World of Warcraft Europe Final Beta

Blizzard is preparing the second phase of its final beta test for the European version of World of Warcraft. Anyone can become a beta tester by using the generic authentication key EUROPE-BETA-BLIZRD-DARK-PORTAL when signing up. I'm a bit curious about World of Warcraft, so I figured it might be worth a shot.

It's not quite that easy, of course. After creating an account you'll also have to endure the thinly disguised BitTorrent client Blizzard Downloader while it slowly downloads a 2.5 gigabyte game installer that may or may not crash your machine.

That's about as good as it gets, apparently (it's even slower right now). BitTorrent is a good idea that works surprisingly poorly in practice. I suppose it's partly due to the prevalence of asymmetrical lines and throttling, but I very rarely see my line close to saturation even with well-seeded torrents.

28 January, 2005