From the WoW community site (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/):

The World of Warcraft stress test beta is just a day away. Hundreds of thousands of gamers applied for the stress test this past week, and FilePlanet was up to the task, issuing over 100,000 accounts and providing the stress test beta client for download. With the signups and downloads complete, we are just about ready to welcome these gamers into World of Warcraft for the very first time.

Starting tomorrow, September 2nd at 12:00 noon PDT, stress test beta participants will be able to create their World of Warcraft accounts and begin playing the game. Their participation will help us optimize our account-creation and server infrastructure, and enable us to deliver the best online experience possible when the game launches later this year. We want to thank everyone who applied for the stress test beta, and we look forward to seeing the new testers online tomorrow when the stress test beta starts.

Selected stress test beta participants should keep an eye on their inboxes for an email containing further instructions. For more information on the World of Warcraft stress test beta, please <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/stresstest-faq.shtml">check out our FAQ</a>. To get a head start on learning how to play World of Warcraft, take a look at our <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info">beta strategy guide</a>.

With about 150 Dwarves and 130 Gnomes in the Coldridge Mountain to Ironforge area, I had great performance. Even in the Orc area there were easily 400+ players and np, just no mobs to kill :P

The game ran surprisingly well for a stress test. I played some in both the human areas and over in the night elf area and although there were many characters all in search of the same quest mobs and crowded into small areas, the game ran well. I only lost connection one time and was able to go right back into the game.

I'd have to give the test a big thumbs up so far :). And I'm so happy to finally get a glimpse of this game!

I have a DwPriest on Neltharion at level 7. All I see are corpses littered around and rarely a single live beast in sight! It's not so bad for us frosty folks, but I have heard from a few humans they left Elwynn because it was too packed. Not sure the reason behind a level 7 Night Elf ending up in Dun Morogh either! LOL I braved the way to IF to head to SW at level 10 with Saylee, but that's only because I knew my way around from my previous char.

Not a single disconnect or crash and damn good FPS even in crowded areas. I have yet to enter IF but I doubt it would have the amount of lag we do on the beta servers due to the fact everyone is a newbie so there's not a whole lot to sell atm.

*add*
What servers ya'll hanging out on? I will probably only be on Neltharion in the evenings/late nights so look me up :)

I have a few characters on Neltharion as well. Tauren druid, undead warrior, gnome mage, etc... checking out the different classes, it seems pretty fun.

Well part of WoW's secret to success as far as frame rates is the extremely small clipping distance. If EQ had that kind of clipping plane, people would raise holy heck ;).

There might be 400 people in an area, but you're only displaying 100 feet radius around you, so not much to draw.

Edit: Reminds me, there are mobs in EQ with bigger aggro range than WoW's draw range ;). Imagine "discovering" Vox or Nagafen that way ;).

Hmmm, interesting observation, but you are definitely exaggerating.

The only time I notice a problem with mob draw distance is when flying or looking down upon the ground from large cliffs. So, Z axis stuff.

Its been so long since I played EQ though, that I can't make a good comparison to it. However, I have definitely seen mobs as far away in WoW, on level ground, as I could aggro Vox from. :)

However, I'd be all for a greater npc draw distance. :)

Think it has to do with the clipping setting. I have mine to max and I too can see NPCs from a distance. But I have my laptop set to the smallest distance and it's not quite viewable as my desktop system.

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Lvl 18 NE Druid now. 83 in Leathercrafting, 150 Skinning, and 75 in Alchemy and Herbalism. I rather like the crafting system in WoW. I can actually make things I would use! Just finished the Leatherman's quest, now I have a nice Tunic just waiting for me to hit 90 and find a bloody perl (never even seen them and it's an ingrediant).

I've never altered my clipping distances from... "standard" whatever it starts at, but just running about you see stuff "pop in" to view, like boxes and stuff, in EQ that never happens. Not saying one is better than the other, each has its good points (pop-in is annoying, and most games try to avoid it, while better FPS makes a lot of people happy as well).

Actually, WoW sets some settings to defaults based upon your detected system capabilities, on my work PC or my laptop i see the pop-in you're talking about. On my home desktop machine, which is built for gaming and not too old, i don't think i've seen anything clip in when i wasn't flying overhead.

I had a quick go... seems interesting. Has potential... thing I hated though was the UI... glad that can be modded lol.

Not going to play it much though dont want to spoil it...otherwise release wont be as much "fun" for me.

Tils

Since Thursday (2nd round test), I played a shaman to 11 , warrior to 7, hunter to 8 and a pally to 5... I really like them all and even on a crappy comp p3-733 384 RAM, tried both geforce2mx400 64MB and GEforce FX5200 128MB... I still got alright performance out of the geforce 2... really like it so far.. doesn't seem to get repetititve.

I enjoyed the stress test very much and will really miss playing now that it has ended, it was great to have the extra few days as well :).

Mild spoilers to follow, don't read more if you are trying to keep everyting a surprise for release.











I didn't join the race to try to be the highest to win a beta spot, but rather explored, ran quests and tried out fishing.

The random drops from mobs your level, that you would actually equip because they were upgrades, were a nice surprise. And many of the quest gave significant upgrades as well.

I liked how they made the races have even small differences that counted, such as the voices and sleeping positions and the dances being so different. The mail system is very nice, and being able to receive a letter and not only read it but carry it with you is great. I love that you can gift wrap a present for a friend. Being able to have a companion pet is something I was happy to see as well. It's small things like this that really increase my enjoyment of a game.

Release can't come soon enough for me. I hope everyone else who has been fortunate enough to try the game had as much fun as I did :).

All good things come to an end I suppose.

The stress test was a good test of the game. While I do agree it's not quite ready for prime time due to all the crash to desktop problems I had, it's pretty close. I'd buy it if it went live right now, but it wouldn't be a smart move on Blizzard's part. The game does crash a lot.

Looks to me that they are trying to release a game that took Verant 3 years to unfold. The content seems easily on part with the content within EQ, Kunark, and Velious. The game for me was all the little things;
- uniqueness of each character. The models are very fluent and natural in motion (much like EQ1, before luclin--something SOE still can't get right).
- Being able to tell how long buffs last.
- Knowning when NPCs are agreesive or passive based on color. Seems to me passive ones aren't even solcial, just the agreesive ones.
- Ease of use of Tradeskills, something EQ's sourly lacked. The great method of using sooo many drops in trade skills (just like in real life--waste not want not).
- Soulbound use was done extremely well with multiple classifications of soulbound (when equiped, when picked up etc).
- Regent requirements at least for my warlock. Regents were easy to get, but still required work (pet regent requires a soul gem which is obtained only by having a select dot on [linked] to an NPC that yield experience when it dies).
- NPC social ranges; NPCs wil "run" back to their home spot after chasing you for so long. Removes the player "need" for zoning.
- Quest items no limited to just on your person; You can store quest items in the bank and still be able to complete the quest. No more "oh crap, left X in the banK". Trade and Harvesting skills still require all items on your persona.
- Automatic coin conversion; woot! no more carrying around 600 copper cause you don't have a bank around to convert it
- Bags within bags. Now that I like, a lot.
- Guards that can actually give you directions
- Extensive use of street signs!
- Recast times item dependent. Blizzard can force you to use clickies once ever X mintues.
- Ability to *see* when you can use it again! Omg that rules. I loved seeing "This can't be used for another 5 seconds" and it actually counts down while hovering over it.
- Purchaseable bank slots, ability to have over 200 bank slots. Although such a large bank is practically useless with there being so few of them.
- upto 16 bag slots, ability to expand more easily.
- No weight encomberance! (this is coming from an ex-monk)
- NPCs auto despawning when they get bugged or going into no agreesive evasive mode.


Some downfalls though;
- Unstable for extended uses. The game tends to crash a lot for my nVidia 5900 SE. I also got *tons* of random 1-5 second stalls within the game, although I think it might attribute to the new VIA Chipset drivers.
- Banks are far too few. Seems to be only in major cities which there are only 4(ish?). Plus, distances required to travel is FAR too excessive just to use a bloody bank!
- Does have some content issues. I've noticed it within the quest differences playing an Alliance character and a Horde character. There were far more (double? tripple!?) quests on the Alliance side.
- Distances .. omg it takes forever to run anyplace. Errand quests take 30 minutes, just to goto one place. However, I will admit this might be a good thing more than anything else.
- Many ingame bugs. For one, I don't how it happened, but my spirit became disassociated with my corpse. I didn't get any rez box and had to use the spirit thing to rez my body.


Okay, I think that's enough for now. :p

For the time being, I'll just have to use a friend's beta or wait for one of my own. I doubt I'll get one, so hopefully my friend doesn't play much. ;)

Notice how there is no complaints about day and night anymore? Its because there is no day and night, just a slightly different sky background. Dumb if you ask me, but it alleviates people complaining about not being able to see in the dark I guess.

yeah i did notice it never quite got dark.. I hope they retune it and come back with a milder darkness effect... HOWEVER.. the darkness used when in ghost mode does draw starker contrast to non-ghost mode when its used exclusively in ghost mode.