WoW Open Beta Started

[Jamiko]

The Blizzard beta signup is working now, at least it is for me and my brother. Give it a try, reload a few times.

[Murgos]

I got a key and was waiting in line with the fileplanet downloader but it aborted with a network error and now every server I try to connect to gives me a network error instantly when I try to connect. Are others having that problem?

I thought I was being clever and going with the flow so when I went to dl the client I switched to IE, which I never use anymore, because I know that have that silly client for administering the queue and got that same error.  On someones advice I switched back to firefox and got through right away and was DL'ing in seconds.  1 Gig down, 1 to go.

[Alkiera]

Got the blizard downloader thingie from worldofwarcraft.com...

It finally gave me an esitmate of 18 hours to send me 2.5 gigs.

The EQ2 patcher downloaded 4 gigs in about 5 hours... and predicted it would do so within the first couple minutes or so.

*blink*  Bit Torrent is great for P2P filesharing.  It is not great as a primary means to download stuff, especially when you force use of a crappy in-house BT client.

Alkiera
Still need a key before I can do anything.  Blah.

[Murgos]

Bah, I got up to 2.1 gigs and then my router crashed.  Had to start it all over again.

[HaemishM]

I got a key and was waiting in line with the fileplanet downloader but it aborted with a network error and now every server I try to connect to gives me a network error instantly when I try to connect. Are others having that problem?

I thought I was being clever and going with the flow so when I went to dl the client I switched to IE, which I never use anymore, because I know that have that silly client for administering the queue and got that same error.  On someones advice I switched back to firefox and got through right away and was DL'ing in seconds.  1 Gig down, 1 to go.

Yet another reason to fucking hate Fileplanet. I will have much ranting to do in the morning.

[Trippy]

Signups on Blizzard's site was up briefly but seems to be down again. I managed to get an account created at around 8:30 PM Pacific Time.

[sidereal]

Hey, they are torrenting.  Ignore my previous rant.  But now I can rant about the fact that I'm giving 32KB/s up and only getting 10KB/s down.  You leeching bastards!

[SurfD]

does anyone know where i might be able to find JUST the torrent info?  The Blizzard torrent client SUCKS ASS.

Supposedly, if you can find the announce info, you can use pretty much any client you want, but i will be damned it i can find any announce url that actually works in another client.

[Morfiend]

There are more account keys on www.worldofwarcraft.com right now. Go get one (or three).

[Phred]

I used firefox and skipped to the front of the line as well. Firefox's inability to handle activex controls seems like a big win on fileplanet, where the non-activex pages seem to be poorly written and bypass the delays. Still downloading at 50k/sec so I guess I'll have it by morning. You can also get the torrent downloader from the https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com link and I've noticed the signup form has been up and down like a whore's drawers all night. I managed to register there as well as getting my fileplanet key but then the site started timing out when I tried to register a friend an account and I couldn't get the pages to reload when I tried. Poor Blizzard's web server must be near meltdown tonight.

[Big Gulp]

does anyone know where i might be able to find JUST the torrent info?  The Blizzard torrent client SUCKS ASS.

Suprnova's got a torrent up.  That's what I'm using, screw Blizzard's client.

[AOFanboi]

In case anyone cares, the open beta seems to accept players from outside the U.S. - at least it let me register and start downloading.

(This post has been a sneaky attempt at getting more people to add to the bittorrent suppliers, so that my download speed can grow larger than my upload speed.)

[sidereal]

Semi-obscure technical note.  The Blizzard torrent client doesn't support rate-limiting, so if you have asymmetric bandwidth allowance (and who doesn't) your upstream is going to get saturated, preventing the ACK packets on your downloads from pushing through, effectively limiting your downstream rate to your upstream rate.  I found having a 128Kb down connection vs the 1Mb down I pay for really sucked and it was scheduled for a 13 hour download.  You can download a trial/free version of Netlimiter to throttle the upload and clear up space for ACKs.  After I did that, it took 3 hours.

[Big Gulp]

(This post has been a sneaky attempt at getting more people to add to the bittorrent suppliers, so that my download speed can grow larger than my upload speed.)

Actually, just having come back to the apartment I see that the Suprnova torrent is sucking ass too.  I went to FilePlanet, sucked it up on the wait time, and now I'm getting around 350KB/sec.  I'd advise going this route, because even with the slightly faster Nova torrent it was still going to take over a day.

[Signe]

I was reading the boards that must never be named and it seems there is much confusion about torrents.  No one cooperates, no one shares.  They don't know what a port is and  they all seem terrified that they will be 'hacked'.  It's all very amusing... though ever so slightly sad.  One nice fellow has even accused Blizzard of keylogging or something.  

Funny how even 11 year olds can figure all this out when they want to 'liberate' some music...

[HaemishM]

Jesus Fucking Christ Jumped Up On A Stick.

I have much hate. First off, Fileplanet and Blizzard? Fire your fucking web admin teams, as well as the marketing guys behind both those web sites. You are fucking idiots of the highest order, Clueless Armatis. You are fighting a thermonuclear war with fucking plastic sporks from KFC. You have already seen the traffic deluges that come with giving out WoW beta keys, stress tests, etc. Apparently, YOU LEARNED NOTHING. Bandwidth ain't cheap, but it IS easy to get, if you just try. There is no fucking reason for such a significant meltdown. Open beta should be considered the most important marketing opportunity pre-release that will ever exist. It isn't a test, it's a free demo; don't try to pretend otherwise. To not have adequate capacity from EITHER site is an unforgiveable sin. It isn't like this whole thing was in a vaccum. If you didn't realize your bandwidth was inadequate after the stress test, what makes you think you'll be able to handle all the simo-web logins of the release consumers trying to register?

Secondly, Fileplanet, you are the devil's bollocks. Fuck you in your stupid asses. You want me to pay X amount of dollars for no-wait downloads, yet you can't even manage to keep your web servers running to take signups? Yeah, I have confidence in that. Why would I pay for this when almost everything you offer is offered somewhere else for free AND I don't have to deal with your ads or spam?

Third, your marketing guys missed a HUGE opportunity. Sell ad banners on your errors pages. The page views alone on the number of fucking error pages would have been some decent change. You missed the boat.

Blizzard, your BT client is abysmal. You've known this the entire beta. I have yet to hear one person say a good thing about it. Yet still, I see no alternative being offered by Blizzard 2 weeks before release. Which means IF (big if) they do release with such a method, it will be likely largely untested. When consumers have to patch on release day (AND THEY WILL), it will be a shit storm of stupidity. Why is it I can grab a torrent of the open beta client and get 80 kb/s when the best you can give me is 30 kb/s? Oh yeah, because your client sucks. There are only about 3 billion BT clients available you could have stolen the net limiting idea from, and this is the best you can do? Why would I want to spend money with you again?

Open beta is a marketing opportunity. Let me say that again. It is a marketing opportunity. Causing this much consternation for someone to get a free demo will equal lost sales. I'm sure it won't matter in the end, since you'll be dancing in your hats made of money with the 200k subscriptions I expect you to get. But whatever.

[Ardent]

((hands Haemish a Valium and a Nutter Butter))

I hope those help, friend.

[SurfD]

heh, just decided to install netlimiter and leave the Blizzard client running while i sleapt.  Grabbed the entire thing in about 9 hours, which is still shit, but better then the day and a half it was predicting while it flooded my upload :(

Now, i have to ask the question: Who the fuck designed their installer?!  Either I am doing something wrong, or this piece of shit is the slowest fucker on earth.  It has litterally taken the installer more then 15 minutes to copy files, and it is STILL only about 2/3 of the way done!??!  Its on my fucking HARDDRIVE for christ sake, why is it taking so long.

[Signe]

Lovely rant, Haemish.  You never disappoint.

[MrHat]

God Damn Haemish.  Nice going.

Fuck me I want some popcorn chicken.

[Big Gulp]

Its on my fucking HARDDRIVE for christ sake, why is it taking so long.

You're telling me.  I've done network installs of heftier software than this that didn't take this long.

[Margalis]

At many points my upload speed has been higher than my DL speed, on DSL. That's just nonsense.

[Fargull]

Hmm...

Noticed the upload and download both seemed capped at 4-6K per connection... with a maximum of what appears to be 25 connections total in the box.  So.. if you happen to get 25 arseholes that have no desire to share the file and only download, then you get screwed.

I started downloading last night at 9 and it should be done in another couple of hours according to the time stamp from the am.. which I am adding a couple of hours too.

If this keeps up at release (as in a patch is a full client download) then that little ditty will kill any investment I wish to make with the game.  I can see them pushing a 100mb patch out that way though.

Nice rant Haemish!

[Bloodrage]

Just wanted to say that I managed to create an account from work this morning at the Blizzard site, and judging by the comments here, it looks like I can look forward to waiting at least another day for the client to download.

Oh well, one more day to work this week for me.

[stray]

I started around 6:00 AM, and it's 3:00 PM now. 10% complete. I'm not a hurry or something, but that's just weak.

[Evil Elvis]

If you're using the blizzard downloader, I highly recommend getting Net Limiter, or something similair.  I initially tried to dowload the game through their client, and it raped my upstream like mike tyson at a beauty pageant.

[Big Gulp]

I started around 6:00 AM, and it's 3:00 PM now. 10% complete. I'm not a hurry or something, but that's just weak.

See my post above.  As long as you're willing to wait in line you can get it off of FilePlanet in about 2 1/2 hours.

[Calantus]

Meh. I'm getting 6kb/s, and that's just not gonna fly. Tomorrow is payday for me, which means I buy a new PS2 (a solid week of GTA:SA wasted my current one, though it plays anything but that game well), and blow the rest on magic online drafts. It's not hard to find a way to buy amusement when you don't worry about things like saving, or rent, or utilities, or food, or even petrol (yes I have it good atm, I'm going to milk it for at least a little bit longer before I have to face the real world in full - my mum even has plates, utensils, towels and shit bought and put aside so I don't have to cop those costs when I DO move out).

[HaemishM]

How exactly does one get a job as a gigolo?

[Viin]

How exactly does one get a job as a gigolo?

See: Deuce Bigalow, American Gigolo, and Pootie Tang

[Shockeye]

[Morfiend]

How exactly does one get a job as a gigolo?

Your derailment skills, sir, are legendary.

[Signe]

Righ downloaded the game using my Fileplanet account.   The darn thing is corrupt.  I checked out some boards and quite a few people are beginning to complain about the same thing... all from Fileplanet downloads.

[trias_e]

I had the same problem...until I realized I was using winrar and the fileplanet site said specifically to use winzip.  Used winzip, and the zip wasn't corrupt.  Hopefully this helps.

[trias_e]

I had the same problem...until I realized I was using winrar and the fileplanet site said specifically to use winzip.  Used winzip, and the zip wasn't corrupt.  Hopefully this helps.