Blizzard waited for the E3 to close down before they made a move that quite some World of Warcraft fans have been waiting for long: It seems like the beta for the new expansion Wrath of the Lich King is just about to start.

Wow Insider received word that the beta downloader is now in action and delivers data to those lucky few who already have access to it. This is a rather clear indication that the alpha phase of the game has just ended and that Blizzard are now getting ready to send out the first invites for the beta (which is, if you are not familiar with the vocabulary, the testing phase of a MMO to which more and more fans are invited before the game is finally ready to launch).

If this is not proof enough for you, than you might want to check out this website which just opened up and welcomes you with the words "Welcome to the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Test" to then give you some information about how you upgrade your account into a beta account if you should be invited to it. This will require some luck, however. There are over 10 million WoW gamers out there, and although beta tests are always growing in population with time; it won't grow to over 10 million people, we give you that.

If you applied for the beta test and are very much looking forward to finally go explore the new regions like the Howling Fjord that can be seen above: Good luck.

However: Be careful not to fall for any unofficial mails. There might be fraud going on.