World of Warcraft/Original 0.3.4.2953

From BetaArchive Wiki
WoW-original-034-login.jpeg

World of Warcraft build 2953 is currently the earliest confirmed build of World of Warcraft. It was shown at E3 2003 to press, showing off all the work they had done since the previous year on the game. According to The WoW Diary (John Staats, 2018), this was the third internal alpha release, and as of March 2003, the plans were to use the internal alpha 3.1 release as the E3 demo. Between March and May of 2003, a lot of internal PVP tests were performed, and the final server infrastructure was decided.

nVidia and Intel provided GPU's and CPU's for the demo machines, to show off the next-generation graphics that WoW offered.

No copy of this version has ever leaked outside of Blizzard's network. The WoW Diary indicates that "Validation CDs" were handed out to family members of the developers.