Everyone gets a free ticket to World of Warcraft: Forever today as Blizzard stress tests the servers ahead of launch day

In anticipation of the full launch of World of Warcraft: Forever next month, Blizzard is throwing the gates wide open on the throwback MMO to stress test the servers.

Anyone with a World of Warcraft account will be able to play the 'WoW: Forever - Stress Test" client in the Battle.net launcher later today. You don't need an active subscription, nor do you need to have purchased any of the WoW: Forever special editions. All you need is some patience for what could be a bumpy few hours as people pile in.

The regular beta servers will be offline until the stress test is over, which means anyone who can't go that long without a hit of WoW: Forever will likely show up. I wouldn't be surprised if some Blizzard folks drop in with some surprises of their own, like spawning world bosses or something in the last hour or so (this happened during a recent PvP tournament).

Everyone will start fresh on the stress test server, so you won't have time to do much but the first couple of leveling zones. You will get a taste of what to expect on launch day: Crowds of players wandering around like ants, and quest enemies dying before you can even click on them. Get ready to fight for your XP.

Here are all the times for the WoW: Forever stress test:

• West Coast US: 2 pm - 6 pm PDT
• East Coast US: 5 pm - 9 pm EDT
• UK: 6 pm - 2 am BST
• Europe: 7 pm - 3 am CEST
• Australia: 8 am - 12 pm AEDT
• New Zealand: 10 am - 2 pm NZDT

Once everything wraps up, Blizzard is going to flip the switch back on for the regular beta servers until Friday.

I'm crossing my fingers that this stress test actually helps with stability on launch day. There will almost certainly be long queue times, but having to start and stop as servers go haywire will ruin any chance of actually enjoying the game that day. We already witnessed this with the launch of the beta, and that was only the people who paid for the game. On November 4, when WoW: Forever properly goes live, anyone out there with a subscription will be lining up.