Share a key in the works?

[MacG]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=1564&P=1&ReplyCount=1#post1564


At some point in the beta test we may allow the sharing of Authorization Codes, if that happens it will be announced.

Of course there's going to be an open beta at some point too and your brother will be able to join then if not accepted sooner.

~Kat :)

[BSTRhino]

Personally, I don't see how Blizzard could possibly cater for an open beta. Considering the open beta is 100% free, they would need to hire extra personnel and get more servers to meet the demand, and then dump the extra resources after the open beta. It just doesn't make sense to do this.

The though of sharing of keys actually sounds like a reasonable alternative. They could say to the beta testers, "You're allowed to share to X number of people" and so it wouldn't quite be an open beta, but it would approach the same sort of numbers that Blizzard might find playing WoW when it is released.

[Exedore]

If/when Blizzard holds and open beta, they'll probably run a system like they did for the Diablo 2 "stress test" where they have people sign up and distribute a small download for a portion of the world. I don't know how many people the D2 stress test had, but I think they sent out something like 100,000 keys.

As for sharing, whether or not they enable it is mostly dependent on how much the current set of testers are playing. If Blizzard is not getting the expected volume of data, they'll either send out more keys or enable sharing in order to get more players, and therefore more data. But they'll probably lean more toward sending out more keys than enabling sharing. The problem with sharing is that only people currently playing the WoW beta will be interested in sharing, whereas most people who get a key via email will play right away.

[BSTRhino]

Hmm... I don't think I have the right idea of Open Beta in my head. I thought open beta means anyone can sign up and surf around the world for free before the game is released.

But that's an interesting concept Exedore. So... what you're saying is, in actual fact, instead of having lots of people who can walk around the whole world, they partition the world into pieces so that while each part of the world gets the full amount of people, each part of the world is seen by a different group of people, and so a lot more people get to try, without putting strain on the server beyond what will be expected after the game is released?

What a good idea! I should really research more about how these previous betas were run.

[Graeme]

That's pretty much it BSTRhino.

Most MMO games didn't do this in the past, but with the ridiculously large amount interest in WoW, I think it is the only way that Blizzard could properly test the servers. If they just opened their servers for anyone and everyone, they'd likely be down within a few hours. Also, I'm sure Blizzard will want to lighten the weight of the download for the people that want to test open beta.

As far as I see it, the open beta will be primarily for server tests (stress tests if you will). The closed beta will cover most of the bug-related issues, as will the first month or so of retail. So don't expect to get too much from closed beta, I'm betting they'll restrict you to maybe level 10, and then put you all on the same continent in the same vicinity of eachother, and see if the server can hold. It won't be anything THAT exciting, but it will be very useful for Blizz :D.

I don't really see the point of sharing CDKeys . . . I can't think of anyone that would willingly let me borrow their key, to tell you the truth :P. And even if I got it, they'd always be on anyway.

[BSTRhino]

The idea of the open beta being a limited version of WoW for everyone makes perfect sense. Although I would've really liked to play the whole world for free for a few months, that sounds like the most viable option.

I just realised what my dream job would be. A game master in World of WarCraft lol. I wonder if it's just like being a moderator and you don't get paid, you just don't have to pay $12 per month.

[Graeme]

Hahaha, I'm sure everyone wants to be a GM in WoW, but I'm also sure Blizzard isn't letting any random person be a GM. You'd likely have to send in a formal application and such. And you'd probably have to live in Cali too, or in a server location :P.

[SoldierPrime]

I belive you also have to have some type of expeirence, maybe if you've worked at a smaller company or show them never winter nights stuff... And you have to live either in cali or the european center, whereever it is at.

[Achelus]

GMs get around minimum wage at most companies.

[Duddits]

For one thing, you can reach over lvl 10 in this round of beta, as shown by one of Pirateface's screenies.

[Graeme]

For one thing, you can reach over lvl 10 in this round of beta, as shown by one of Pirateface's screenies.

Max level for alpha, and phase 1 of beta have been set at 30 :).