Cataclysm - Closed Beta (Starts next Friday)

[Ualaa]

My roommates co-worker has a "Family & Friends" warcraft account.
Closed beta for Cataclysm starts on Friday the 15th.

Not sure how long closed beta runs.
But Blizzard usually follows this with an open beta.

I'd guess Cataclysm will be late 2nd or early 3rd quarter of this year.
But that is purely a guess.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I remember way back in the day a co worker at dell got one of the bliz developers on the phone for some problem and got us all in the friends and family closed beta for wow before it ever launched. This was before I moved to Round Rock for a few years so late 2003 or early 2004 as I was part of the XPS gaming group for Dell at the time. Only race you could play at the time was the Undead. It was also kinda a hastle as you had to print out an NDA, sign it as well as fax copies of your drivers licence to them and you would randomly get emails saying the server is up for 4 hours for testing!

Still it was a cool thing to get to be a part of looking back now.

[defster]

The Friends and Family thing is an Alpha test, not beta. Just nitpicking though. Closed beta comes much later, which is when we, the players, can sign up and have a tiny chance to get an invite. I dont remember if WOTLK ever had open beta.

[alcattle]

Wouldn't Open Beta be the same as the PTR? I sort of remember a few guildie looking for keys to the Beta, I think the GL got one and helped us get going in Wotlk.

[Ualaa]

Ok.. I stand corrected, on the beta terminology.

[Svpernova09]

No, alpha / beta are NOT the same as PTRs, PTRs are much more stable.


LOL @ Icecrown phasing crashing the entire beta servers during Wrath Closed beta.
LOL @ WG hosing a server while it's in battle.....wait they never fixed that >.<


Please keep any ZOMGCATACLYSMRELEASE stuff here, we don't need 5 million threads of speculation.

[wonz]

Once again protected by an NDA, i would guess.

[kadaan]

My roommates co-worker has a "Family & Friends" warcraft account.
Closed beta for Cataclysm starts on Friday the 15th.

Skeptical... :P

Not sure how long closed beta runs.
But Blizzard usually follows this with an open beta.

There was an open beta for Classic WoW that lasted a couple weeks, maybe a month tops. There was NO open beta for BC nor Wrath :P.

[Knytestorme]

I thought there was like a 1 month open beta after Blizzcon for LK Kadaan, though my memory may be hazy from time and will defer to your memory if need be

[kadaan]

I thought there was like a 1 month open beta after Blizzcon for LK Kadaan, though my memory may be hazy from time and will defer to your memory if need be

http://www.wowwiki.com/Open_beta

Classic:
"After the Closed Beta Trial and Beta Stress Test ended, Blizzard started a short (about 3 weeks) Open Beta Test which probably served as a final stress test and polishing period before official retail release."

BC:
"There are no plans for an Open Beta Trial of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

Wrath:
"Before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was released, there was a beta opt-in program, where players could add their name to a pool and might get randomly selected to be a beta tester."


So 3-weeks open beta for classic, 0 for BC and Wrath.