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Blizzard's extensive beta testing pays off as its fantasy MMORPG goes online relatively smoothly.

Today saw another one of the year's most anticipated games launch. Developer-publisher Blizzard has opened up the gates to World of Warcraft's virtual world to players in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game will also launch in Korea and Europe, but at a later date.

Blizzard's announcement comes after World of Warcraft's nearly eight-month beta test--during which time GameSpot editors wandered its imaginary realm in our Exploring the World of Warcraft feature. Apparently the extended beta paid off, as the game has seen a relatively smooth start along the lines of EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes. Given that World of Warcraft is Blizzard's first MMORPG, many were expecting a problem-plagued launch a la Anarchy Online or Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided.

News source: GameSpot

I feel I should point out that even if computer manufacturers start installing Firefox at their end, it won't make a jot of difference. The techies will be annoyed as it most likely won't be the absolute latest version when it gets to them, and they'll just have to update it anyway. The don't-cares, meantime, will still see their traditional big "e" and instinctively click on that. You could label Firefox "better internet" and it still wouldn't change the fact that people are creatures of habit.

The wonderful people over at spreadfirefox.com have managed to raise enough money for a full-page ad in the New York Times telling everyone of the joys of the browser. Unfortunately, as great as that is, I quite simply can't see it having that much of an effect. Remember the marketing push when Windows 95 came out? There was a massive TV campaign; billboards everywhere; Microsoft even subsidised The Times newspaper for a day, making it free for everyone - on the condition that it came with a special supplement telling of the wonders of this new operating system in terms ordinary people could understand. Firefox, unfortunately, isn't going to get anything like that amount of publicity. Sure, it's attracted a lot more attention than probably any other browser release in history. But think of where this attention has been focused - most, if not all, has been in tech magazines and on tech websites aimed at people who will already have heard of, and for the most part be using - or at least have tried out - Firefox.

So I've come to the conclusion that the only way to get Firefox used by the internet population at large, and to stop all these stupid spyware exploits and viruses clogging up our precious bandwidth every two days, is guerilla tactics. We need to employ our own version of Microsoft's campaign of the '90s, and simply remove any sign of Internet Explorer from their computers. I don't go in for the customising of Firefox to look exactly like Internet Explorer, partly because Firefox with Qute looks 100 times nicer than IE ever could. But this campaign could be very effective. It's simple: go onto your friend/flatmate/work colleague's computer and get rid of the desktop IE icon and any links from the start menu, quick-launch bar and so on. Install Firefox and make icons in exactly the same place as they'll simply go there to launch it anyway. But make sure you rename them to "Internet" - we don't want our dear friends getting confused, after all. This is something I've already tried out a couple of times and it seems pretty effective. If they're tech-savvy enough to notice that something is different, simply say: "Oh, it's a new version" - then show them some of the new features included. Hey, we're not saying they've been included by Microsoft!

This, I am convinced, is the only possible method for getting Firefox usage to account for even 20% of internet surfing. 50%? It's unrealistic, to be honest. But if it even gets to a fifth, that's enough users for web "developers" to stop simply building sites which will only operate in Internet Explorer. Losing around one in 20 customers, as at the moment, is bad enough; losing one in five would, quite simply, be unforgivable.