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Blizzard's World of Warcraft Beta Goes Live

Posted by simoniker on from the kappa-lambda-mu-nu dept.

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.

2 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Comments from an Alpha Tester... by IanDanforth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since I was playing in Alpha I can give everyone a bit of insight as to what WoW is like. First off Blizzard has done a simply wonderful job. The game runs smoothly and if the server crashes, which it may occasionally, its back up in no time. The game play stretches from the familiar, where it has been perfected, to the brand new, to the silly (fishing). The graphics are wonderful and go more for style than realism, which is appropriate to Warcraft. The feedback mechanisms are streamlined, the download process is excellent (if long). The game holds you by the hand a bit much, but other than that I can't really complain. There will be a simply massive amount of info coming out in the next few days from Alpha testers freed of NDA's. So check out the shots and descriptions and see for yourself. Its a great game. Period. -Ian

    1. Re:Comments from an Alpha Tester... by rale,+the · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was also in the alpha, so I can give you a bit more info. The best part about wow to me, is the quest system. Its very nicely done, and you get a large amount of experience (along with items and/or cash) for completing most quests. 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. Leveling ends up revolving around completing quests, and you can pretty much always have a goal for various quests, instead of just killing stuff over and over.

      I've played a number of mmorpg (way too much eq, played ao some, daoc, ffxi), and wow is definately the game to look forward to. If the quality of content I've seen extends all the way to the higher levels, it should be a great game.