World of Warcraft Stress Test Beta Signups Open

erax0r writes "FilePlanet has been given 100,000 World of Warcraft stress test beta accounts. Sign up for a FilePlanet paid account to be given a beta CD key which will be activated a later date. Blizzard has also composed a FAQ for the stress test." If you're not a FilePlanet subscriber, and with the exception of this I don't know why anyone would be, you have a chance of getting in the stress test, but forking over the cash guarantees your spot.

Comments

save some money

[saqq]

For anyone who was planning on forking over 15.00 use this link to save you some money! (7.90)

Re:save some money

[Impotent_Emperor]

Back in my day, beta tests were free!

Re:save some money

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The Beta is free. But this isn't the beta. This is a stress test that will last only one week.

My friend is in the Closed Beta and he says it's the greatest MMOG he's ever played, and that he would gladly fork over a monthly charge to play it.

Re:save some money

[DarkFencer]

It still IS free, you just have to sign up for the free fileplanet registration, then wait on one of their retarded 'download queues', but thats still free.

Re:save some money

[KDR_11k]

And until you're through the queue and finished the download the beta is over.

Re:save some money

[Anonymous Coward]

Then that's not free.

Re:save some money

[TheBot]

It isn't free, you have to pay 15$ for a subscription.

Re:save some money

[DarkFencer]

You must not be looking in the right place. I signed up, didn't even give gamespy my name much less my credit card number and downloaded all 2.2GB of WoW goodness. I installed it, but the stress test isn't up and running for a few more days still.

I'm not sure what problem people are having.

Re:save some money

[TheBot]

Well the link on Fileplanet is to sign-up to be in the closed stress test. I cant find any other link, care to share how you got through?

Re:save some money

[bishiraver]

You may have downloaded it and installed it - but do you have a CD key that will let you register with the Blizzard servers?

Re:save some money

[DarkFencer]

When I went there, I saw signups for paid file planet memberships, and free basic memberships which is what I used. They didn't ask for more then an e-mail address (and I happily gave them an @spamgourmet.net address) and a username/password.

Blizzard asked me for more information then gamespy did and I gave it to them (thoough still with a spamgourmet e-mail address).

I'd give exact links, but fileplanet seems to have failed their own stres-test and is now inaccessible.

Re:save some money

[StingRay02]

I got a key right away, and I used a free login that I'd forgotten I had.

Re:save some money

[TheBot]

Hmmm...Well i'd already registered with FilePlanet/Gamespy/IGN...But I didn't see anything about downloading it unless you had a paid account. Ahwell, I can deal with not playing for a while longer...I mean, stress tests usually involve stress...and heavy player counts. Thats gunna be...fun...NOT!

Re:save some money

[I am Kobayashi]

Right, people should know that this is only going to last 7 days, it will be on a separate server from the regular beta that is solely designed to be stress tested. Imagine 100,000 accounts trying to log on one game server. The whole point is to crash it repeatedly, so don't expect to have much actual play time if you are only in the stress test. There will be an open beta (I bet within the next month or two). And as stated above I "heard" it is a truly awesome game.

US only

[lastninja]

Why US only? Yes I read the FAQ; same time-zone, language barrier yadda yadda. Wouldn`t it be better if they had different time-zones, that way Blizzard could monitor the game play during working hours and not leisure time. Or maybe Americans play games when at work ;) .

Re:US only

[Anonymous Coward]

There's more than one time zone in the united states, buddy.

Re:US only

[JapaneseChipmonk]

They probably only have servers setup to cover the US. If people from all round the world tried to connect to these servers, it would create lag that they wouldn't have once they have a network of servers to cover America, Europe and Asia seperately.

Re:US only

[Frnknstn]

One would imagine they wanted to see what the load on the servers is in heavy but non-peak usage as well? Testing their nightly log dumps, server consistency checks, etc?

Or perhaps they want to see what quality of connection they can supply to their customers, and don't want hundreds of Europeans, Asians, Africans or Australasians sending them reports about their inevitably bad connections?

Re:US only

[lastninja]

I am more than aware of that fact, but they are not exactly 8 hours apart now are they, buddy.

Re:US only

[iCEBaLM]

Not US only, North America only.

*waves Canadian flag while downloading WoW beta*

Re:US only

[Guppy06]

"Stress test" to me sounds like "Let's see what happens when everybody is on at the same time." It's easie for that to happen if everybody lives relatively close to each other longitude-wise.

Re:US only

[lastninja]

Yes I am in full agreement with you about how to conduct a stress-test. But my point is that most people play after business hours, that is when Blizzard`s employees have left work (if they work 9-5 that is).

Re:US only

[Minna Kirai]

(if they work 9-5 that is)

Game programmers DON'T. They work 11-7, at the earliest. (More like 11-11, when the release is upcoming)

I know why

[Anonymous Coward]

" If you're not a FilePlanet subscriber, and with the exception of this I don't know why anyone would be"

Let's see: nice quick downloads, early betas of Tribes, Worlds of Warcraft, Warhammer, etc. Instead of waiting 2-3 days for a reliable bittorrent of a game file, I can get it in a shorter period of time.

Re:I know why

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, right... Not to mention supporting fileplanet/gamespy business practices... I mean, it's an honor to be a member...

Re:I know why

[sevensharpnine]

Yes, and you can contribute to the crass stupidity that is Gamespy. Their planet sites have often refused to post news regarding non-hosted mods (if you want your release on Gamespy, join up and serve their ads). They've also worked hard to stop third-party browsers from letting you browse online games by getting exclusive contracts will game devs. And Fileplanet has (I don't know if they still do) allowed people to download files that they were never given permission to host for fee (HL maps, models, etc.). And then you have to factor in the large amount of game ads that accompany their "reviews"--I can't prove that they sell high scores, but I highly suspect it.

So yeah, if you think this is ok, then go ahead and pay them for your precious betas. But don't come here thinking you're so smart and getting a great deal by paying for the things the rest of us get for free. Some of us have a baseline standard of business practice we apply before we spend our money somewhere. Some others are just useless fucking tools.

This all assumes, of course, that you're not some bottom-feeding astroturfer. Given the history of Gamespy, that wouldn't surprise me.

Re:I know why

[Anonymous Coward]

I love when people get all high and mighty about not having a Fileplanet subscription. Then I love when those same people ask me to download large patches for them. :)

Re:I know why

[Tyreth]

Ah good, a chance for me to gripe about how FilePlanet sucks. Talk about a worthless service. If FilePlanet didn't exist then other mirrors would be permitted to share files, meaning I could download from my favourite local host. But no, I HAVE to use FilePlanet, and they're not willing to let others host it. After all, a company selling air wouldn't want clean oxygen to be available elsewhere.

So, whenever I want something that FilePlanet got their grubby hands on, I have to sit in a stupid queue for 10+ minutes, sometimes longer, instead of downloading from a mirror in my country for free.

Thanks for nothing.

Re:I know why

[Anonymous Coward]

I will now summarize your post:

"I have too many morals to do business with a horrible organization like FilePlant. My standards are too high. My conscience is too active. ... that's why I pirate stuff, d00d."

You are a fucking idiot.

Re:I know why

[sevensharpnine]

Yes, I'm pirating game patches and demos. That's what a fileplanet subscription "buys" you. Way to pay attention, ac.

Re:I know why

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you don't have to pay a fee to get the free files, you can wait in line.

I pay for it for the ease; one place that will max out my download speed on my cable every time and have everything I'm looking for the majority of the time.

It's just another service to pay for, that's all. Internet hippies rage against it though because it's not free.

Re:I know why

[Tyreth]

Other hosts should be permitted to mirror those patches - then we wouldn't need Fileplanet. It's like selling an aquaduct to a people who had a stream running through their village - it's just that you redirected the stream so they'd need to buy your aquaduct.

Re:I know why

[Gondola]

Unfortunately, the "huge scads of bandwidth and server paid by banner ads" business model DOES NOT WORK.

They have to try to recoup their costs somehow, and putting a stranglehold on new files is one logical way to do it.

Hey, I hate it as much as anyone, but I also understand that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Re:I know why

[Tyreth]

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/ and http://public.www.planetmirror.com/ both seem to do fine offering free downloads.

As for game relevant downloads, my host offers them for free. But some stuff from Fileplanet they aren't allowed to mirror: files.bigpond.com and games.bigpond.com

Oh man, this is the deal of a lifetime!

[genrader]

Seven day trial for $7.50 to $15.00 and you can grind your way up to the highest level by doing crappy story related quests with all the other thousands of 31337 sp34k kiddiez! They have got to put an infomerical out on this, it's so great.

Re:Oh man, this is the deal of a lifetime!

[BTWR]

$7.50 for a week of entertainment is bad?

What about $10.25 for 90 minutes of entertainment in a movie theatre? I think $1 a day is a pretty fair deal personally...

What are they testing?

[KDR_11k]

Considering FilePlanet's average performance this is more of a stress test on FilePlanet rather than WoW.

Re:What are they testing?

[Gailin]

Not sure what you are talking about. I personally have been subscriber to Fileplanet for a little over a year now and have never had an issue with their servers. I can't remember the last time I was not able to max out my cable connection downloading from them.

Moreover, its nice to be able to get the latest movies, patches, and files without having to wait in-line or scour the net for it. Hell half the time I find it handier to go Fileplanet to look for patches to old games, than to go the publisher's site.

While Im sure some people have their moral or principel reasons they do not use Fileplanet, I do not agree that it is performance related.

Gailin

Re:What are they testing?

[KDR_11k]

The 5 hour queues on highly popular downloads make me think that Fileplanet cannot REALLY handle the files it tries to serve. No, I'm not one of those people who have money for a download service, thank you.

Re:What are they testing?

[Gailin]

"No, I'm not one of those people who have money for a download service, thank you."

Therein lies your problem. The download queue isn't there because their systems can't handle it. Its that to make it cost effective to provide a *free* service, they have place limits on the number of users.

As someone who manages to cough up the few bucks, I have yet to wait in-line or have less than outstanding download speeds.

Gailin

Well That's the Kiss of Death

[Primis]

Blizzard's choice to align themselves in any way with FilePlanet should set of klaxons and throw up red flags all over the place. FilePlanet pretty much embodies everything that is wrong with the internet gaming scene right now, and apparently now by extension Blizzard would like to be included in that category. If you fall for this, PT Barnum would love you...

So don't waste your money people, either to shell out to Blizzard directly or to the losers at FilePlanet. I guess at least be thankful that Blizzard let everyone know ahead of time to not bother with WoW.

-- Primis.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Blizzard used Fileplanet because they have a shitload of servers to host this giant file. The stress-testers will only be able to play for seven days.

100,000 * 1.5 gigs each is just too much over such a short time for anybody except an established file-serving company.

Why not judge them on how they got the actual closed beta copies to the the players, with BitTorrent.



And if you don't want to play WoW because of this, I feel bad for you. It's an amazing game.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[TheBot]

I agree. Nobody should be having to spend money to play Betas. I remember the Diablo 2 Stress Test. THAT WAS FREE!! Blizzard's going the way of the greedy old men now. Why don't they just limit the amount of users who want to download it? And they are using BitTorrent for some of the movies they give off...Why not use it for the stress test, since we'd all get it from each other? Makes sense to me...

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[Anonymous Coward]

The ZIP file is 2.37 billion bytes..

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[damiam]

Why don't they just limit the amount of users who want to download it?

Maybe because it's a stress test; which by its very nature has to have a shitload of people.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[Minna Kirai]

100,000 * 1.5 gigs each is just too much over such a short time for anybody except an established file-serving company.

Or BitTorrent.

In fact, since there'll only be a 2-3 day window for making the downloads, its the PERFECT use-case for bittorrent. (And obviously, both you and Blizzard are aware of the BT protocol)

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[TheBot]

A shitload of people playing it, yes. But i'm talking about downloading it, and limiting the amount of people who get to download it at one time, releasing it on BitTorrent to only so many people, then those so many people share it out, etc. etc.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[Anonymous Coward]

If blizzard themselves decided to host up 5 torrents with about 3-4 initial seeds each, those numbers don't seem so horrible at all, as all the people downloading the beta would be contributing to the payload.

That would be a MUCH better alternative then relying on good ol' unreliable fileplanet.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The problem with bittorrent and 3 or 4 seeds is that when 100,000 people connect to the tracker at the same time, the speed is shitty and bad.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[Primis]

I dunno, it's pretty simple to slip copies out to 4 or 5 large, free sites and let them deal with it as well and handling some of the load themselves -- it'd spread rather quickly then. If your company or host can't serve that sort of volume, that notes a problem in how your company is handling things.

I won't judge them on how they distributed the closed copy because that's rather irrlevant to the asinine fact that they're asking people to PAY MONEY FOR A BETA. Think about that for a second...

Is this the next big thing? Paying money for betas and demos?

And for the record, I won't play WoW simply because the world doesn't need another MMORPG to add to the literally-thousands already out there.

-- Primis.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"literally-thousands"

Thousands? Maybe tens or almost hundreds. But not thousands.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[sindarin2001]

That's how the closed beta is being distributed.

Re:Well That's the Kiss of Death

[sindarin2001]

a) You don't HAVE to pay money for the beta, it's just that fileplanet members get priority. It's still open to the public. This is because it's a stress-test beta, they want hundreds of thousands of people to make sure the servers can handle the load.

b) Honestly I love WoW, and I'm more of a single player person myself. I don't really care that the world has thousands of MMORPGs because if I don't want to play them, I don't have to. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. So go ahead and don't play WoW, it's your right, but just know that you are missing out on a fun game.

About stress tests

[Dragoon412]

I don't know exactly how this one will go; maybe they've upgraded their hardware since I last played in beta, but even the stress tests with the standard beta crowd made the game utterly unplayable. The server would die every few minutes. You'd get 5 minutes of play for every 10-15 minutes of downtime. Often times, you'd get disconencted in the middle of a fight, and log back in as a ghost, then spend the up-time trying to get your body back, jsut to die again.

I think a lot of people are just getting their hopes up over what's essentially going to be one, bug, on-going crash.

And in case anyone's interested, here's my 2-sentence review:

World of Warcraft absolutely perfects the EverQuest-styled game, and pulls it off with a lot of flair and refreshingly understandable design decisions. Unfortunately, I've come to expect more from a game than EverQuest-styled monotony in a no-skill-required environment, and WoW, for all its polish, comes away feeling like half the game it should be.

Re:About stress tests

[MistaE]

I was under the impression that the beta servers that are used for currently testing the game are no where near the capacity of the actual servers that will run the game when it goes live. I also remember reading somewhere that beta testers and stress testers will be on different servers, so this confirms my suspicions.

Re:About stress tests

[kwerle]

Every time they release a new beta (new patch set), the servers go wonky for days. That's the way it is with beta software - and is why they're testing it in beta.

I certainly hope they are planning on using the current beta as the stress test. The servers are now fairly stable.

Wait Time: Wait Time: 131 minutes

[Quill]

Please, gawd, someone post a .torrent.

WineX is supposed to run WoW perfectly,thankfully.

I got in

[wyldeone]

I got in, and am downloading the client now (70% done). I am not a fileplanet subscriber.

So? Client ain't worth shit without an account

[SmallFurryCreature]

That is why online games are so popular with publishers. Instant anti-piracy protection. As long as you make sure only known accounts can play you have instantly killed of piracy. Just check the number of people begging for half-life keys.

Re:So? Client ain't worth shit without an account

[katarac]

You get to the client download after you get your account authorization key. I got mine too. You get it immediately after you login to a free fileplanet account. No reason to subscribe.

Killed piracy? Not true at all...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://eqemulator.net/main.php

A lot of people never paid for the game; never will.

Re:Killed piracy? Not true at all...

[cyrax777]

theres also a boatload of private servers for ragnorock online.

OMG! WoW! BFD!

[webzombie]

I can't believe gamers are so desparate that they'd actually pay for a 7 day stress test! These theys people deserve to have the wallets stolen after you repeatedly smack them about the head.

To think that in the near future this is what online gaming will evolve into makes me want to take up knitting.

Pay to BETA, Pay for the Game, Pay to Play... what a useless fuckin' herd!

Enjoy the game - MOooooo!

Re:OMG! WoW! BFD!

[Wtcher]

What's wrong with paying to get into a beta? Is it any worse than paying to test drive a pre-production Ferrari? What's wrong with paying to play a game? Do you buy a television and then get every channel for free afterward?

You're not paying for a product here so much as you're paying for a service. Besides, there's nothing wrong with paying to get into the beta - considering the amount of time you're allotted, and the popularity of online games, you may even be getting more of your money's worth out of it than if you went to a movie.

Re:OMG! WoW! BFD!

[Anonymous Coward]

To use your car analogy, it would be more like paying to be the crash test dummy for a preproduction Ferrari.

PS. To all you tifosi suck it. No German anthem at Spa.

Re:OMG! WoW! BFD!

[Kirby]

Realizing this is responding to a troll (or at least a troll tone), there's a reason I'd be willing to pay $7.50 for a week of a late-beta.

I'm really on the fence about buying this game. I like MMORPGs, but I'm really happy with City of Heroes right now, so I'm not sure if it's worth my time.

Only way to really know is to play.

So, if I don't like it, I save the $45 it takes to buy the game and play for the first month. Sounds like good math to me, IF you're likely to buy the game but not sure if you'll stick with it.

Back on Track

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure anyone read the FAQ, but you don't have to pay to get in on this Stress Test. The people that pay get the first crack at the signing up, but they are/have opened it up and anyone who wants to (subscriber or not) can download the stress test and play for 7 days when they open it up. As there are ~100,000 openings (I have no idea how many subscribers Fileplanet has that are interested), I imagine everyone that wants to will get a crack.

This isn't a beta test; Blizzard is just seeing what it looks like to have 100,000 people playing WoW instead of 6,000.

As for stability, the Beta servers are pretty solid right now and always seem to be ~3 days after a patch. Also, keep in mind that it has been officially stated that these patches are only lightly QA'd during beta as they just want to get the content in. When in production, all patches will be given the typical Blizzard polish.

Re:Pathetic

[Wtcher]

How are you sure that Blizzard's getting paid for this? I suspect that Fileplanet's hosting it for free, or somewhere close to that non-number in order to hype their own service and boost subscriptions. Blizzard gets to distribute the software without straining their own lines. Of course, that's just a suspicion.

firewall causing problems?

[dizzydazed]

Apparently I've got to disable my firewall so that their security server can post a picture. Why does it need it's own port? I hate gamespy

US only?!

[node159]

Phear the proxy muahahahaha :).

As for fileplanet, what an incoherent pice of dribble, the thing doesn't even work properly half the time ;P. As for timestamped url's for downloads, so much for technological progress like download managers, 1.4Gb file single stream without restart capability, snigger...

Please ohh please someone post a torrent!

Re:US only?!

[KDR_11k]

I can resume my downloads from FP even with the Opera download manager, and that means something!
Wait until the server tells you that your download is ready, then, instead of clicking the download link, you tell your dl manager to resume.

You Nailed It

[Databass]

By all trustworthy accounts, your 2-sentence review hits the nail on the head with a giant paladin's maul. While I appreciate that they made it the best EverQuest style experience possibly, I really wish they would have managed to transcend it with an even more fun and organic experience.

I guess now they're owned by Vivendi Universal, and the MMORPG market being expensive and risky as it is, Vivendi decided to take the safest road, stick with the known, and do Everquest +1.

Who wants my key?

[mixtape5]

I have one of the keys for getting in the game for free but wont be using it. Anyone who wants it can have it. Email me at hckymanr@yahoo.com and I will send it to you :)

Quit your whining

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

For those morons who are screaming "OMG BLIZZAARD IS A MONIEZ MACHINE",

Fileplant has been offering subscribers first crack at stuff FOREVER. Since they started subscribing, they had subscriber only offers. Blizzard gets not part of this, they PAY to have their stuff hosted there and panned out to the masses. If you don't like the fileplant downloads, subscribe, if you don't want to subscribe, don't bitch about it.

Re:Quit your whining

[Zed2K]

The problem isn't about the money its the lack of choice. There are a million other places and ways to distribute a beta or stress test or demo. Yet these companys put it on these fileplanet like locations first because its easy and takes no time. They don't seem to give a damn if it takes forever to download through them and its horribly slow but they want people to buy their end product.

Re:Quit your whining

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Well put, I personally have had a fileplanet account for almost two years now and therefore don't know how bad the "normal" downloads are.

Downloading the file through my "personal" subscriber server though was easy quick and fast (I use Opera btw).

Quit making fucking stupid comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

"oh, but it costs $14.99 per month to play that game.. "

"well, it costs $8 for a single night at the movies and that only lasts 90 minutes so $14.99 is worth it you cheap bastard!"

Well, shit, it costs what.. probably like $50-100 to go Skydiving, and that lasts for a whole.. 10-15 minutes, INCLUDING the plane ride? The actual sky diving part only lasts a few minutes at most..

Point is: you cannot compare all forms of entertainment and judge them on price vs time ALONE, like all you fuck-tards always do.

It's free folks.

[HAQattaq]

No need to pay for the subscription to get it. Just sign up for the free membership, login, then click on the link. I got the cd key emailed to me a day later with a link to download it..

Well if you do join the stress test...

[mjayg]

A good site for information about the game and to meet other people playing it is http://wow.warcry.com/ I do some work for WarCry, though not on the WoW site, but I do think the site is good. I downloaded the beta. Kind of burned out on the "EQ style" games but I've enjoyed Blizzard games previously so willing to give it a try... for free, that is.