• Sabin10@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You mean the popular MMO that launched 2 years after Xbox live? But yes, subscription based games did exist but there were no successful general online services yet, live was literally the first one.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Damn, you’re right. I could have sworn wow came out earlier than that and xbox live was late 00s, but it was on the first one.

        Also having a pain finding the date of the original wow stress test (I was sure I participated in that in fall 2002, but that doesn’t seem realistic given the release date a year and a half later, though now that I think if it, that does line up with some other memories). All I get when searching are references to the more recent wow classic stress test dates.

        • Sabin10@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Starting before March 2004, Blizzard started signing up Closed Beta Test testers from an unknown pool of people using an undisclosed method of selection. The Closed Beta Trial ran for about 7 months ending in more widely available stress test and then an open beta before final release around the end of November 2004.

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Thank you for that info, my memory is being filled in now! Those memories lining up I mentioned in the last comment are actually from the stress test because I realized they were on a character I didn’t have in release.