Can't i ever get a break? *sigh* Well, WoW beta is over... almost a week ahead of schedule. it was supposed to go to the 22, people! Thats three misses... all within the same month, too. We had Guild Wars, which was a hit... until I figured out that said "beta" was only these weekend events. Stupid target, it moved... Next up, EverQuest 2, which i regret to say was a complete and total miss from the start. How could anyone possibly hit a target that small... And finally, WoW open beta. Well, i didn't even try for closed beta, mainly cause i wasn't watching it. Open beta i nailed at about 1 in the morning last week... and i kept pounding that target until about 8 tonight when the target disappeared under mysterious circumstances. (i.e., Blizzard decided they wanted to keep the game away from those of us who aren't going to retail... now if only they would learn that there is a big wall that has the label "Monthly Fee" that most of us just aren't willing to climb over... at least their ex-employees got that... maybe that's why they were fired) That's all for this week. Next week: My plan for getting my grimy little mits on WoW.

Lets see, what do we have in beta news this week... Well, EQ2 beta is ending, GW is having its first monthly event, and WoW... *takes big breath* WOW OPEN BETA STARTS THIS WEEK!!!!! Well, i hope it does anyway. Man, i want to play this thing again... its really too bad they let the closed beta testers continue and didn't even TRY to salvage the stress test accounts. Yet another thing i'll need blizzard to explain to me... oh well. I know what I'll be doing this week! *breaks out the night elf druid costume and staff* Lets hunt some orcs...

I know my beta's of late have been a little harsh to the mentioned companies, so i'm posting this cause I'm happy that at least I'll have something to do for the coming month. WoW open beta is next week! That's right people, starting monday is the World of Warcraft open beta! No fileplanet membership required (Thank you god!), no money up front, no pre-order, no platinum version, NO NOTHING! Just a few hours to download (For those with 56k, i mourn for you if you have no choice, and have no symapthy if you could get cable) another few to install, a little time to set up your account, and volia! one WoW program up and running and just waiting for you to play it! Explore the mystical forests of Teldrassil, wander the labyrith that is the Undercity, enter the lonely mountains of Dun Morogh, and much more! A stunning (and very appropriately chosen for the atmosphere of each place.) music track to go with equally stunning graphics. I'm going to do a little rant here so anyone that happens upon this journal will know a little bit about WoW. Lets start with the music, just because the races aren't the great. The music perfectly fits the setting of each city and place. For instance, in the mountains around Iornforge, the dwarven home-city, the music is very slow and quiet, giving it a very lonely and slightly magnificant feel to the land around it. In those mountains, you are generally very alone, with no one around you for miles and the largest node (and pretty much only one) being the underground city of Iornforge. And trust me, it gets very lonely to be a Night Elf in those mountains... *shivers* It was so cold up there... and not another Night Elf for a few hundred miles... I parties with a few dwarves once, but they just weren't the same, making for a very lonely feel. Now, i have never been in the Undercity, but i have a music download of it and the music there gives me a sense of great activity, winding caverns, and very scary and disturbing sites, with fast paced music and a rythmatic drumming beat. The music for Stormwind and Daranuss, however, have very loud sounds, trumpets and drums mainly. This makes for a feeling of where ever you are to be a very large, important place. With Daranuss, there are more drums, giving it a slight feeling of the beauty of nature. I think i've ranted on that enough. Lets go to something else. How about the night elfs. They are probably the most popular race in WoW. I'm not quite sure if they get the best classes, i haven't wroked the numbers on that, but they definately have a certain appealment factor for those who just want a good looking character. I only have a few problems with them and they are the best looking char's in the game. On thing that is slightly bothersome are these ears... they are so long... stupid ears, stay under the hood!!! *sigh* I'll just have to fix that a little. *cuts little slits in the hood where the ears poke out* Better. For whatever reason, everyone says we are a shade of blue... i am going to tell you now WE ARE NOT BLUE!!!!!!!! Most of us are actually relatively normal colored. Some of us, however, choose to be blue to support the belife that we are all blue... oh well. And why do my eyes glow? Can't we just have normal eyes like the rest of the world? Oh well. We'll live. I think that's it for this rant, so I'll just end it here. Shade and sweet water!

So much annoying stuff... lets see, i have to re-download WoW in a week... stupid two gig downloads. Another reason to admire Guild Wars. They make you download a little meg client, then the client does the rest. No, WoW makes you download THE ENTIRE THING, which takes about an hour and a half, then it installs, updates, and all that other stuff that takes ANOTHER hour and a half. Just as a note, I am not saying the WoW is bad. It is, in fact, a very good game. I have played it and must say that it is a very good game, but the managing of the beta and getting the download around is rather ticking me off. Same with Everquest 2. And more recently Guild Wars. Apparently, World Preview Event kicking off beta means, we'll have a World Preview Event, then the only peices of beta we will have are the Weekend Beta Events, which, oh by the way, you have to buy the pre-order to get. (God, these FAQ's are misleading...) Does what we have now sound like a beta to anybody? Oh wait, they decided to change the definition of "beta testing" a little earlier in the FAQ. Oh well. Its a good game nonetheless, and I have had about a week of playing it, so i have exprimented with the elementalist/ranger combo quite a bit compared to most. Now, back to WoW. Actually, i don't think i have much else to say... Well, except that having to download two gigs is absurd. Thats a ridiculus amount to even think of sending over ANY type of connection. If anyone with friends in blizzard happens to read this, tell them to fix that... compress it a little more, improve your download scheme, ANYTHING! I have an excelent computer and internet connection (none of this 56k nonsense. Come on, people... Would you honestly pick a 56k connection at who knows how much a minute over a 100mb connection for a monthly fee? Didn't think so. [ I exempt anyone who cannot get cable to their house from answering that. That, and i sympathize with you. No gamer should go without a cable or DSL connection. Unless, of course, they don't play multiplayer games. Then they can use whatever connection they very well please. And to those who do play on multiplayer games, could get a cable connection, and have a 56k, you are the ones who we all regret playing games with. { I'm sorry, but the lag is horrible when playing with someone with a 56k connection on Warcraft 3. Every 2 seconds, we'll have them start to drop off, which freezes up the game while it tries to get them back. It really holds up the game. < Wow... what a long rant... and it didn't even have anything to do with the subject > } ] ) but it STILL takes me two hours ( give or take ) to download WoW, then it toke me another two hours to download each patch. That is WAY too long for any game. After you get past that, however, you can get on to the good part, the game! And as for Everquest 2... well, they aren't even TRYING for an open beta. I think that's it. Shade and sweet water!

Let me start this with the folloing. *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* Ok, i feel better now. And now for a rant on, you guessed it, WoW open beta! Lets start with saying that game companies that make MMO's are, in my opinion, PARANIOD! Lets start with EQ2. They have been in closed beta for, oh, about 6 months. what? 6 months without an open beta or ANYTHING!!! That's absurd! If tons more people buy it on the release date then were in closed beta, they'll be, the servers will go down, and the general release as a whole well fail.... it all seams rather absurd to me. Its an MMO, emphasise on the first M. If you do an open test, then you actually get the Massively part. I mean, these servers are SUPPOSED to withstand about 10,000 logging on and downloading at once, so why not make it open and see if it actually can? This is why i've been giving guild wars so much credit. They went stright from standard alpha testing to open beta, and even some open alpha testing during E3. They, unlike Blizzard and sony, were not caught up in the "Everyone will think the game is bogus if we go open and the servers fail" plan of thinking. Come on, people, no one expects betas to be perfect in the least! (And if you find someone who does, well... i think you couild guess what i'd have to say to them.) and then, there's Blizzard and FilePlanet. Blizzard is a good game company, and generally knows how to get files around as well as the games themselves.. (Which is making me wonder why they aren't using their Blizzard Downloader, a very good peice of software in its own right, to get the WoW Stress Test Final beta around.) Then we have FilePlanet... Part of the GameSpy nation, which appears to be after the entire downloads market on games. Let me quote this part from the official WoW final Stress Test Beta FAQ.

"Are you charging people to play the final stress test? Blizzard is not charging a fee to play the final stress test or the open beta."

Seems like the right idea, right? wrong. Here's the rest of it, and where fileplanet gets involved and gets money to boot.

"However, to help defray the costs associated with distributing a large number of files and to keep our focus on finalizing World of Warcraft, we have partnered with FilePlanet for the distribution of the final stress test client, which is only available to FilePlanet subscribers. Subscription to FilePlanet carries with it a nominal fee. "

yes, thats right people. Blizzard is letting FilePlanet charge to get the Final Stress Test. letting them charge for something BLizzard could do themselves, if they would let the servers do some work before the Final Stress Test. Absurd, isn't it. It takes a very small amount of time to set up, a few minutes a day checking to make sure its still running, and a few seconds to shut it down, all in the comfort of their own servers and with no fee's attached. *sigh* Oh well. I'll just have to wait for open beta and grive in the mean time... Shade and sweet water!

GUILD WARS HAS BEGUN!!!! You go to any major gaming news site and what do you see today? Guild Wars Beta Open!!!!! This World Preveiw Event is causing WAY more buzz than E3 and WoW release dates COMBINED! Which is cool, since i've been following this game since E3 last year! Anyway, that concludes this rant. It wasn't a very long rant and died in the early stages of coming out of my brain. Oh well. It lived a good live anyway.

I get online today and what do i find? The Guild Wars servers all fired up and ready to go! Wait a minute... these weren't supposed to come on til tomorrow... oh well, they're on now, so I'm going to play now! So, i go to see if my old E3 char is still there and what do i find? Oh, its there all right, but its appearance is way messed up! No way I'm going in there with a bald elementalist in black armor. So i get rid of it, mourn for a few micro seconds, and started up a new one! Only to fall in love with guild wars a SECOND time. Its interesting... if you want, you can do the quests alone, but its more reared towards a group. The worlds are HUGE, with everything spread way apart! Fortunately, you can use the map to jump around so you don't have to walk everywhere, but if you feel like walking, you can very well go and do that. guilds are now active at that, so maybe I'll join up an dfind out what its like. And... *drumroll* We can actually trade items! *crickets* Ok, ok... I know that sounds pathetic, but in E3, there was no program to trade items with and now there is so yeah. Oh well. Shade and sweet water!

Well, its almost beta time... just 2 more days and it will be Guild Wars Beta mania!!!! But in the mean time, i can wait for other beta's, like the WoW beta... which is making me question Blizzard's definition of "soon"... oh well. Let's see, that leaves EQ2, but i have heard that they aren't even going to HAVE an open beta... *sigh* I'll just wait til the next round of MMO's comes out, then...

Well, here's my GameSpot account... lets see how active i can be on THIS forum... have the habit of watching forums and never posting, but hopefully i can find something to post on this forum. Oh well, its a good place to keep my game collection straight anyway and a good place to rant if i feel the need. I think that's about it.