Mega-Waves of WoW:Panda Beta Keys
Posted 5 April 2012 by FluxA few days ago Blizzard revealed that over 300,000 invites to the new WoW Panda Pack beta had been sent out, chiefly to players who had purchased the annual pass (thus earning them a free copy of D3 as well). Today Bashiok tweeted that another 250,000 invites were flying to those annual pass people.
As Panda beta access was listed as one of the perks for WoW annual pass buyers, and they sold more than one million of those, this isn’t a surprise. Still, it’s hard not to compare the tsunami-sized waves going out in just the first days of this WoW beta, to the feeble trickles we’ve seen during the entire 7+ months of the D3 beta. Blizzard hasn’t shared the total figures, but I’d be surprised if there are even 100k 
Diablo 3 Beta accounts in total. We saw invites going out in handfuls last year, and while Blizzard finally began to give them out in blocks of 50, with a few 100 or even 500 blocks to some gaming sites, it takes a LOT of those to get up to even 50k or 100k. Which might have seemed like a lot, until you saw that they sent out 250k WoW invites just today.
Obviously there were technical issues with ramping up the (still sketchy) D3 B.net servers, but the massive disparity in these Beta invite numbers reinforces the impression you get when attending Blizzcon — that supporting the Diablo community is a very second-tier priority for Blizzard, compared to their WoW golden goose. (And maybe even to Starcraft?) Can we really blame them, though? After all, everyone who made D1 and D2 at Bliz North is long gone, and all those WoW beta invites are going to paying customers, while we’re still just a bunch of “10 years of D2 B.net” freeloaders, in their eyes.
They’re contractually obligated to invite annual pass subscribers to the beta. I bet they’re not entirely thrilled to be dealing with such a large beta. Plus, the WoW xpac beta is generally just an extended marketing campaign for the new expansion pack. The vast majority of people who haven’t quit by the time MoP comes out will buy it, so the best strategy for them is just do anything they can to retain players interest, even to the point of releasing 100% of the content ahead of time as a “beta test”.
On the other hand, the D3 beta seems designed just to stress test the game, the RMAH, and the integration with B.net 0.2. Not surprised they can accomplish that with just a few thousand players. But I also wouldn’t be shocked to see the D3 beta go wide a few weeks before the launch date for marketing.
I agree, the purposes of both betas are completely different. In WoW, we’ve always had complete access (at least by the end of testing) to the entire game. WoW is so massive, it is probably the only way to test everything effectively. They give you the entire leveling experience AND all end game content.
Diablo III on the other hand has been tested 95% in house. We’ve stress tested the AH and game servers, tested out basic systems and functions, found bugs here and there… but the entire game’s story is still under wraps, all testing for end game content has been in house, the jeweler, most of blacksmithing, and (until recently) the rune system and dyes were not available in the beta. We have only one follower currently, access to only a fraction of our skills, I could go on and on. For ALL of these reasons, they have not needed 1M testers to get the job done.
As aurik said, the MoP beta is a contractual obligation between Annual Pass holders and Blizzard, there should be zero surprise there. I imagine they wouldn’t have ended up with 1M opt-in testers even by the end of the beta in a world with no AP.
There was a 100k wave a few weeks back, so I’m sure there are more like 200k D3 beta accounts.
Anyways, it has much less to do with Blizzard hating us and more to do with the obligations and needs for each separate beta test.
I think your comment that Blizzard cares much less about DIII fans (in this particular circumstance) is a little off.
WoW servers have been active for eight years. Thats years longer than DIII (current build) has even been conceived. In that time they have served literally millions of players. It makes sense that their beta servers for that game would be able to take lumps of 250,000+ people.
Diablo, on the other hand, is working with a new interface on a relatively new battle.net. They have to carefully watch the servers and interface to make sure they aren’t overloaded.
It makes sense that the incredibly polished game could hold a lot for a beta.
I think Flux is just trolling again.
Agreed. Surely he knows of the announced 100k invite wave they hit some time ago.
Trolling is never just
I’m not sure what the issue is here, why do you need 100k players for a limited stress test in a limited beta with virtually no content?
Different types of tests for different things, but I too feel D3 should have been given a lot more fanfare for the beta. That goes especially for now when we’re under a month and a half from release, they should just let the invites flow for some real stress testing.
Unfortunate the article is unclear. Reading it implies WOW Pandawhatever beta and nothing regarding D3 Beta invites. Confidence is high that the servers from WOW will carry the load. Cheers!
Somewhat off topic but you have to wonder if Diablo players would pay to play. I know that in the early days of Diablo II I would certainly paid $5-$10 per month just to have monthly content patches, bot and spam policing, and someone paying attention to massive balance bugs (like oh say, Bowazons being unplayable for the first few months). For Diablo III, I would probably pay the same if it meant a significantly better game. Hell I played WOW for 2 years and they made $400 off of me, and I played Diablo II for 3-4 years and they made $60.
lol not sure if Flux is serious. Anyway, I am more of Starcraft fan than Diablo so I am not second-tier priority. \(*-*)/
Deep breaths Flux, deep breaths
I’ve been in the d3 beta since September, so it’s not a big deal to me. But I’d imagine the countless numbers of Diablo players who are still outside looking in find it a little annoying, watching the overwhelming numbers of wow beta keys going out. Like I said in the last line of the post (which some commenters seem to have skipped?) you can pretty well understand blizzard’s motivation, after all those wow players are paying customers. But that doesn’t mean diablo players should be happy about it.
That Bliz announced a new contest to give out 8 (yes, EIGHT) d3 beta keys the next day, and made that post in one of their WoW forums, was just the hilarious icing on the cake.
typical of my luck. i have 2 accounts (me and my wife) signed up on the annual pass and neither have been invited yet.
Enjoy your 18gb download. Maybe you should look for a torrent and get a head-start on it.
i wont ever play it myself but she wants to so that 18gb is all her lol