The gates are about to come down on the World of Warcraft Classic test, as Blizzard reminded players last night that it’ll be temporarily closing the ongoing but wee closed beta tomorrow as the big stress test, the first of three, kicks off.
“We’ll be performing our first stress test for WoW Classic on Wednesday, May 22, from 4–6pm PDT,” the studio wrote. (That’s 7 p.m. EDT to 9 p.m. EDT.) “During this time, the closed beta test realm will be unavailable. Those who are currently in the beta test will only be able to login to the stress test realm during this time and beta testers can participate using their existing installation. We’ll also be adding a significant number of players to the stress test from the pool of people who have already opted in for the beta but have not yet been selected.”
How do you know you’ve been selected? You’ll see the “Beta & Stress Test: WoW Classic” in the region/account drop-down menu, so that you can download it all ahead of time, but you won’t be able to log in until it’s actually live.
“For the stress test, all races and classes will be available for creation, but the maximum level will be set to 5. The test will also take place on a PvP realm, but since the starting areas are sanctuaries you don’t need to worry about attacks from the other faction if you just want to level up to 5. We expect to put a lot of people in the starting zones, though, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you all do as we test the servers under crowded conditions. We’ll be actively monitoring the server, sending server messages, etc. during the 4-6pm PDT period and it’s important to have as many people as possible log in during this window! The stress test realm itself will be available until Thursday, May 23 (becoming unavailable around 6:00pm PDT).”
