The9 (NCTY) announced that the online game World of Warcraft has achieved peak concurrency of approximately 500,000 players in the first week of its All-access Open Beta Test.

On April 26, 2005, The9 and Blizzard Entertainment launched the World of Warcraft All-access Open Beta Test. On that night, Internet cafes throughout China became filled with players and the first seeds of life were planted in the land of Azeroth.

The first two data centers in China, hosting close to 100 servers, were full in just a few hours after launching in the early morning of April 26. During peak times, the All-access Open Beta was so popular that queuing players on each server reached 2000. Three days later, Blizzard and The9 opened a third data center.