Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWhat it will look like when you're invited to the WotLK beta
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 20th 2008 at 7:00PM
Right now there is no WotLK beta, there is no chance you'll get in the alpha if you're not already in it, and there is no email that's going to be coming to your inbox anytime soon about it. But when it comes, it's going to make you one happy gamer. This is a very important thing for people to understand, especially with the flood of fake emails lately.Blizzard will make an announcement on their forums and/or their homepage letting all of us know that WotLK beta invites are going out. The email that you'll get if you're lucky enough to get invited will be sent from an @blizzard.com address, will come through the blizzard.com servers (you can check the extended email headers in your email program to see this). The email will have tons of identifiable information in it that only points to blizzard.com or worldofwarcraft.com and nowhere else.
For a reference, let's that a look at what the Burning Crusade beta email looked like that I got back in 2006
From: "WoW Expansion Beta" <WoWExpansionBeta@blizzard.com>
To: My email address associated with my WoW account.
Subject: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Welcome to Closed-Beta!
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Beta Test
Welcome to the beta test of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade!
We're excited to have reached the beta-testing stage for the expansion, and we'd be grateful to have your assistance in finalizing the content. There are a lot of new things to see and do in Azeroth and Outland, and we look forward to receiving any feedback you can offer on your overall expansion-beta experience, including quests, spells/abilities, monsters, zones, aesthetics, and more. We would also appreciate reports on any bugs you may find.
Read on to learn how to participate, and thanks in advance for your support in helping us put the finishing touches on the expansion.
Getting started:
You will need to upgrade an existing retail World of Warcraft account to connect to the Burning Crusade beta realms. Upgraded accounts will carry over to later testing phases for the Burning Crusade.
Please begin by logging in to the website below with the account name and password of the retail World of Warcraft account that you play on. From there, you will be able to upgrade the retail account to an expansion beta account, which will allow you to copy characters to the test realms, download the installer, and access the beta-test forums. Upgrading to an expansion beta account does not affect your ability to continue playing on the retail realms as well.
https://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/expansion
Be prepared to enter your World of Warcraft account name, password, and the account-upgrade key listed below. To participate in the beta test immediately, the retail World of Warcraft account that you'd like to use for beta testing must be active as of October 8, 2006. If the account is activated sometime after October 8, it will be ready for use in the beta test after the subsequent weekly beta maintenance period, which occurs every Monday between 12pm and 4pm PDT. For example, if you activate the account today, you will be able to start playing the closed beta on the following Monday after 4pm PDT.
Below is the required account-upgrade key. Each game key can be used once to upgrade an active retail World of Warcraft account. The key cannot be replaced, so please ensure you use it to upgrade the account you wish to use for testing.
XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXXXX
After you have created an expansion beta account, we invite you to copy characters to our expansion realms. You will be able to bring over up to 4 level 55+ characters to travel through the Dark Portal.
Go to the following URL to copy up to 4 characters to the beta test realms: https://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/game/
Sending us feedback:
Bugs & Suggestions
We've set up an in-game method for submitting game bugs and suggestions, without the need to send us an email or exit the game. To do so, enter the chat console by pressing the Enter key, then type "/bug" or "/suggest" (without the quotation marks).
Examples:
/bug You can clip through a wall near the priest trainer at the newbie area on Sunstrider Isle.
/suggest The low-level mobs in Azuremyst Isles should drop more money.
There is no chat response when you send feedback through the in-game chat system, but the information is stored in our database and reviewed daily. Your feedback is important to us.
Forums
There are new forums for the game at http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com. These forums are viewable by the public, but only members of the beta test can create posts and threads. Although we're unable to respond to all posts, developers do monitor the forums for feedback.
Contact Info, Known Issues, Downtimes, and FAQs
Whom do I ask for help?
Technical Support
If you experience issues downloading or installing the beta or any patches, connecting to the game, or any problems with video or sound, game lockups, crashes, or other technical issues, send an email to wowbctech@blizzard.com. Support is also offered via the beta forum at http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com.
Billing & Account Services
For problems with upgrading a retail account to a beta test account, password problems, or issues related to your account-upgrade key, please email our Billing & Account Services department at wowbcbilling@blizzard.com.
In-Game Support
If you have any type of in-game difficulty, such as getting stuck in terrain or problems retrieving a corpse, petition our game masters. You may do so in game by clicking the red question mark icon located in the center of the action bar at the bottom of the screen.
Why doesn't my password change immediately?
Account updates are done during hardware maintenance on Mondays between 12pm and 4pm PDT.
Please note that account updates include password changes, so if you change your retail password, it won't be updated for the beta test realms until after the next account update takes place. This means that if you update your retail password, you should continue using your "old" password to access the beta test realms until the weekly hardware maintenance has occurred.
Important! During the update time, you will be unable to log in to the beta test realms. Accounts that are already online should not be affected.
How many characters can I copy to the beta test realms?
You may copy 4 characters to the test realms (it is possible to copy the same character more than once). Outland is only open to characters of level 55 and higher, so be careful picking which characters you want to copy.
Can I replace characters I've deleted from the beta test realms with additional characters?
Once 4 characters have been copied to the beta test realms, no more characters can be copied over, even if you delete any of the characters that you originally copied over or accidentally copy over the same character more than once.
Why do I have to rename the character that I am moving to the beta test realm?
We are requiring a character name change in order to allow those developers with known characters to remain anonymous on the test realms.
Known Installation issues
You must install this expansion beta over an installed retail version of World of Warcraft. Furthermore, the language version of the expansion beta that you install must match that of your retail World of Warcraft installation. For example, you cannot install a French version of the expansion beta over a US English version of the game.
Make sure you run the retail version of World of Warcraft at least once before you attempt to install the Burning Crusade beta.
Thank you again for your participation in the Burning Crusade beta test; we'll see you in Outland!
The important thing to remember is that a email scammer might duplicate this email exactly, but it will not be directing you towards blizzard.com or worldofwarcraft.com sites and references. And further, all beta announcements will come from Blizzard first (we'll also carry the news here as soon as we get it, and maybe even a little before if we can).
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Aichon Apr 21st 2008 9:29AM
Normally I would agree, except that we never had them down consistently, and it's not like we were the only guild filling out those raid rosters. We did 4/10 in MC once. After that, we never got more than 2/10, and even that only happened only once or twice before we stopped going to MC altogether, even though the guild existed for many months after that.
Same deal with ZG. We couldn't field a full team by ourselves, but we got about 2 bosses down consistently for months, occasionally getting lucky and doing 3 or 4. Then, we had some great progress over a couple of weeks and made it to Hakkar. Once. Never saw him again while I was in that guild, since the best we ever did after that run was beat only 1 boss.
I get where you're coming from with the use of the word casual, but I would almost term your use of it "hardcore casual", that is, beyond casual. I know it's a large segment, but I would still consider a guild that takes a stab at a dungeon and gets nowhere significant before basically giving up to be a casual guild.
Michel Apr 21st 2008 2:55AM
it's simple and there are no contradictions : blizzard will take any kind of players.
and I talked about "nihilium" to explain they will also take "hardcore" players. but also casual, and roleplayers whatever.
>3) Will all people who killed illidan get in?
>No, but will it increase your chances?
>possibly.
wrong.
not less, not more.
-
>Taxis said...
>Irregardless of spelling or mental defect,
go on, insult me.
>he has a good point. Blizzard realizes that
>there are different kind of people that
>enjoy the game,
of course I have a good point ! It was explained in the official wow forum (both american and european) so many times, and it was the same with BC. Blizzard selects people from statistics the most they can.
and still you have people telling "if you kill illidan , you have more chance" , I call that LIES. And I'll still call that LIES.
-
and my grammar ? HA ! I'm not fluent in english, it was late, and impossible to edit a comment. But, please, go on with the insults, you seem to hate mentally challenged people (ha the so common use of "retard", it's telling many things about you )
Zali Apr 21st 2008 9:27AM
I respect that you are not fluent in English. Most native English speakers aren't fluent either. Is it too much to ask that people at least begin each sentence with a capital letter?
Alex Apr 21st 2008 5:13AM
lol... i had that invite for burning crusade closed beta... but i dont know what beta was that time... i thought closed beta means something like the test realm is closed and live bc is coming soon... i still have that email in my inbox... dam
Elmo Apr 21st 2008 5:37AM
The hardest boss I killed pre-BC was General Drakkisath in UBRS.
yet I got a Beta-invite so I'm quite sure your PvE succes is not a guarantee to get one. it's quite a random thing.
tommtomm Apr 21st 2008 9:31AM
Here is a possible idea for a follow up article. "Do you really want to be in Beta?"
+ Your bored and would love to get to new content
+ You get that celebrity thing as all your guildies and friends are jealous and constantly waiting on your every tidbit of dropped info
- Bugs. You are in beta to find bugs, so there will be a decent number of frustrating times when your game play is messed up because of unforeseen problems.
- You will not be leveling with your guildies. This is a really nice part of the game as you get to help each other out and just BS about all the cool stuff you are experiencing.
- Every instance you try out will be a pug :(
- Once the patch goes active, you’re going to have to re-level those same toons all over again. (This is an assumption of mine, I wasn’t in TBC beta, so I'm not sure if Blizz allowed people in beta to keep their levels. Since you are copying a character over, I assume they didn't) I know some of you love to level toons, but I'm one of the ones that is totally bored with leveling after getting 3 toons up to level cap. I would hate to think about doing this 6 times.
I know the answer for my self. The dropped bits of info, the ability to level at the same time as my guildies, and the anxiety from the forced waiting, will make the game all the more enjoyable if I wait for the general release of the game. I for one will be turning down a beta opportunity if offered.
Michel Apr 21st 2008 9:43AM
@Zali : Why me ?
Cilia Apr 21st 2008 1:49PM
Well the theme for those who got the keys for TBC that remember and know, was that they all seemed to be quiting just as they got the key.
So think of it as a big lottery, everybody has the same chance pretty much.
Joshiepoo Apr 21st 2008 1:13PM
You do realize Blizzard has not announced any sort of "open beta" right?
Davie Apr 21st 2008 2:43PM
There is nothing YOU can do at this point to get an invite other than having an account. If WotLK beta is like TBC beta then addon writers should get invites. So if you know an addon writer make them love you.
themadchemist Apr 21st 2008 3:35PM
maybe i am the only one but if I got an invitation I don't think I would take it. I kind of like only getting little hints and tastes of what is going on through the different blogs on the internet. I would also like for all of it to be new and exciting when I buy the expansion. I did the beta for Hellgate: london and it kind of ruined the experience when I finally bought the game.
Michel Apr 21st 2008 5:19PM
@tommtomm
> I wasn’t in TBC beta, so I'm not sure if
>Blizz allowed people in beta to keep their
>levels.
no, blizzard didn't allow people to keep their betas characters.
you could copy your live character to the beta server, but when the beta was ended, your character on the beta server was lost.
Gamer May 27th 2008 9:13PM
Last time for Beta testing in BC, they asked us in my server to take a picture with all the guild, near someone famous, we took a picture all together with our fishing poles around that guy near Onyxia's cave, cool picture btw, and got 50 Beta keys. That's how it worked last time. But they only chose 3 guilds to do that. So i think all the guilds who bothered to do that, sent their pictures, and 3 of the guilds in our server, got each of them 50 Beta keys.