WoW Open Beta

[Juntei]

I'm sick to death of trying to sign up for the WoW open beta.
I hate that they are relying on Fileplanet to distribute the keys.
I hate that Fileplanet can't handle the load.
I hate that there are a "very limited number" of open beta spots.. seriously how can it be an open beta when it's not open to all? WTF!?!?

Thanks

[Lokust]

while I agree on the terminology aspect, they can't really be expected to provide unlimited servers for the unwashed masses.

[mouselock]

I hate that I can get all the way through the process only to get some unspecified "error" prompt which doesn't tell me what the error is.

I think the error is: "You haven't paid us money for the goddamn privelege of joining in a supposedly 'open' beta, you parasitic leech!"

But it's hard to tell, I'm just parsing that from the error URL.

On the plus side, Blizzard, I'd like to salute you for the PR coup of offloading the onus of setting up the open beta to another firm, since you can't handle the traffic, only to have that firm not be able to handle the traffic.

(Yeah, I know, so many people want in the beta that they're actually rising from the dead to apply. Nevertheless, you'd think they might have anticipated this and dealt with it somehow.)

[Juntei]

But if you know that you're gonna be hammered at a speficic time for a specific reason, then should not steps be taken to make such a process go off smoothly? From my perspective this reflects poorly on both Blizzard and Fileplanet.

[Juntei]

On the plus side, Blizzard, I'd like to salute you for the PR coup of offloading the onus of setting up the open beta to another firm, since you can't handle the traffic, only to have that firm not be able to handle the traffic.


Ain't this the truth... the main site was down for about an hour and the forums are constantly too busy. I wouldn't think that this would be acceptable at this stage of the developement cycle. Isn't now when you are needing all your pieces in place?

[mouselock]

On the plus side, Blizzard, I'd like to salute you for the PR coup of offloading the onus of setting up the open beta to another firm, since you can't handle the traffic, only to have that firm not be able to handle the traffic.


Ain't this the truth... the main site was down for about an hour and the forums are constantly too busy. I wouldn't think that this would be acceptable at this stage of the developement cycle. Isn't now when you are needing all your pieces in place?

If it were any game but an MMO, I'd imagine so.

However, it's not. Rabid MMO players will continue to line up and get reamed by companies not bothering to get things right on time, because people are willing to put up with massive amounts of shit to be the first.

Me? The more I see people unable to meet initial demand in an MMO, the more I think about how much EQ sucked whenever a new expansion/patch/feature would occur, and how much I hated the feeling of essentially rolling a die to see if I'd get to play a game I paid for, monthly, to play. I want to try the WoW beta to see if I can handle the gameplay enough to buy the product so I can play with friends. If I can't get into the beta I'll probably give it a pass. The longer I do so, the less compelling it is for me to want to go out and sign up to join friends. I figure eventually once people get burned out on the gameplay of these things and the desire to be first, more customers will feel my way than "Well, it sucked that everything was so shitty before, but I'm playing now and almost level 7 so it's okay."

At least I hope so. If not I suppose they deserve the treatment they get. :)

[dwinn]

Well, Fileplanet says they're all out of beta keys now, open or otherwise.
Ah well.

[Juntei]

omfg! That is so freaking lame! Blizzard really dropping the ball today :(

[DrDel]

calling it an open beta is very stupid


Blizzard loses a point or three with the gamerz.

[malphigian]

It's definitely lame and calling this an open beta is downright silly, but I really don't see how anyone is getting "reamed" here.

It's a really frightening prospect to imagine hundreds of thousands of people descending on your web servers and furiously reloading all in the same few minutes. While it's certainly makes sense to spend the thousands of dollars and many hours necessary to configure many additional web servers (then, of course, getting rid of them a couple days later), I can see why the wouldn't.

And it's got very little to do with the condition of the game servers themselves. which seem to be holding up really well in the stress test.

Not saying it's not lame, just saying I don't see this as some kind of sign of huge incompetance or anything.

Also, worth mentioning there are supposedly going to be keys on the official site... maybe those will be unlimited.

[mouselock]

calling it an open beta is very stupid


Blizzard loses a point or three with the gamerz.

The gamers don't care. MMOs are still a license to print money at this point, especially if they're high profile.

It'll take a high profile MMO coming out and being complete and utter shit (and I predict one will, because the publishers are going to continue to try to pull rabbits out of hats as long as they can) before the bubble bursts. I'd guess for that to happen at the T+3.5 year mark or so.

[mouselock]

Also, worth mentioning there are supposedly going to be keys on the official site... maybe those will be unlimited.

Official site died as soon as Fileplanet posted there were no keys left there. ;)

[HRose]

Noobs again.

Not only it's a closed beta. But they also underlined the fact that is limited. Forcing the players to refresh as fast as they can.

Basically thay planned their death.

Noobs.

[Andrew Mayer]

It was frustrating getting to the "human test" only to be dumped into an error screen, multiple times.

This doesn't bode well for launch, but we'll see.

[HRose]

The World of Warcraft and Open Beta Account Creation sites are temporarily down. We are experiencing technical difficulties on our end and are working diligently to restore service to this site. We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. We do not currently have an estimated time for when the World of Warcraft Web site will be back up, but we are working extremely hard to solve these technical difficulties as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
N - O - O - B - S
Who could expect that "limited accounts" + "open beta" would have caused this? Come on, who?

[Andrew Mayer]

The main site is closed now. They were crushed.

[SlyFrog]

The World of Warcraft and Open Beta Account Creation sites are temporarily down. We are experiencing technical difficulties on our end and are working diligently to restore service to this site. We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. We do not currently have an estimated time for when the World of Warcraft Web site will be back up, but we are working extremely hard to solve these technical difficulties as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
N - O - O - B - S
Who could expect that "limited accounts" + "open beta" would have caused this? Come on, who?

Good god. Did Blizzard kill your dad or something? I think I've seen about 10 posts from you today alone, and each one simply bitches about what they've done wrong, what they are doing wrong, and what they assuredly will do wrong.

[Aephir]

This is weird, I just wandered over to Fileplanet, signed up and got in. No hiccups, no problems, got my key and am downloading the client as I type this.

[walTer]

Well this doesn't bode well for the game-- christ, they ran out of FP (stupid FP) beta keys in what appeard to me in minutes, then their site crashed and they shut down the server that handles account creation.

All this to get into a 2 week beta...gee I wonder how well the actual game is gonna run when it launches in a couple of weeks...

and I am bummed cause I missed the closed beta and really want to give this one a go...

[Lum]

To be honest, MMO launches are fairly unique.

Thanks to in part poor design decisions which up till now have been fairly universal (time is advancement, and monster availability is a finite resource which gates advancement, thus encouraging smart users to play as much as possible at launch to get ahead of the curve) and simple human nature (be the first to see the shiny!) the hardware and bandwidth requirements for an MMO's first week or so dwarf its usual requirements. Most MMOs have a small subset of their users on at any given time. At launch, they are ALL on, or wanting to be. And anything else you have that can be a bottleneck is - account management, billing verification, etc. etc. etc.

MMO companies are discovering ways around this. Mythic trickled out DAoC in a limited fashion - it was hard to find the box in some places the first couple of weeks, but we also knew we could handle the boxes that were out there. City of Heroes allowed their early adopters (the beta testers) to get in a few days early thus helping to spread out the load. It didn't hurt that those early adopters were known fans and thus willing to tolerate a bit of instability the first day.

Given how popular and how eagerly awaited WoW is, I don't think ANYONE could have done the rollout smoothly. Fileplanet has the most experience at this stuff, so pointing the finger and laughing means *no one* could have handled it, most likely.

Still, surviving the launch of an MMO is definitely a unique experience, and I'm proud to be part of the few, the proud, the certifiable. And hey, the boss only had to peel me off the ceiling once!

[KiloOhm]

Well this doesn't bode well for the game-- christ, they ran out of FP (stupid FP) beta keys in what appeard to me in minutes, then their site crashed and they shut down the server that handles account creation.

All this to get into a 2 week beta...gee I wonder how well the actual game is gonna run when it launches in a couple of weeks...

and I am bummed cause I missed the closed beta and really want to give this one a go...

I'm bummed also, I haven't tried a MMORPG in a while (tried EQ for a few months a few years ago). Now that I have a DSL line, I'm curious to trya new one. I was hoping to get into the open Beta to see if I should bother buying the game, now I'll just wait and see in a few months I guess...

It would be nice instead of having a 2 week beta if they broke it up into 3-4 Trials since there is no "demo".

[malphigian]

Well this doesn't bode well for the game-- christ, they ran out of FP (stupid FP) beta keys in what appeard to me in minutes, then their site crashed and they shut down the server that handles account creation.

All this to get into a 2 week beta...gee I wonder how well the actual game is gonna run when it launches in a couple of weeks...

Once again, the stress test servers have been way overloaded with players, and have performed great.

There is very little correlation between their web servers and the game servers. I'd be willing to bet they have entirely different technical staffs running them, and judging by the fact they made a sudden change from .NET to J2EE a week back, I'd guess things are a little crazy with their web tech team.

Not that any of that excuses this stuff, but I wouldn't take any of it as an omen for how the game is going to perform retail.

Also worth mentioning that retail is bound to have fewer users than a free beta.

[walTer]

Then they shouldn't call it an OPEN BETA....

Call it oh, heck, "email us and we will randomly pick 15000 people and send them keys.... no key, no play".

Serves the purpose of a beta/stress test AND saves them from having to say that the overload caused their servers to bork....and thus some bad press.

[Marcin]

I'd be willing to bet they have entirely different technical staffs running them, and judging by the fact they made a sudden change from .NET to J2EE a week back, I'd guess things are a little crazy with their web tech team.


But you gotta admit that changing over the infrastructure like that a WEEK before OB is somewhat...stupid?

How do you know they did that, btw?

[malphigian]

Server errors changed from .NET ASPX to Apache JSP :).

I assume they were developing it for a while, but yeah, obviously rushed on the web site.

[HRose]

Given how popular and how eagerly awaited WoW is, I don't think ANYONE could have done the rollout smoothly.
So how Guild Wars was able to support a TRUE world and open preview to 400k of players and 140 countries with a client fully streamed from their game servers and without nearly a glitch and still months away from launch?

[Mark Asher]

Given how popular and how eagerly awaited WoW is, I don't think ANYONE could have done the rollout smoothly.
So how Guild Wars was able to support a TRUE world and open preview to 400k of players and 140 countries with a client fully streamed from their game servers and without nearly a glitch and still months away from launch?

I don't know, but the game isn't nearly as good as WoW! I'm also dubious that 400,000 players were hitting the servers at once and downloading. I'm even dubious about the 400,000 figure.

Seriously, if we all got on the phone at once and made calls, we'd overflow the telephone switches and we'd get an all circuits busy signal. It's difficult to plan for something like this since the quantity you need to plan for is unknown and your expenses to handle capacity are limited. Blizzard isn't about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to ensure a smooth launch of a beta.

[HRose]

I don't know, but the game isn't nearly as good as WoW! I'm also dubious that 400,000 players were hitting the servers at once and downloading. I'm even dubious about the 400,000 figure.
Yes, there weren't 400k at the same time because they allowed various countries and different timezones to join. While, instead, Blizzard is enforcing their servers to be local. If they are stupid don't blame me if I criticize their ideas.

On the other side. Considering this is a NA "open beta" I don't think that 400k of users are hitting fileplanet or their servers. They'll probably release their number in a week or so. I don't think there are 400k of players NA only.

It's difficult to plan for something like this since the quantity you need to plan for is unknown and your expenses to handle capacity are limited.
No, it's easy. Open a beta application a week before and leave it open for a week. Then take all the applications and divide them in groups (randomly). Then let the groups get in progressively.

This works and it was thought by me in less than 30 seconds. I'm sure that someone working full time is able to provide a way better solution.

[Chowhound]

No, it's easy. Open a beta application a week before and leave it open for a week. Then take all the applications and divide them in groups (randomly). Then let the groups get in progressively.


Uh, then that's not an Open Beta where anyone can just sign up and download...that sounds like the original Closed Beta application process.


Given how popular and how eagerly awaited WoW is, I don't think ANYONE could have done the rollout smoothly. Fileplanet has the most experience at this stuff, so pointing the finger and laughing means *no one* could have handled it, most likely.

I agree with Lum - if the influx of people crushed Fileplanet, it'll crush any other company as well.

[mouselock]

[quote]It's difficult to plan for something like this since the quantity you need to plan for is unknown and your expenses to handle capacity are limited.
No, it's easy. Open a beta application a week before and leave it open for a week. Then take all the applications and divide them in groups (randomly). Then let the groups get in progressively.

This works and it was thought by me in less than 30 seconds. I'm sure that someone working full time is able to provide a way better solution.

I have to admit, HRose has a point here. The initial (random) beta sign ups didn't cause anything near this consternation, because they didn't do first come first served. And therefore people said "Whoops, can't get in, ah well.." and came back later.

Now, the problem may be that Blizzard simply doesn't have the resources for an open beta. That's fine if it's the case, they had a large pool of non-admitted testers from the initial beta sign up, or they could have done another (non time-limited) sign up and chosen additional last minute beta testers from that pool, or, well, anything that didn't basically boil down to "Hammer a server as fast as you can and hope that you notice/get the processor cycles first."

The crappy decision making on how to distribute an open beta is actually what has me worried. Should they build the infrastructure to handle anyone who wants to playing? As much as that would be nice, I understand that it's imfeasible. However, they could have come up with a method of promoting the game that didn't basically turn into a chum-infested feeding frenzy.

Of course, that wouldn't lead to people frothing at the mouth and lining up at the stores for boxes the first day.

I understand the business decisions. I think I've just gotten cynical enough about MMOs and business decisions that it pisses me off. Then again, I could be being exceedingly harsh knowing some of the notables working on WoW, knowing how much they used to vociferously bitch and moan about when other companies made decisions that were business based rather than player-centric, and seeing them do things that seem exactly the same.

I'm in the minority though, I think, where customer service and customer care really matter to me.

[TheWombat]

I'd be more impressed with Guild Wars' technical achievement if you could prove it involved anywhere close to the amount of data you have to move to set up WoW on people's computers.

[mouselock]

No, it's easy. Open a beta application a week before and leave it open for a week. Then take all the applications and divide them in groups (randomly). Then let the groups get in progressively.


Uh, then that's not an Open Beta where anyone can just sign up and download...that sounds like the original Closed Beta application process.

It's also not an open beta if you don't have enough keys to fulfill demand and large swaths of people can't get through to apply to the beta in the first place. Which is fine, but "open beta" has a definite connotation, which isn't being born out here.

[HRose]

Uh, then that's not an Open Beta where anyone can just sign up and download...that sounds like the original Closed Beta application process.
Ah, because it's an open beta if there are a limited number of cd-keys and local restrictions?

I fail to see the logic.

[HRose]

I'd be more impressed with Guild Wars' technical achievement if you could prove it involved anywhere close to the amount of data you have to move to set up WoW on people's computers.
Considering that WoW's client download relies COMPLETELY on bittorrent?

Blizzard is expending ZERO bandwith. Guild Wars pushed a media of 300Mb to each account.

[Chowhound]

Fine, open beta for North America and the other AAA countries then. (I jest, since I know 99% of HRose's ire is because his country of choice is restricted)

I equate open beta to a demo of a game on FP or Avault or any other site, signup, download, install and play. Not waiting in stages. Had the servers not been crushed, I think that's what would have happened - the servers being crushed should have no relevance to it being an open beta or not.

[mouselock]

Fine, open beta for North America and the other AAA countries then. (I jest, since I know 99% of HRose's ire is because his country of choice is restricted)

I equate open beta to a demo of a game on FP or Avault or any other site, signup, download, install and play. Not waiting in stages. Had the servers not been crushed, I think that's what would have happened - the servers being crushed should have no relevance to it being an open beta or not.

My understanding was that it still wouldn't be "open" in that there's a max cap on how many people they're let in, which doesn't jibe with my definition of "open".

Understandable, but still a misnomer if that's true.

On a side note: signups.worldofwarcraft.com seems to be up and working, except for having no working download link for the installer. But you can always try creating an account there and waiting in line at fileplanet and downloading their client. I'm assuming that the account making step proceeds without needing to actually download the installer right then. Worth a shot if you're interested in the beta itself like I am; just in case they do indeed have a limited account space.

[HRose]

(I jest, since I know 99% of HRose's ire is because his country of choice is restricted)
Darniaq speaks for me:
The forced localization is really where your point of concern is focused. Europeans could get WoW on November 23rd like their U.S. and Australian friends. But they'd still be playing on their own unique servers sans those friends.
My ire is against a design mistake that involves everyone. Not just me. You'll see this when it will be impossible to play during off-peak times.

[HRose]

On a side note: signups.worldofwarcraft.com seems to be up and working
HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

[Chowhound]

My ire is against a design mistake that involves everyone. Not just me. You'll see this when it will be impossible to play during off-peak times.


I was playing last night/this morning till about 3am Pacific. Lots of people on and doing stuff. I'm not really sure what you mean by your quote, or how you are able to see into the future.

[mouselock]

On a side note: signups.worldofwarcraft.com seems to be up and working
HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

Well, it was up long enough for me to get to page 6 before crashing. Sorry. :/

[HRose]

I was playing last night/this morning till about 3am Pacific. Lots of people on and doing stuff. I'm not really sure what you mean by your quote, or how you are able to see into the future.
Perhaps because the beta still isn't local?

You forgot that I also was in from March. To my knowledge they still don't check credit cards addresses. When they will things will start to change.

[Gourmand]

I'd be more impressed with Guild Wars' technical achievement if you could prove it involved anywhere close to the amount of data you have to move to set up WoW on people's computers.
Considering that WoW's client download relies COMPLETELY on bittorrent?

Blizzard is expending ZERO bandwith. Guild Wars pushed a media of 300Mb to each account.

BT requires a bit more than zero bandwidth. The way bit torrent works is the website still hosts the file but the people downloading the file download from each other as well.

It offsets the bandwidth usage (by how much you don't know). Until I see numbers from blizzard on how much pipe WoW is sucking up your post is fallacious. Also, when did fileplanet start using bit torrent? That means the client does NOT rely COMPLETELY on bit torrent. TheWombat still has a cogent question there.

I posted a critique of your general post and response style in one of the other WoW threads Hrose. I'm not saying you should totally accept it. I just hope you at least reflect on it before you pontificate any further.

[HRose]

BT requires a bit more than zero bandwidth. The way bit torrent works is the website still hosts the file but the people downloading the file download from each other as well.
If you know the protocol you also know that the bandwidth required is minimal. With a huge demand like in this case the % is really near to zero.

It offsets the bandwidth usage (by how much you don't know). Until I see numbers from blizzard on how much pipe WoW is sucking up your post is fallacious. Also, when did fileplanet start using bit torrent? That means the client does NOT rely COMPLETELY on bit torrent. TheWombat still has a cogent question there.
Fileplanet is another issue. I didn't complain about fileplanet dying. I was complaing about Blizzard's site dying.

Focus on what I say: I'm not pointing a problem with bandwidth. I believe that it is INSANE to push out a limited number of keys + having your site going down + forcing the players to spam and remain in front of the screen to get their spot.

[TheWombat]

Blizzard is expending ZERO bandwith. Guild Wars pushed a media of 300Mb to each account.

WoW client is close to 3 gig. 2.5 gig for sure. No wonder it clogs things But I suspect the real bottleneck is the login/registration server/system. That's tough for ANYONE to handle, as Lum noted. Hasn't changed much since UO day one.

[Mark Asher]

HRose, you know as well as I that the retail game is not going to be distributed over the Internet. This is beta and Blizzard is looking for a cost-effective way to distribute the beta version. That's all this is.

Does it take longer to download 2.5 gigs than I'd like? Yes. But so what? I can't really expect Blizzard to worry about how long it takes me to download their beta software that I get to play for free.

As to the open beta, Blizzard made a mistake in promising that. It would have been better to have simply promised an expanded beta right before the retail launch. There's no way Blizzard can make sure that everyone gets in. There might be a million people who want to play.

As to Guild Wars, I don't care how good their delivery system is. I don't play delivery systems, I play games. I hope Guild Wars is a great game but the beta didn't really grab me.

[jafd]

I suspect the primary reason why the blizzard downloader is so frightfully "inefficient" is because it pretty much guarantees that all the clients using it will upload at least as much data as they download.

One of the problems with BT is that if people quit their client as soon as they have the full file, the distribution never gets anywhere.

I used a real torrent client to get the 2.5gb installer, and I was pulling down 400kB/s within 20 minutes and got the whole thing in four hours. That's "efficient" for me, of course, but not so "efficient" for Blizzard's goal of getting the data out as widely as possible.

I would prefer to believe that they nefariously chose to make their BT implementation as exploitative of people's upload as possible, rather than were so stupid as to just max everyone's bandwidth out accidentally.

[mouselock]

It offsets the bandwidth usage (by how much you don't know). Until I see numbers from blizzard on how much pipe WoW is sucking up your post is fallacious. Also, when did fileplanet start using bit torrent? That means the client does NOT rely COMPLETELY on bit torrent. TheWombat still has a cogent question there.

FP also isn't leeching Blizzard's bandwidth. That's why they use FP.

As for the BT, right now I'm pulling down at 50ish K/sec and pushing up at 40ish K/sec, so there's not a whole lot of bandwidth differential there. (Note that this isn't synced with my actual data rates, I should top out downstream at 125K/sec or so, so there's nothing out there backing up the download for me.)

[mouselock]

I would prefer to believe that they nefariously chose to make their BT implementation as exploitative of people's upload as possible, rather than were so stupid as to just max everyone's bandwidth out accidentally.

I'd prefer they use my bandwidth well while it was up, but allow me to saturate download and back up the bandwidth behind me. It would still mitigate their bandwidth issues without basically capping me to my upload speed. Thank god I seem to have gotten my DSL stealth-upgraded to 40K/sec up, since I only signed up for 16K/sec or so initially (because, you know, I don't normally run a server).

[Gourmand]

Well, that's partially my bad then. I read your response to TheWombat's post about guildwars only having the meager duty of supplying a 300MB client compared to the hefty 2.5 GB client as a direct client distribution comparison.

I've heard lots of gripes about the laggyness (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14552&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30) of GuildWars distribution also, so it might not be the ultimate solution either.

On the website thing, first I think you have to wait to compare concrete numbers before declaring a winner (like Mark Asher said). Part of the beta process is testing the login system as well. Is Blizzard able to allow groups to get in "progressively" on the retail release?

[HRose]

The issue was about WoW signup server. Just that. The bittorrent download has been always active without an hitch.

I wrote in one line a working, possible solution to avoid all that happened so I don't agree with Lum that it was something unavoidable. Lum also confuses Fileplanet with Blizzard, where I criticized just Blizzard's signup server.

Now the server seems to work. So they fixed this part. For me it remains something stupid that didn't fall from the sky and should have been addressed.

Anyway. I signed up with my name and address. From Italy. And I have an account. So, or they forgot to add a check or they choosed not to block other countries. I won't play anyway since I cannot afford to download a whole client again, but at least I can post on the forums if I need to.

[Ranulf]

I suspect the primary reason why the blizzard downloader is so frightfully "inefficient" is because it pretty much guarantees that all the clients using it will upload at least as much data as they download.

One of the problems with BT is that if people quit their client as soon as they have the full file, the distribution never gets anywhere.

I used a real torrent client to get the 2.5gb installer, and I was pulling down 400kB/s within 20 minutes and got the whole thing in four hours. That's "efficient" for me, of course, but not so "efficient" for Blizzard's goal of getting the data out as widely as possible.

I would prefer to believe that they nefariously chose to make their BT implementation as exploitative of people's upload as possible, rather than were so stupid as to just max everyone's bandwidth out accidentally.

Where can one get this wonderful real torrent file instead of blizzards lame arsed version that has no bandwidth cap. I'd like to be able to surf the web or check email while downloading..

[Gourmand]

The issue was about WoW signup server. Just that. The bittorrent download has been always active without an hitch.

I wrote in one line a working, possible solution to avoid all that happened so I don't agree with Lum that it was something unavoidable. Lum also confuses Fileplanet with Blizzard, where I criticized just Blizzard's signup server.

Now the server seems to work. So they fixed this part. For me it remains something stupid that didn't fall from the sky and should have been addressed.

Anyway. I signed up with my name and address. From Italy. And I have an account. So, or they forgot to add a check or they choosed not to block other countries. I won't play anyway since I cannot afford to download a whole client again, but at least I can post on the forums if I need to.

You're right. I actually didn't comprehend you were distinguishing between the actual distribution method of the client. I thought I communicated my missing that by saying that it was partially my fault for missing it in the previous post. Maybe I wasn't clear.

Is the one line method you suggested the progressive distribution method? If so, how is blizzard going to do a progressive registration on retail release? Noting that, the open beta presumabley is testing their system for registration just the same as it tests the game itself.

[HRose]

Where can one get this wonderful real torrent file instead of blizzards lame arsed version that has no bandwidth cap. I'd like to be able to surf the web or check email while downloading..
On my site. The news with the .torrent file should be near the top.
(just updated it)

[Lum]

Well, my point is that no matter who is handing out WoW CD-keys - Fileplanet or Blizzard - SOMEONE is going to be overwhelmed. It's a point of failure. If you have half a million people trying to get a CD key at once, no web site on the planet would be able to handle that. The database handing out keys will choke, and the web site relying on the database to return keys will fail, and the entire system will start to collapse (whether elegantly or messily depends on how many failover servers are still running).

This isn't easy stuff. And I guarantee you, a large part of this is testing Blizzard's key authentication schemes, so that they know what part of the system is being destroyed for whenever how many thousands of boxes are being processed through the retail channel on launch day.

[HRose]

Is the one line method you suggested the progressive distribution method? If so, how is blizzard going to do a progressive registration on retail release? Noting that, the open beta presumabley is testing their system for registration just the same as it tests the game itself.
That's true. But at release you still won't get 400k *all at once*.

[HRose]

Well, my point is that no matter who is handing out WoW CD-keys - Fileplanet or Blizzard - SOMEONE is going to be overwhelmed. It's a point of failure. If you have half a million people trying to get a CD key at once, no web site on the planet would be able to handle that. The database handing out keys will choke, and the web site relying on the database to return keys will fail, and the entire system will start to collapse (whether elegantly or messily depends on how many failover servers are still running).

This isn't easy stuff. And I guarantee you, a large part of this is testing Blizzard's key authentication schemes, so that they know what part of the system is being destroyed for whenever how many thousands of boxes are being processed through the retail channel on launch day.
Okay, I explained how you could avoid that now. If the problem is to test the account servers at release it's another issue.

It's about SEARCHING to break stuff. If this is the case I was wrong.

[Kunikos]

You know, Yahoo! and MSN and other portals get way more than 500,000 uniques in an hour. They distribute it across many different servers with different pipes to the internet, all silently behind the scenes. Really, if you want to do it right that is the way to do it. Point is that Blizzard isn't making any money off this. If they had been smart, they could have put up a banner ads for other titles from their publisher and gotten paid money per unique visit, and then had a way to pay for the server system and delivery of keys.

Pie in the sky. They obviously didn't think it through very far.

[Ranulf]

Where can one get this wonderful real torrent file instead of blizzards lame arsed version that has no bandwidth cap. I'd like to be able to surf the web or check email while downloading..
On my site. The news with the .torrent file should be near the top.
(just updated it)

Much thanks.

[Lum]

You know, Yahoo! and MSN and other portals get way more than 500,000 uniques in an hour. They distribute it across many different servers with different pipes to the internet, all silently behind the scenes. Really, if you want to do it right that is the way to do it.

Yep. The question then becomes, do you invest in that much hardware (and internet portals that serve that many uniques require a LOT of hardware, not to mention the database requirements for doing things like authentication and billing) for a load condition that will exist for, maybe, a week?

If you answer "YES, BECAUSE I AM A CUSTOMER AND I DEMAND SATISFACTION!!!", (a) ease off the caps lock and (b) that's a very easy stand to make when you're not actually justifying a cost-benefit ratio.

[Gryndyl]

Where can one get this wonderful real torrent file instead of blizzards lame arsed version that has no bandwidth cap. I'd like to be able to surf the web or check email while downloading..
On my site. The news with the .torrent file should be near the top.
(just updated it)

Bad data from tracker :(

[stusser]

Don't be silly, of course there are sites that can handle half a million people running a database backed CGI to generate cd-keys in a day. In fact, there are sites that can handle that traffic in 5 minutes. That's what akamai is for. You pay akamai to host your shit, and if demand spikes WAY up, they can deal. In fact they'd be happy to guaranete it with a five nine SLA.

Of course this is a beta test which obviously doesn't generate revenue, so you can hardly blame them for not doing that.

[Ranulf]

Where can one get this wonderful real torrent file instead of blizzards lame arsed version that has no bandwidth cap. I'd like to be able to surf the web or check email while downloading..
On my site. The news with the .torrent file should be near the top.
(just updated it)

Bad data from tracker :(

I got that too, and torrentspy couldn't contact the tracker for info either but the torrent works fine for me now. Probably end up taking 3 hours total to get 2.5gb

[HRose]

That's probably how Blizzard torrent work. I noticed that error but every other .torrent you find around has it as well.

But it still works, so not an issue.

[McBain]

I suspect the primary reason why the blizzard downloader is so frightfully "inefficient" is because it pretty much guarantees that all the clients using it will upload at least as much data as they download.

I patched via the Blizzard Client and pulled down about 3-4x what I uploaded.

Shrugs.

[mlatin]

This isn't easy stuff. And I guarantee you, a large part of this is testing Blizzard's key authentication schemes, so that they know what part of the system is being destroyed for whenever how many thousands of boxes are being processed through the retail channel on launch day.
i normally would probably agree with you- and i definately do to a great extent, given that currently a majority of the people out there playing WoW have a key from one of the betas- but, with this signup via their (blizzard's) website, the key they are telling people to use is "BLIZRD-BETA-ONLINE-OPEN-PUBLIC". they are, however, giving their signup server a hell of a workout (cough, if you can get to it).

[DeepT]

Noobs again.

Not only it's a closed beta. But they also underlined the fact that is limited. Forcing the players to refresh as fast as they can.

Basically thay planned their death.

Noobs.

Your bitching all over the forums on the net HRose. What exactly did blizzard do to piss you off?

[HRose]

Your bitching all over the forums on the net HRose. What exactly did blizzard do to piss you off?
The fact that I write on various forums and often is not because of Blizzard, it's because of HRose.