Blizzard had an essay contest to select guilds to participate in the Cataclysm Beta. Rules were, guild leaders only, less that 250 words, tell them why our guild deserves a spot in the beta. Simple enough.

And my essay won! Here’s what I sent:

We bring a lot to the table. We number several professional interface developers and system engineers with stress testing and QA experience. We’re committed to giving the new systems a serious shakedown. We can promise that our bug reports will have the kind of information the developers need to reproduce and diagnose the problems. I can personally promise you a professional user interface evaluation from a fresh non-Blizzard perspective.

But mostly? I want to do something awesome for the best guildmates a person could ever hope to be blessed with. My guild’s members make me more than I am. They’re the kind of family you can’t be born into and few ever find. I could wax poetic about the several families who joined to play together, or the fact that some of us have been guildmates for nearly five years. I would put my life or my honor on the line for any one of them. Every single day, they find a new way to amaze me. I can never give back as much as they give me. Compared to that, the coveted Beta key is barely a blip on the radar.

Help me give them the kind of reward they deserve for being the most inspiring people I’ve ever known. In return, you’ll get the most useful and broad beta testing, from a full range of computer familiarity and ages, that you could hope to get from any of the guilds who’ve entered.