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World of Warcraft EU Beta Begins
Voodoo Extreme is reporting that after a delay due to storms, the World of Warcraft EU Beta has begun. From the article: "The first phase of the Final Beta Test will also allow the testing of the World of Warcraft localized server infrastructure under heavy loads. As soon as system stability allows, the second phase of the testing process will begin and more players will be added into the Final Beta Test. We will make every effort to accommodate all requests for beta accounts but there is always the possibility that we will be unable to meet demand, and we therefore strongly encourage motivated players to register an account as quickly as possible once the second phase of the Final Beta Test begins."
Your best bet is to regularly check www.wow-europe.com. If they've got some sign-up in place, that's where you'll hear about it.
I'm guessing the second phase of the beta won't start for another week or so.
Blizzard has managed to polish the MMO genre with WoW, it's nothing revolutionary from what I've seen, except that it appears they are most intersted in you having fun, not in placing incessant time syncs or vicious death penalties in your path (if you require these things you can always play EQ2).
Examples:
- crafting: I can making things useful to me relatviely right away - there's a button to "create all" of a recipe if you are practicing - you don't fail (that I've seen) if you have the necessary recipe, you can take a matching resource talent
- pets: get your pet from the wild, he'll level with you, grow in loyalty if treated well, can be rezzed, can be put in the kennel so to speak to work on a different pet
- random loot: have a decent chance at finding stuff you can use or that has actual value - no camping required
- quest item multi-loot - kill the big bad guy with your group? Everyone gets a shot to get his key or whatever, so you don't have to kill him multiple times to get keys for everyone
- cool PvP: There's horde and alliance, PvP is consensual - if someone attacks an enemies trainers, guards etc they are now PvP enabled, and you can choose to engage and then you are PvP enabled (for at least 5 minutes), fight it out, defend your realm! But only when you feel like it
- auction system - got something to sell, put it in the ebay like auction
- mail system - send another (allied) character a package - with money, an item, or COD with an item (so if they accept the package, you get money) - you can twink if you want to this way as long as your other character is of the same faction (Horder or Alliance)
I could go on but here's what really sets this game apart for me so far:
WoW has a huge XP bar, however while playing WoW I rarely actually look at it because I'm enjoying the level I am currently playing at, and not really worried about levels down the road.