Wrath of the Lich King, Beta Sign-Up

Amazing. This has been the quarter for Blizzard and their crazy announcements, starting with Diablo 3 and their gameplay footage, now you can sign up for Wrath of the Lich King. As I’ve found, you can have an inactive World of Warcraft account and still sign up for the beta.

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/ for US accounts

http://www.wow-europe.com/account/ for European accounts

“Today we opened the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Opt-In program, which gives players a chance to win an invitation to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta. For The Burning Crusade beta, we randomly invited players from the entire World of Warcraft community. With the Opt-In, our goal is to strengthen the beta-testing process by inviting only those players who have expressed active interest in participating. Keep in mind that opting in doesn’t guarantee you’ll be selected for the beta.” (worldofwarcraft)

This is a great opportunity to bring back old gamers, since I was able to sign up with an inactive account, if I were chosen I’d be, in effect, paying to test their game. That’s insanity. You know what? I might just do it.

This announcement comes just as Diablo 3’s energy starts to die down on the news wire, giving folks more reasons to talk “Blizzard” news. Perhaps, after this announcement starts to calm down they’ll announce something about StartCraft 2.

The timing is perfect, considering E3 begins on July 14th and Blizzard will no doubt remain in the news up until this event. Once E3 kicks off their publicity will fade as other developers and publishers fight for the spot light (or will they just not show up at all to the dying event?).

The Blizzard hype machine is in full force!

(Thanks, 2old2play)

0 thoughts on “Wrath of the Lich King, Beta Sign-Up”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 312: Dare You To Press the ButtonEpisode 312: Dare You To Press the Button

This week’s episode is the final episode before E3, and next week, an outtakes episode filled with Dr. Who and Game of Thrones discussion will run. After that, we’ll have some serious E3 2013 discussion, especially about what happens with Microsoft and Sony in particular.

No Gaming Flashback, but news includes:

  • Pachter predicts $349 for PS4, $399 for Xbox One
  • World of Warcraft movie ‘begins shooting‘ in Q1 2014
  • Robert Bowling’s Robotoki raided by LAPD, mistake COD figure as armed intruder
  • Documentary seeks to unearth 3.5M E.T. cartridges from landfill
  • Oculus Rift developer Andrew Scott Reisse, 33, killed as bystander in police chase
  • Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter fundraising struggling

All that and Listener Feedback.

Activision Blizzard Trying To Scare Off Competition?Activision Blizzard Trying To Scare Off Competition?

A few months ago, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said investing $500 million to a billion still wouldn’t be enough to compete with an MMORPG like World of Warcraft. The MMORPG space is a costly investment and you’d need to really burn a lot of money to start competing against the mega-giant, but Mythic VP and Warhammer Online lead designer Mark Jacobs disagrees with that quote.

Jacobs says $100-million dollars would be needed to start competing against the giant subscription generator that is World of Warcraft. Although few developers are sitting on $100-million USD, it’s a bit more realistic an investment for a studio to scrape up compared to a billion bucks! A billion dollars is a scary number when you consider that’s the start of an investment that may, or may not, pay off in the end.

Kotick may not be using complete scare tactics, he may be working off experience when dealing with MMORPG’s. A startup MMO isn’t a cookie cutter system, there is a lot of development efforts, $100-million dollars worth, but MMO developers slip dates many times. When you start slipping your dates you’ll start burning more money and, before you know it, you’re a billion in the hole. Jacobs thinks $100-million will cover development costs and messing up, so a billion is still way over budget.

Perhaps this is a bit of a scare tactic, assuming a developer will fail and slip their dates isn’t really a great way to start quoting prices. However, shooting too low isn’t always the best method of building your development assessments. The end result, scream ONE BILLION and you may scare off any potential startup MMO developers.

Warhammer Online lead designer did mention one big barrier to entry: the need for “at least half a million subscribers to be successful.”

(Thanks, 1up)

Battle of the Mega Powers: EA Wants Take-TwoBattle of the Mega Powers: EA Wants Take-Two

We’re already looking at the results of an Activision Vivendi union and now Electronic Arts is slowly working towards taking over Take-Two. Activision Blizzard is larger than that of EA but would the Take-Two buy-out grow EA into the number one publisher once again?

For gamers, it’s changing the map of the industry. We grew up with many of these seemingly big companies but their all clamoring together to make the next big mega-power. While they struggle for ultimate domination we, the gamers, are going to either benefit from the competition or become victims, or perhaps a little of both.

Let’s assume EA and Take-Two form one entity, similar to the the Destructicons forming “Devastator,” they can reign hell upon the earth and anyone under their mighty fist shall perish! That might be a bit of an exaggeration but it’s safe to assume they’ll wield mighty power, more than ever before and their epic foe will be Activision Blizzard and, perhaps, Ubisoft. In a battle for sales and consumer acceptance the companies will be willing to out do each other at every step with huge funds at their disposal.

As a consumer, competition is a great way to produce innovation, technological advancements and excitement in the industry. These giant development houses are only this large because we’ve given them our hard earned money in return for entertaining video game titles. World of Warcraft is a major player in sucking money from our wallets in a consistent, addictive, manner while Guitar Hero explores new possibilities in music and rhythm gaming and controller accessories.

(more…)