Constructive Critic to the open BetaFollow

It's my sincerest hope that someone from Blizard's customer relations see this. Seeing as the main sites are bogged to hell, I'm just going to have to chance it here. I cannot even begin to express in words the negativity the open Beta has put into my mouth. Let me begin by saying that I had already paid for my Collectors edition for WoW, and that regardless I intend on playing it.

Lets start with the whole File Planet thing. While I understand that people are in this world to make money, I did not even come close to agreeing with the fact for paying a $9 fee to play WoW one whole week early (which I can deal with that, I was willing to wait that week). Add to the fact that File Planets support of this whole operation was, just how to say it... Dastardly. Where I am absolutely confused is, why were sign ups not conducted over a period of days prior to commencement of the open Beta? Is there some sick twisted person that enjoys creating a situation similar to taking 5 Sandwiches and throwing them on the ground in front of 1000 starving people? Is this the kind of positive reinforcement Blizzard had intended for their game? This so totally mimicked the time way back when I decided to quit EQ, when I was faced with a choice when completing Captain Nalot's Facemask. I was faced with either 1. Never finishing the piece, 2. waiting even longer than the 2 weeks I had put into hunting that damned Stormfeather, 3. and if Stormfeather did finally show, ganking it from someone because I was well able to accomplishing such a feat? It was at this time, when I finally realized that Sony Entertainment totally had gone down the tubes with regards to customer support and satisfaction. The game became no longer enjoyable, when one person had to decide that either they accomplished nothing in the game that evening or they had to ***** someone over to get ahead. So my question is this? Will Blizzard continue to operate this way? Will someone wise up and say "hey guys, we have a limited number of Open Beta sign ups, everyone has like 5 days to enter, and the lucky chosen will be emailed a key". I think that approach would have been far more positive and left everyone feeling much better about this whole experience, than what happened this evening where hopefuls, those who had bought your game (and I paid in full btw) were looking very much to getting into that oprn Beta. I felt as if I had no chance with the crappy File Planet support.

Speaking of the crappy File Planet support, I hope someone can explain to me, why I had to log in with a Gamespy ID just to register for this game. I mean, I typed all my information for Blizzard, that SHOULD have been enough I think. However with all of the lag, error pages, I had no idea at the time that I had stumbled upon the actual link for the game. It was right in front of my face but I thought it was another error. I will claim responsibility for not understanding that tiny miniscule poorly written directive on that page that would have ultimately led me to my CD key so I could be playing. I think the fact that once the lag died down and I figured it out, I was left severely disappointed when I realized I was one of the lucky 5 sandwhich holders but didn't know it.

Well, I needed to vent and rant. However, this turns out, I will still be playing my game that I bought, and paying my $15 a month. I honestly hope that in the future, as Blizzard moves on, with the loss of some of their founders, and their increased celebrity, they don't forget the one thing that put them in that spot. It was the support and die hard conviction of the fan base that made them what they are today, with credit going to the entire staff creating the game as well.

R,
Nacho

Yes, Fileplanet sucks. If you aren't a subscriber you will be waiting FOREVER to sign up / download this thing.

However...

Blizzard has done an INCREDIBLE job with this game. Seriously, when you do finally play you will not be disappointed.

All betas are to stress test the servers, they do it for a reason. They stress the hell out of it so it won't be like this on launch day.

Agreed. On release day, there will be many new players trying to create an account at the same time. With the beta signups behind them, Blizzard can take appropriate measures to make sure the paying customers have a better experience. Beta testers test more than the game.

I think forcing the initial OB applications through File Planet and requiring FilePlanet memberships for the final stress test was a sort of partial payment to get FilePlanet to host the beta client and future updates as an alternative to using Bit Torrent. Many complained about having to use Bit Torrent; this is the sollution we get.