As you might guess, the World of Warcraft’s public channel is clogged with useless spam:
Q: Where is QuestMob_04?
A: In your questlog, FOR THE LAST GODDAMN TIME, CHECK YOUR LOG FIRST!
Q: When did you log on, SoandSo, hi!
A: Hi to you, SomeOtherSoandSo! About 10 minutes ago, I just got home from … (zzzzzzzzz, isn’t there private chatting available? Yes, yes there is.)
Q: Is WoW the best game ever? I sure think it is! *insert paragraphs of reasons why this is the best game ever in the last year*
A: Yes! Yes, it is!
One particular conversation sent me back a few years ago, however. The spammer was bitching about how horrible and GAME-BREAKING the WoW Beta was, and others piled on with their own prior beta experiences.
I, myself, have played in a few betas. Pitifully few — I’m not much of a sign-up guy, and the few times I have signed up, I’ve been chosen to participate, maybe, three times. (assholes)
But I do remember one beta that was smoother than 12 year old Scotch. By way of comparison, I’d classify WoW so far as very similar to homemade bourbon, but I’ll see how the live goes. I can be very tolerant when something is free. (If you know what I mean, and I think you do.)
Back to the Scotch … a group of my old-timer e-friends were playing EQ, discussing The Next Big Thing on the horizon: Dark Age of Camelot. Since we all had played one of Mythic’s previous titles, Rolemaster: Magestorm, (and what a juggernaut that was … for mid ’90s, IT WAS JUGGERNAUT!), one of the e-friends said he would talk to his Mythic contact (wtf, he had a Mythic contact?) and see if we could get into the Camelot beta.
True to his word, he talked to his contact (wtf, he had a Mythic contact?), and we all got spots in the Camelot beta. As an aside, this guy and several of my old MS guildmates still play Camelot to this day. When they said they were shaking the Norrathian dust off of their boots, they weren’t kidding.
Time has dulled my memory and maybe DAoC didn’t do a stress test per se and there certainly weren’t as many MMOGers back then as there are today, but that beta never denied me access due to server slog. I never sat in a queue waiting to logon. I didn’t hear any rumors about Mythic stepping down server performance to test the limits of their databases.
I’m not saying Blizzard isn’t doing it right. I’m just saying DA0C, as a beta, didn’t slog.
Ok, I’m also saying I smell bullshit right now. But we will see! O yes, we most definitely will see!