes are enough to get most of the former players back in the game.
  • Will the Warcraft 3 expansion ship before Microsoft buys Blizzard [slashdot.org]?

  • I for one will most likely buy this. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:21PM (#5299378) Journal
    After playing Warcraft 3 extensively through the beta last time (yes I did pirate it if you must know) I went out and purchased the final game.

    I was not disapointed.

    I will admit the majority of players on battle.net are nothing short of immensly skilled. However the single player campaign in this game is one of the best I've ever played - excellent storyline, great presentation, no bugs (serious single player ones) and generally fun fun fun.

    The game has excellent net code and although I don't completely recall the storyline of Warcraft 1 and II apparently this game somewhat ties in with the original 2 to an extent, which is quite an acheivement if you think just how long ago they were created (I'll bet my ass that Doom 3 has _very_ few similarities with the original 2 dooms)

    All in all Blizzard make spectacular games and I have no doubt this one won't disapoint either.
    (I wonder if they take international beta signups?)

  • So where... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Warin ( 200873 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:29PM (#5299411)
    does it say US only?

    I read the damn page three times and didnt see it list US only anywhere. Frankly, that would just suck, because I am in Canada and want to apply. And previous beta applications have included Canada. I was lucky enough to do Diablo II and Diablo II Expansion betas. Lots of fun! Hopefully my eyesight isnt completely failing and I'll get to apply for this one.

  • I made an oops (Score:5, Informative)

    by Clomer ( 644284 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:34PM (#5299433)
    I'm the original submitter (wow, I actually got on the Slashdot front page!) and I got a detail wrong: it is NOT limited to just US Residents, it is a worldwide beta test. Moderators, please make the appropriate change on the front page. Thanks.
    • Hmmm... I tried using my moderator points on the article on the front page, but nothing happened. I have come to the conclusion that either my mod points are less powerful than other mod points (possibly because they originated in Orcish forgeries rather than Elvish), or moderators really have no power at all over whatever is on the front page. That power is probably reserved for the Editors, who consider themselves intrinsically better than the other, lesser, races of Slashdot folk.
  • I had hoped for less fancy 3D stuff in it but it does not seem like it. I liked the old Warcraft and the others like them, but I didn't play WC2 a lot. Of course they needed the 3D angle to keep up with the games of today, but some of the gameplay from the old versions due to limitations in the graphic cards.
    Some people preffered a few powerful units, but I liked the "tons of cheap cannonfodder" approach. The original Warcraft was more of a strategy game and the new ones are more like a action game. So will the manage to improve the gameplay in Warcraft 3? The game can have all the fancy graphics in the world but without gameplay, it won't last long.

  • When I got Warcraft III, one of the first things I did was make a copy so that I could store the original away so it wouldn't get damaged. Or I should say I tried to copy it. War3 uses Securom copy-prevention, so I couldn't make a backup. When I contacted blizzard about this, and asked them to send me my backup copy (even the DMCA allows for a single backup copy) they refused. They said that it wasn't their fault that my hardware was unable to copy the disk.

    What?!?!? That's right, they blamed me for their copy-prevention. Finally I had to rip the image and use daemon-tools [daemon-tools.net] to make a virtual CD and run with Securom emulation.

    Now, I had a legal copy (I posted in the forums which requires a valid cd-key). I simply wanted to play the game without worrying about my original disk (the starcraft/brood war cd's spent a lot of time in the cd-tray, and one copy eventually went bad). I was unimpressed.

    A coworker found at one point that someone else had nabbed his cd-key. Without ever sharing it, someone had either intercepted it, or (more likely) used a key-gen and managed to get his key. Blizzard's response? Send us the case and we'll send you a new one. Or return it to the store for a replacement (of course, he'd already cut the UPC symbol out for the rebate).

    So, to recap: Blizzard has a protection system which is easily spoofed, and when it is subverted, the person who duped the cd-key isn't punished. The actual owner has to go through the hassle of getting a replacement. The key-gen just makes another key. Blizzard puts copy-prevention on their cd, and then blames the customers.

    All for a product which had 4.5 million pre-orders at USD60 a pop. Calculate the revenue. When those pre-orders shipped, it was nearly the box-office take of Star Wars: Episode I.

    They treat their customers as theives first, customers second. They don't need my money. I don't do business with that kind of company anymore.

    To add insult to injury, the game really isn't that good. I lost interest in a few months. The targeted spells are impossible to use in a big battle, and even on a 1.7GHz machine with a Radeon 8500 over a symmetric DSL line, the b.net games got slow and chunky in a big battle (it had to be battle.net, because when we played locally, we didn't have the same problem).

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