WARNING: The following is a long review of my initial experience with beta testing a new computer game, World of Warcraft. Go ahead and skip this if you're not interested.

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So. Blizzard and Fileplanet entered into some sort of scheme where if you bought a Fileplanet account for $15, you would get to be in the Stress Test (which lasts a week). In other words, pay 33% of the full price of the game (not including monthly fee) for the opportunity to play an unfinished version of the game, specifically there to test the limits of lag and capacity, for a single week. But if there's a market for it, I guess it works.

Anyhoo, they also had some spillover slots available for cheap bastards that they gave away, which I signed up for. I never got an email saying I was accepted. However, yesterday, I got an email saying that the World of Warcraft Stress test was starting at noon, and I could sign up at a certain site, and make sure I had my Auth Key. If I didn't have an Auth Key, it said, there was still time to pay $15.

I thought this was weird that I'd gotten the email telling me how to sign up, but never got a key.

After doing some searching on the forums, I found that some other people had their acceptance email eaten by Yahoo/Hotmail spam filters, and you could go online to figure out if you were accepted (using the username and password you applied with). So I did, and I was accepted and didn't even know it!

Moments later I'd set up my account and was downloading the (2.2 gig!) client. Good stuff.

Cut to the evening. Around 9:30pm or so, I had the client installed, and connected for the first time.

I logged in, and went through the character creation process. I've never really have spent a whole lot of time creating the perfect character. Choosing between thousands of combinations of facial features, hair color, skin color, etc. isn't all that important to me. I created a female character (never played a female character... thought I'd give it a shot). Human. I chose Rogue for a class, as I've always liked the assassin-type character. I gave her a name (Shamina... not quite sure where it came from) and entered the world!

I'm not familiar with the universe of Warcraft at all, but I started out next to an Abbey somewhere. There were a LOT of people running around. My first look at the graphics was very favorable. I really like the bright, cartoon-y, not-a-right-angle-in-sight look. Everything was very smooth, as well. I ran around for a little bit, every so often clicking on a little bubble that game up that gave me some tips on how to get around.

The UI was very clean and intuitive. I looked at my character, her inventory and skills and equipment. I could talk to other players, and hear them talking to each other.

I ran around a little, and headed inside the abbey. At the door was an NPC with a big yellow exclaimation point over his head. I right clicked on him, and he welcomed me to , saying they needed more good folks like me to guard. Recently the kobolds to the north had been attacking, and would I go kill 5 of them for him please? My first quest!

I also either started off with or found a note that told me to find the rogue trainer. I looked all around inside the abbey, and found lots of trainers, but no rogue trainer. I read the note again and it said he was in the stables out back. And so he was.

I headed off to find some kobolds to the north. They weren't hard to find, as there were about 50 other people trying to kill kobolds as well (seeing as this was the first night for all of us, we were all newbie characters). I chatted with some folks, and joined a group of kobold slayers, and in no time we killed 5. I returned back to the abbey-guy, and he congratulated me, and gave me some sort of reward (either some armor or money, I don't remember).

Somewhere else along the way, another guy had a bang over his head, so I chatted with him. He wanted wolf meat, so I killed some wolves for him. Then there was another lady who was driven away from her vineyards by thugs, and could I get 12 bunches of grapes for her? So I headed over there and collected some grapes. There was another "kill kobold' quest that led me into some mines further north. So I went at did that. There was another quest to kill the thugs, so I did that.

It sounds pretty dry, but the quests were really fun. They were small, incremental pieces of game that were easy to finish, had fun little rewards, and generally made me feel like I was advancing. They also would drop small items that I could either wear or sell for money. I upgraded myself to a better dagger, and then soon after got a dagger as a quest reward.

I'd read about levelling up in WoW. They described it in very Diablo-esque terms, where you'd be having so much fun playing that levelling up would come as a surprise. And they were right, at least for each of the five levels I gained last night. It was great. Every other MMORPG I've played, I played for the next level (which, of course, is dumb, because there is ALWAYS a level after that). But this game, I was playing for the actual fun of playing. Sounds simple, but might be the key to it all.

Fighting was pretty good. I had some special moves, one of which would add a "combat point" to a running count. I could then do a different move that, depending on how many combat points I had at the time, would spend them all to do whopping damage. So there's room for a little strategy there. Combat was all pretty easy. I had no close calls with death. There was also NO downtime at all. Healing both hitpoints and energy was VERY fast. So far, at least.

In any case, by the time I'd completed all those quests, I'd pretty much explored the whole enclosed area surrounding the Abbey. I'd been in at least 3 different groups, chatted with lots of friends folks, and my character had advanced to level 5. I received a quest from the main abbey guy again, thanking me for all my help, and saying that they needed help in the next city down the road, as well, so would I please deliver this letter to down there? So, I headed off to the next area.

The next area was a little grouping of buildings with an inn and other shops and things. It was getting late at this point, so I didn't explore too much. I did see my first skill trainers. I spent some money to learn the basics of fishing, and bought a fishing pole. Fishing consists of throwing your line into the water, and when you see your bobber jerk, you right click on it. It actually reminded me quite a bit of real-life fly-fishing, staring intently at the fly waiting to react. I caught some fish (which I sold for cash), and I also caught some small weapon or armor or something. I think if you get good at fishing, you can catch phat lewt instead of just fish. So, yay.

I checked the real-life time, and discovered that about 3 hours had passed in what felt like just a few minutes. I logged out at the closest Inn, and quit the game.

I am feeling VERY good about this game so far. Dark Age of Camelot was too much of a level grind. Star Wars Galaxies just wasn't fun. With World of Warcraft, I was having too much fun actually accomplishing stuff to be concerned about when my next level was coming. I think this is a very good sign.

That's about it. I would love to convince a couple friends (workboys and otherwise) to get this, and hopefully reserve maybe a night a week for getting together online and playing. I think that would be hard to manage, but a lot of fun.