Crimson13
09-15-2004, 06:02 PM
Official World of Warcraft Forum poster Gragor attended the Euro WoW Press Conference and has brought some "tidbits" to the WoW community on the Official WoW Forums:
European beta-test
Soon. "We're talking about days. Not weeks or months". The demonstration was actually conducted on one of the european servers.
Euro connexion on US servers
The main reason why Blizzard wants to keep everything regional is, first, to make sure that players get the best experience possible wherever they are. Even though WoW is not as network intensive as, say UT2004, connexion to your region servers will allow better pings, thus better responsiveness of the game. Also, they specifically hired french, german & british GM's to help players in their native language, so it's natural that they want people to make use of that. That said, if "against strongest wishes and recommendations", you still want to connect to the US servers from Europe, there will be a possibility after the launch of the Euro retail (more on that soon) but not immediately at launch.
[b]Launch date
Plan is "near simultaneous release", meaning US & Korea first, Euro not too long after ("weeks" was what was said). The official line is still "later this year", but the producer mentionned that Blizzard will honor their quality policy and delay the release the necessary time if it is determined that the game needs added polish. Nonetheless, the reason why they feel confident about this year is because they currently have a team working 70 hours a week to finish the game. Estimations are 3 to 4 patches before release.
That's a fair bit of info, and if someone from Blizz backs it up I'll let you know. As it's Gragor's only post on the Official Forums, there's no post history to check his credibility.
You can find the original post here (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=306316&P=1).
Feel free to discuss it here (http://wow.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?p=114179#post114179).
European beta-test
Soon. "We're talking about days. Not weeks or months". The demonstration was actually conducted on one of the european servers.
Euro connexion on US servers
The main reason why Blizzard wants to keep everything regional is, first, to make sure that players get the best experience possible wherever they are. Even though WoW is not as network intensive as, say UT2004, connexion to your region servers will allow better pings, thus better responsiveness of the game. Also, they specifically hired french, german & british GM's to help players in their native language, so it's natural that they want people to make use of that. That said, if "against strongest wishes and recommendations", you still want to connect to the US servers from Europe, there will be a possibility after the launch of the Euro retail (more on that soon) but not immediately at launch.
[b]Launch date
Plan is "near simultaneous release", meaning US & Korea first, Euro not too long after ("weeks" was what was said). The official line is still "later this year", but the producer mentionned that Blizzard will honor their quality policy and delay the release the necessary time if it is determined that the game needs added polish. Nonetheless, the reason why they feel confident about this year is because they currently have a team working 70 hours a week to finish the game. Estimations are 3 to 4 patches before release.
That's a fair bit of info, and if someone from Blizz backs it up I'll let you know. As it's Gragor's only post on the Official Forums, there's no post history to check his credibility.
You can find the original post here (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=306316&P=1).
Feel free to discuss it here (http://wow.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?p=114179#post114179).