Posts with tag test realms

The public test realms opened late Friday, and despite stability issues, are officially online.  With lots of interesting changes, are you interested in checking them out?  Perhaps exploring the new Naxxramas dungeon with a pick up group, or just enjoying playing a pre-made and pre-geared level 60 character.  So let us know - will we be seeing you on the test realm?

When Blackwing Lair was released, way back in patch 1.6, it was ridden with bugs.  In order to keep the content top secret and preserve fair competition between guilds seeking world firsts on the live realms, it was never released on the public test realms - and its lack of polish showed.  For Ahn'Qiraj, Blizzard took the alternate approach, releasing it on the public test realms for all to try.  Tigole has already announced plans for an "extended test period" of Naxxramas, but some question whether having the instance available for testing ruins the race for world firsts.   What do you think - does testing make enough of a difference to be worth spoiling the surprises?

Now that we're familiar with the test realm contests, that Beta spot looks oh-so-inviting, but which contest to enter? If any? Having briefly popped on to the Honor Contest EU realm yesterday, it seems that many players are pinning their hopes on PvP, labelling the race to 50 as "only for gold farmers" and the level 25 alts competition as "a waste of time".

Whether this attitude is fair is another matter, but there's certainly been a lot of confusion over the contests so far. Many players arrived on the Honor Contest realm looking for their level 60 characters, so often that players in Mulgore made macros to clear things up in chat. The feeling is definitely one of "every man for himself", with newbies who ask "which is the best class for pvp?" or "what's the fastest way to level?" often going unanswered.

It strikes me what a tremendous amount of time these gamers are going to have to put in to win the contest--but it certainly looks achievable, and that time would probably be spent playing WoW anyway. Are you planning to enter a contest? If so, which one?