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

Re:new goodies that i never get to see

[argmanah]

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.

US citizens only....because.....

[milktoastman]

every beta tester from Europe would want to change the name to UN InspectorCraft.....

and before I get -5, Flamebait or troll, just remember...it's a joke!

Full inclusion,

[MrLint]

Unlike with the beta for the inital release they are acually allowing the macintosh uses to test this time.

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

[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?

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.

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 made an oops

[Clomer]

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.