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)

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Had WoW launched free of charge they would probably have significantly more users playing the game, but the ad revenue from the sheer amount of people would be nothing compared to a monthly charge for eight million subscribers.

Although only a small number of those subscribers are US based, they’re still raking in the cash compared to an ad-based model, even if they were to have triple the subscribers.

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It’s possible, perhaps, that Blizzard would have fallen under its own weight had they created a world where anyone could play for no charge. Imagine the server utilization, the volume of traffic and the support calls they would get for triple or quadrupal the player base with only ads paying the checks.

Granted, a free system would be excellent in theory, but in practice, making us pay is the only way to throttle our addictions. Sad, but true.

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We’ve waited years for a Diablo 3 announcement. Within days the Internet is afire with Diablo 3 news, theories, previews, screenshots and dialog about the next Blizzard Game. However, there are hardcore gamers that only see the Diablo cup as half full while the rest of us are simply excited to see gameplay footage.

What’s wrong with the upcoming franchise blockbuster? Apparently the art direction is making a few people upset because it’s too much like World of Warcraft. Holy crap, isn’t that a multi-million dollar hit MMORPG developed and maintained by none other than Blizzard?

“The main objective of this petition is to show Blizzard that there’s a significant number of players that dont agree with the current art style of the game, with this petition we hope to make Blizzard ear our voices, our opinions and our suggestions and we seriously want some changes in the artistic direction of the game so it could be more coherent and familiar with the Diablo universe.” (diablo 3 petition)

Imagine the developers and artist whom have worked, in secret, for years to bring gamers the next game in a series they’ve longed for? Not “thank you for making our dreams come true,” but “oh, c’mon, you can’t make the game I want?”

You must first understand the demographic of video game fans, especially those hardcore fans who will invest their (moms) time and money into the Diablo franchise. To many gamers the world actually revolves around them and all games should cater to their needs and desires.

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What? Is this a joke?

No, the internet gives voices to many folks, some folks whom we wish would stay silent. Instead, they start an online petition which will lead to no change, but alas, we can let them pretend.

Diablo 3 looks great, has a very nice direction and I trust that Blizzard will make it work. Blizzard has three key franchises and they work hard to perfect each one with the majority of gamers being satisfied customers.

(Thanks, actiontrip)