Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

When World of Warcraft’s newest expansion went into Alpha (or Friends and Family) testing on May 1st Blizzard had to get the client to it’s testers in some way. It used the standard method of hosting it on it’s servers and allowing people to download the installer, however when the client went on-line they didn’t at first spot their major mistake.

They forgot to password protect the download.

For the average gamer such as you and I this doesn’t mean a whole lot, our accounts still need to be flagged to allow access to the Alpha so having the client installed would just mean hard disk space going to waste, however there are those out there that can do something with the client. It began with the less questionable practice of taking a peak at the files in the directories and then having a closer look at said files using a few choice tools to find names of new weapons, areas and maybe even images. Also even without access to the servers, players could still get access to the login and character creation screen so it took no time at all for Death Knights of all shapes and sizes to appear.
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With the new expansion for World of Warcraft sort-of-vaguely-possibly-maybe ramping up for Beta in the form of a competition for those with art skills (the prize being a replica of the Lich King’s Frostmourne sword and a guaranteed Beta spot) I’ve been delving in to the sad world of the World of Warcraft beta testers.

I’ve tested games in the past, including a good twelve months spent in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes prior to release which was sadly the most exciting twelve months of my whole time in the world of Telon. Every game community differs in it’s approach to Beta, some of them are well implemented, some communities consider it to be an elite club that only they should be a part of and some are for the most part free-for-alls. I’m used to the WoW community so had a fair idea of the stupidity to expect from it’s possible Beta testers yet my expectations were far exceeded.
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