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Half Million a bad idea?
Handor
Member Posts: 14
As someone who enjoyed the closed beta, I'm finding the open beta quite frustrating. The constant lag and server restarts trying to fix said lag are making what was a very fun experience more like work. (We'll leave all the other 'changes' for a different post... but let's just say a game that was 9.9 on a 1-10 scale is currently sitting around 4.5 at best)
I realize that getting a half million folks to try out open has to be a big accomplishment. But if most of them have the same experience I am, how can that be good PR? Wouldn't 100,000 super enthusiastic, happy players be a lot better than 5 times that many who aren't as exited about the game? I'm starting to wonder about all the folks I "recruited" with my talk about how great closed beta was... their experience is nowhere near the same as mine.
It just seems to me that limiting the open beta more would have upset a bunch of people short-term, but most would have still purchased the game when it went live. If everyone is having a less-than-satisfying experience now, how many of them will be turned off enough to wait on spending money on the game? Or worse, decide to play the other big MMORPG that just hit the market...
Comments
I agree
The server lag and frequent crashes that require long server downtimes while attempting to host 500k people is not going to win them many confident paying customers Im afraid. I just cant see how the servers can be so unstable this close to launch. Especially when they have had such a long time to test it.
This is blizzards first MMO and it shows. I hope they can get it all squared away before launch day or there will be loathesome comparisons to AO and SWG who also were not prepared on opening day.
"I don't want him comin in here and slappin his lips on my asshole"
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
It would depend on what side of the fence your on as to having a smaller openbeta test
Blizzard wanted to have this large test in order to test there servers.
The Game has not been that bad yet and as far as i know they are planning to make it larger.
lets hope that they get these server crashes fixed before they do it.
Please there are plenty enough servers its just the PLAYER BASE (Y O U) refuses to join the other servers that have a low load......
And as far as 500k being to much... UM Open beta is a stress test this is just what Blizzard needs, so they know exactly how many people can fit on each server before they start putting caps in... Let them test this stuff out since thats what "OPEN BETA" is for.. Its not a free sample of a game it is a TEST.
If your finding yourself getting too fustrated playing in this TEST.. Then perhaps your not the right type of person to test and you might need to take a break or possible give your acct key away..
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Just be glad this is happening now as opposed to release.
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http://www.clanlaw.tk
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Two atoms walk out of a bar. The first exclaims, "Damn, I forgot my electrons." The other replies, "You sure?". The first explains, "Yea, I'm positive."
Be happy you get to play at all and get a new computer. I get FPS problems and lag only because my computer is...below par. I desperately need a new one, but I am most definately run the game and quite well, actually.
20 FPS on average walking around, 15 in battle, 13 when in battle with a lot of people or big-time casters. That really isn't all that bad for a 32 MB GeForce2 MX 100 / 200 that isn't OCed.
If I ever got enough money to afford a new Mother board, and a new graphics card, which is about $130 minimum, I wouldn't have a single complaint about this game as far as system problems go.
We all know they have NO plans to setup more servers when it goes p2p.
I swear. You guys will pick out any little stupid thing if you are against something, and make it seem so stupid. "omg we dont pay to play this game right now and they only run 50 servers? Who do they think we are, understanding BETA TESTERS"
Figure out what beta testing is. This isnt a stress test, this is a beta test. Theres bug with the databases, they're getting fixxed, the severs cant hold all the people, more will go up..
To say this game will suck in a month because of the lack of servers now has to be the most stupidiest thing I've ever heard of.
[12:38am] <+steve> don't speak of tampons in a channel like this
[12:38am] <+steve> don't speak of tampons in a channel like this
I don't see the problem. 500k sign ups ain't much. First of all, people have 2 accounts most of the time and 2 keys.
I'm guessing only 200-250k are on at the same time.
For a big company like Blizzard, I expect better quality service. All I can say is Ex-Blizzard Arena.net have done much better server job then Blizzard have for WoW.
I have heard nothing but horror stories about lag from the beginning for WoW.
Thanks to all of you for posting legible, coherent responses -- refreshing to read after some of the WoW Forum comments...
I agree that this is a beta yet, and we are playing for free to help test. However, I was in the closed beta (and played a different account in the first stress test), and during those times, the game was much more playable. It seems that the game is worse now than it was months ago. Lately the patches seem to add more problems than fix them. And my concern here is that with the release date given by VU (then Blizzard postponed it a whole day to prove their argument that Blizzard sets the reelase date, not VU)... we may see even more 'expediency' -- certainly more than we did under, say, DiabloII or the Warcraft series.
Yes, a half million folks is impressive. But if only ten percent of them have a 'bad experience'... and statistics show that each person who is unhappy tends to tell around a dozen (think it was more like 15, but heck let's use 10!) people... we're talking about a half million folks who will be thinking twice before buying or subscribing. That's $7.5 million lost revenue each month. And seriously, will a half million 'testers' -- some who quit in frustration, others who decide to grief others because they're unhappy -- really give a better 'test outcome' than the numbers they used during the first (or even second) stress test???
Will WoW succeed? Certainly - if only because SOE put out such a piece of garbage for EQ2, and SWG and the others are all tanking atm. Plus you have all the Warcraft junkies who will try an MMORPG. But now WoW is a 'well, I guess it'll have to do' game instead of a 'WOW -- knock your socks off!!!!!' game. *shrug*
a few flaws in that theory, most everyone they would 'tell' is already playing. you think people not telling their friends so they can play with them? but will go tell them not to buy it later? besides, there is alot more good than bad being said about this game.
that and 90% of the 'disgruntled' players , will be playing anyway. you will find them on the forums after every patch saying why they are quitting.
the ones that wont, mostly will after mommy gets it for them for xmass.
"When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?"
-George Carlin
I love WoW but if the crashes lag or cant log in keep coming up with retail ill stop playing and paying its very annoying when you pay for game with bad servers simple as that.
No matter what most say they need to fix these problems or it will cost them alot of paying customers
Look at ac2 i know lot of peeps left that game becouse of bugs lag and crashes.
goal of beta testing is to deliberately make things go wrong, and crashes, and all...
I still don't understand what's the point of the whining about lag. I mean they are intentionally makins mess and lag, that's the point?. Getting that much people into it is a good idea imo.
/me enjoys the lag free instances of WoW
i half agree to this. yes the goal of a beta is to deliberatly make things go wrong. but this lag o believe they arent intentionaly making it, because it was been to long. and too many people are get pissed of. see how does that help WoW, exactly it doesnt there just getting less customers.
and to that note i think instancing might be the only way to go to get good graphics.
LØST
LØST
I think what you guys are calling lag, isnt lag. It is the server not able to handle the load. Lag would deal with not enough bandwidth or a data bottleneck. What I am experiencing is the database choking under load. I can walk around just find, its just when you go to do anything with the database (loot, inventory, email,e tc) the problem arrises.
That being said, I have total faith that Blizzard will ensure a smooth release to avoid the infamous "AO launch" debacle.
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Sothorn
Currently playing:
Planetside and WoW Euro-Closed Beta
Past Games:
Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Earth and Beyond, Eve: Second Genesis, Asheron's Call 2, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft (STBeta)
Dude, go read the threads over at the Community Site. This IS a stress test. Blizzard is just a bunch of morons who wanted to make extra cash on an open beta. They're just calling it an open beta because... well, they want to make people feel special. Or they have no idea of the difference between an open beta, a closed beta and a stress test.
It's just like I said before. This is a stress test, people. The servers are filled beyond max, and there IS going to be some lag.
We're Beta Testers. We're ub3r. Let's act it, eh?
1337est of teh 1337,
-Jhak
You are all so wrong about it, the game has enough servers, more then enough. When the game gets released in the us. they will be maybe more then 500.000 players.
With this beta poeple from europa can play the open beta so say that 100.000 player (maybe even more
) are coming from europa. This creates the lag. When the game get released us will have the server for there own. When euro version will be released there will most likily be some euro servers as well (in the bigger countries i think, like uk, germany, france etc.) So i do not think there will be any problem.
And saying they wanted to make extra cash with this beta is very wrong. It cost them a lot of money. Do you think that having the servers is free. I think that is costing a lot of money, what about paying it employees who work for it to make a FREE beta better. so why should they get more server for an beta. also i think 500.000 is good. Now they know they can't handle it (i think they can if only us poeple enters them) and can improve it, how else would they know.
Also they hoped for more beta space later on. So i think they want to improve or add servers and then add more poeple to see if that works. I'm happy they making mistakes
. So the game can be prefect on the euro release 
Did you read only one post and assume we all agreed? Or did you pull that out of your arse?
Don't generalize. Please. We get enough of that from Blizzard, SOE, and every other tanakan mmorpg developer out there.
Wondering what tanakan means? Log on to a tauren and figure it out. Yes, the original word has 7 letters.
1337est of teh 1337,
-Jhak
"you are all so wrong" was pointing out to the one who are constant whining about the lag.
Closed Beta also did not have 500,000 testers.
Bah what is all this childish stuff I keep hearing. Is it everyones first time playing a MMO or MMORPG?
500k sign up means nothing. It's extremely unlikely all 500k could possible be in at the same time.
A large portion of these are actually players from Europe and other countries. What do I expect from a bunch of Blizzard fanboy anyway. (you know who you are)
For anyone who has seen many MMORPG's during their launch, Blizzard shows an obvious sign of unexperience in the field. Yes, there's been worser launchers but the way they are handle all these closed betas/stress test/open closed betas is very unexperienced. Unfortunantly the fact is people, this is not OPEN beta so they can't actually test the enviroment correctly. Are you trying to say that they will cap the fuking servers at release to 500k members only? LMAO
Or wait...THEY are going to do the kind of tests that open betas are made for, during the actual LAUNCH!!!
I actually have to disagree with this. As someone who was not lucky enough to get into any of the previous betas, I'm glad they opened it up this much.
Don't get me wrong in what I say next, it is not intended to be a slam. However, as a closed beta tester you got to have a pretty great experience. The server population was very controlled, and you guys pretty much had the world to yourselves. In saying that, I understand where you are coming from, as in from the perspective of a CB tester.
From the perspective of someone who tried to get in to closed beta, and wasn't lucky enough, the open beta is awesome. My experience has been wonderful. I'm pretty bummed when the servers are down, but when they are up this game RULES. Seriously. 500k entries gave pretty much everyone a chance to try that wanted to. I think this is a good thing.
There is another reason this is good. They get to work out these issues prior to launch. Wouldn't you hate to be having these problems on launch day, as opposed to a free beta period? In my opinion this is the one true stress test. I could be wrong, but I'll be very surprised if all 500k people buy WoW the day it comes out. By doing this they are getting a worst case scenario of what the server loads will be like, and are compensating as such.
Anyhow, this is my opinion. I see where you are coming from as a CB tester. The experience has gotten less fun due to all the technical issues. But as a non CB tester, this is a breath of fresh air. I've never had a game suck me in as much as this one.
-Ashenkhar