World of Warcraft was crowing about 500k people signing up to beta-play. (Here’s a cursory link to their main page — they’re too cool for permalinks.)

More than 40 servers have been deployed! I know this to be true, because I gave up on my originally-selected server to play on Server 40-something.

The lag was unplayable on the other … kill, loot, kneel for five minutes in a looting position, blood sprays out of my character for no apparent reason, click OK for graveyard, go get another “refreshment”, talk to the neighbor, come back to computer, wait another 2 minutes for graveyard arrival, wonder how I was getting sloshed so quickly.

I’m getting old, man! Just don’t have the same tolerance I used to.

So I gave up, for my liver’s sake.

Server 40-something was blissfully lag-free, and a much safer existence for my noob character. (emphasis on “WAS”) As the week went by, my server started slogging too, and now, even though the server status page in game indicates that 40-something is up and available, it is not.

Why don’t MMOGs set up a workable server status page available out of game? I don’t care when the login server is up if I can’t get into my play server also. I don’t want to log into the game to see if I can play. I’m not asking for wireless alerts of when servers are up, just a simple webpage with the PLAY status.

Maybe this is the equivalent of rocket science in the IT/MMOG world and just can’t be done. What would I know — I’m words, not IT.

Realizing that the status page is a lie, I went to the WoW! forums to see if there was an ETA. (I know very well there’s never an ETA, but hope springs eternal.) Some Warcraft guy discussed the current lag-o-riffic situation: fanbois lauded their efforts, normal people questioned how the live stress test will work, naive people asked for an ETA. Same old, same old.

There are, undoubtedly, many idiots people willing to play through the lagfest. I’m not one of them. But, I wonder, exactly how is this a good stress test if most of us just give up? Most can’t stand it long enough to get out of the mid-noob areas, so like ummm, unless you can solve this, what kind of test was this?

I’m not industry, so I don’t understand how valuable a failed test would be. I would guess, it’s only value is an estimate on how many boxes they can safely sell and have a service available for the purchasers.

Little more than a week and counting until Live Day. I can hardly wait to see the stress test on the forums when half the world can’t log in.

If nothing else, it’s fresh material.