Friday, September 12, 2008

Blizzard Says: Take our beta, please!

Blizzard's ongoing blitz of expansion hype continues with a new flurry of opt-in beta keys for Wrath. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed in them. The beta servers are constantly down (or crashing), and the two zones with level 78 content are disabled more often than not, making that content impossible to test. This beta does not need more testers at the moment, but the marketing team apparently is hoping that a shiny new beta key in the inbox will be enough to make some players forget to pick up their Warhammer pre-orders next week (and perhaps even distract their friends with expansion talk).

In fairness, it would probably have worked on me if I hadn't been in the beta since July.

This does, however, mean that I have absolutely no use for the Wrath beta key that just arrived in my Inbox (yes, I checked that it's different from the original one). Which means that one of you, my readers, is going to win a free trip into the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

THE CONTEST IS NOW OVER AND ONIBLAH HAS WON! Thanks to everyone who entered!
Official Rules
- Enter by posting a comment in this entry prior to 8 PM EST on Tuesday, Sept 16th.
- You must EITHER provide an email address in your comment or log in and have an email address visible on whatever page I reach when I click on your name. I don't want to draw a winner only to find out that everyone and their wives say that THEY are Brian of Nazareth.
- This key is for the US beta. Blizzard also does not update the login server in realtime, which means that you may or may not be able to login if your WoW account has been canceled at any point from July through the present. I have zero means of enforcing on this one, but please don't enter if you aren't going to be able to use the key.
- I will use /random 1-X (whatever the number of entries is) to decide the winner in Ironforge on Hyjal US on Tuesday night after 8 PM on Tuesday. (If it's a lot of entries, I may have to /random first and re-roll if the first winner fails at the above rules.) Send a /tell to Greenwiz if you want to be invited to my group to witness the roll, level 1 alts welcome.
- I will forward the winner the email that I got from Blizzard (who stated early in the opt-in process that keys are NOT bound to the specific account that opted in for them). There's no reason I can see why the key should not work for you, but I'm obviously not going to be able to do anything about it if it doesn't. (Blizzard's position is that they also will not provide support, presumably because they don't want to deal with 10 million people who "lost" their beta keys.)

Finally, you may note that I did not go out of my way to label this post "Beta key giveaway here", and I will not be promoting this little contest (or mentioning it again until we have a winner). Realistically, word is probably going to get out, and I'm fine with that, but I won't be sad in the least if I end up with one entry from a longtime reader or a hundred from around the blogosphere.

Good luck, all!

7 comments:

  1. Thanks, that's very generous of you to share! Good karma coming your way for sure :)

    Since I've had zero luck snagging a beta key so far, I'd love to take a shot at your contest and the chance to finally get hands-on in Northrend, buggy beta servers and all!

    My email is bellj@nycap.rr.com .

    Keep up the great blog...

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  2. Very cool of you to give out your extra beta key (don't enter me in as I was part of the latest invite blitz too heh).

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  3. Well, why not participate? :-)
    smoky_bg@yahoo.com

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  4. Agreed, it's exceedingly generous to have a small contest to give away your extra key, as opposed to selling it for ridiculous amounts like some people seem to be trying to.

    I also have had no luck in securing a Beta key, and was referred here by a friend of yours "from way back" - I know her as Moranin, but I'll be happy to pester her for the name you do recognize if it doesn't happen to be that one. :) (So you know how I wandered in here.)

    My email is finalgenesis_0@yahoo.com

    Also bookmarking your blog for future reading, I like your sense of humor!

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  5. lets load it down with more people

    king_of_perrenland@iinet.net.au

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  6. Dure what they heck. I've enjoyed the reading so far and my pally could use some testing.

    wyrdone AT gmail.com

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  7. The time is now 8:18 EST by my count, which means that entries are now CLOSED.

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