Warcraft 3 Expansion Beta Signups Announced

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."

Comments

Jeff Goldblum Is My Cousin

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

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.

Remember BNetD

[Groo Wanderer]

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

[adpowers]

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.

Re:Remember BNetD

[cicatrix1]

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?

Why?

[dnoyeb]

Do they really need beta testers for an expansion??? Or is this simply traditional and an inseperapable part of their marketing?

Re:Why?

[zaffir]

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 disagree

[Matt Ownby]

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.

Re:I disagree

[mattite]

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've seen this before

[sevensharpnine]

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.

Blizzard didn't let bnetd use online CD key system

[yerricde]

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?

I for one will most likely buy this.

[AbRASiON]

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?)