WoW Forever: a stress test for everyone on 19 October

WoW Forever gets a public stress test on 19 October, and this one is not limited to the people holding beta access. Blizzard said when the beta opened that it would run an open test before the end to see what the world does under a real crowd, with a slice of the beta content unlocked for anyone who wants in.

The first solid sign of it is in the Battle.net launcher, which now carries its own install entry for the test. That means the client can be downloaded ahead of the day instead of on it, which is the part that usually decides whether you are playing at the start of a window like this or watching a progress bar.

What has not been said is when it starts and stops. There are no hours, no regions and no queue rules published, and a stress test is by definition a few hours rather than a weekend. Beta access itself is a separate thing and still works the way it did.

The timing leaves one week between the test and the end of everything else: the beta closes on 21 October, and WoW Forever opens at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe. A crowd test 2 weeks before a launch is aimed squarely at the launch night.