More than "90% people with Annual Pass" won't get beta till a month before release

[Deleted]

Considering that I expect the beta to last until September I really doubt that.

[Fenixdown]

Can't find that, but I can find that this guy is heavily anti-Blizzard.

That drops his credibility to about -5734897534890673248965329/100

yeha, OP, I would honestly just stop reading this guy's stuff. He's just like some posters on our forums are. He has a soapbox, and he wants to "rally others around him" day in and day out.

[LordRayken]

I'm not sure why Blizzard would wait to invite 90% of their pool in the final month. Why wouldn't they slowly invite the same number as constantly as possible?

[chukabi]

Well if they let people in the beta a month before release technically they aren't doing anything wrong but its a slap in the face however you look at it, as iv already said earlier in this thread im patient and dont really care when I get in but there's a limit and a few weeks before release isn't fair IMO.

I dont believe the article anyway I think the majority of people will be in fairly quickly.

Don't believe the article, like I already posted on page 6 of this thread, I was on the phone to blizzard customer support due to some enquires about the annual pass when I came across this thread while I was on the phone, asked the representative if the title and what was stated is true, he said and I quote;
"We have not announced anything like that at all"

Thread should be closed.

[lyxx]

This is original comment and it wasnt made by Daeity so op keep your facts. I'm going with the truth.

http://daeity.blogspot.com/2012/03/p...57131162709193

[LordRayken]

This is original comment and it wasnt made by Daeity so op keep your facts. I'm going with the truth.

http://daeity.blogspot.com/2012/03/p...57131162709193

"Anonymous" ...

Seems legit.

In fact, I'm really glad someone made an entire thread about an anonymous comment made on a website.

Cool.

[thealexbobsy]

Regardless of that blog being true or false,

A month is more than enough time to level to 90 (while reading all the quests), grab a premade, learn your new skills, and try out the new raids/dungeons.

[esmifra]

Source: Digital Castration...
Seems legit.

[falafel]

Kind of hard to give a percentage when you don't know the actual numbers of annual pass participants. This guy must have his major in a social science.

Now there - don't be mean!

[Idoru]

No, but don't you think it's a slap in the face to those who signed on for a year agreement, and didn't even get in (maybe not right on the first day, but maybe the first ones in a week or so), but those who decided to not sign up got one?

They never said that ONLY Annual Pass subscribers would be invited. Not even that Annual Pass subscribers would be the FIRST to be invited.

---------- Post added 2012-03-23 at 05:41 PM ----------

neither do they say it will be in waves or some other random fashion (both of which are happening)

Blizzard beta invites have ALWAYS been sent out in waves.
Blizzard beta invites have ALWAYS been sent out in a way that could appear random.
Only Blizzard knows who who gets invited and when.

I know this because I have been in all WoW betas so far, and because I took the time to research the process.
So I was able to look at the annual pass offer rationally, and this is why I'm not acting like a spoiled selfentitled brat screaming "GIMMEGIMMEGIMME"

[Ulgrim]

Lock this thread. The original comment was from an anonymous poster on daeity's blog, not Daeity himself. I'm not a fan of the new guy, but at least have the common sense to get your facts straight before you go off on a little rant.

[Mackeyser]

The problem here is that Mike Morhaime came out and said the words, "...you will also get guaranteed access into the next World of Warcraft Expansion Beta when it goes live." (I actually transcribed this from his 2011 Blizzcon address. These are his actual words verbatim, not a paraphrase.)

Now, we can sit here and parse his statement 100 ways and forum lawyers can get into how blizz can technically can fulfill Mike Morhaime's promise while still maintaining their traditional beta admitting schedule and forum software gurus can get all into how it's a beta and not early access and people shouldn't conflate the two.

And there are decent points both folks can make.

I realize that the contractual agreement has different language. No crowd cheers over boilerplate. WAAAHOOOO! Legalese! Clauses that make it easy to not give me what I'm signing up for! Yaaaaaay!

The problem is that Blizzard was BLEEDING subscribers. 1.8 MILLION subscribers, iirc. They needed to stop the bleeding in a big way. So, they really sweetened the kitty. There were problems and they needed a singular stroke to keep folks from dropping WoW.

1) Diablo 3 was super highly anticipated and that was good, but if it cannibalized WoW subs, that would be bad. It wouldn't take 2 quarters for that to negatively affect net revenues.

2) Mists was seen as jokey by a lot of people. No matter how many ways (and, frankly, in how many languages) they put it, it seemed jokey to some. Blizzard's traditional sense of humor about things, rather than helping started to hurt.

3) Other games with the ability to compete were either coming online or about to. SWTOR was coming online with Guild Wars 2 and TERA launching soon.

Mike Morhaime's announcement really was a seriously solid marketing stroke. It kept some folks who might normally defect to D3 as WoW subscribers. It gave incentive for folks who might otherwise unsub due to the perceived jokey nature of Mists an incentive to at least stay for a year because they'd be "guaranteed access to the beta when it went live" and by locking folks up for a year, it got folks to make a choice BEFORE these other games came out. As much time as an MMO takes, many folks only choose one. They are better classified as hobbies as opposed to games, really.

As a former network engineer, I'm all too familiar with the technical limitations of having over a million concurrent connections (or even a more reasonable 100k) slamming a server. And I get it that Blizz has limits on their Q&A set up.

My problem would be and is this: don't promise something that you don't intend to deliver. I never missed a deliverable as an engineer and that meant not missing a day of work after my last child was born due to a deadline. I know what it can cost. If they wanted to staunch the flow of subs, that's fine. And they seemed to have succeeded quite well, actually.

Then deliver. In the grand scheme of things, the physical servers are cheap.

This could have been communicated any number of ways. The way it came out was like a store opening. "At 9am, the doors open!" Even though we might all understand that the store is under construction and we might want to help or more accurately NEED to help by pointing out areas the construction workers missed, the announcement was pretty clear. The doors were open to all when the doors were open.

Frustration is unmet expectation. Folks are frustrated because they expected Blizz to make plans based on the announcement. Not based on the changes to the Beta Opt-in clauses or the technical limitations of the limited server deployment they always use for beta testing. Blizz announced "everyone in". They got 1 million. It will be a PR nightmare if they string people out where it may have been nothing if they'd communicated clearly and forthrightly about how and when folks in general were going to get in. Soon (tm) doesn't cut it in these instances. After the year is up, was was a bad trickle of WoW subs will be a free arterial flow if they burn folks on this. Watch. Bus Shock was back in the day, but it still all revolved around expectations and Blizz gets defensive when folks get frustrated. Hopefully they wise up. Hopefully. I'd really like this next expansion to be positive.

I have two goals. I want to help make this the most stable expansion ever. And... I want to spend as much time with the new class and spec as possible as I'm switching and hope to combine service with self-interest. You know... win-win.

[fulkin]

While he probably doesnt have a source for it he wont be very wrong. They can't let 1 million people onto the beta until they have the majority of testing done, not only because 1 million people will crash the servers if the bugs are too numerous but becasue they'll get in the way of actually getting the testing done.

Personally I'll be quite annoyed if I only get in on the last month of beta but as long as my guildies get in at the same time we can use the beta for the intended purpose, learning the raids and seeing how fast we can level for live.

Beta testing is not fun i dont see why people think it is. The cata beta was god awful at the start, you could only get to 82 (which took an hour becasue they made it easy for testing), you fell through the world every 5 mins and most of the mobs bugged out when you tried to aggro them. Quests dont work and when you report it there's a chance you have to go back and replicate the bug over and over for them (and before you say you don't have to go back, you do)



Also some don't seem to know this but you can just cancel your annual pass by removing your credit card details. You loose yourfree D3 but it's still cheaper to unsub wow and buy a D3 in a shop on the 15th of May (assuming you pay it monthly, 3 months is just under the cost of D3)

[Niobe]

Genius on Blizzard's part to have people sign up for Annual Pass for a Beta key when no one know when they have it or how long.

[Lon-ami]

Hey! Daeity said Blizzard is making the Auction House is going to work with only real money from now on! I saw it on his blog!

(And no, I didn't see it in a random comment by an anonymous user that wasn't me proving how retarded is not to check facts and believing what anyone tells you).

Close this, please -_-.

PS: Also, camelcrane is an obvious troll.

[Deleted]

to be fair if he said that 10 % of the people get an inv for MoP in the last month(s) before release i would say, yeah that's possible but 90 % ? that's bull

[Sorrowreach]

What a bunch of fucking whining ass bitches. Most of you wouldn't even play it for more than a week anyway. How much fucking time do you want to test the beta? How many of you would actually test it, provide criticism, feedback, bug reports, or the like?

I simply do not understand this sense of entitlement that people have these days.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The problem here is that Mike Morhaime came out and said the words, "...you will also get guaranteed access into the next World of Warcraft Expansion Beta when it goes live." (I actually transcribed this from his 2011 Blizzcon address. These are his actual words verbatim, not a paraphrase.)

The word guaranteed was never in there. The youtube has been linked enough that I know that for sure.

[danger182]

What a bunch of fucking whining ass bitches. Most of you wouldn't even play it for more than a week anyway. How much fucking time do you want to test the beta? How many of you would actually test it, provide criticism, feedback, bug reports, or the like?

I simply do not understand this sense of entitlement that people have these days.

"Oh God, I get really mad when I see people talking shit :@ !"
Come on dude.
You do not need to undertand and can't understand.
Humans are really complicated.
And you have to respect different postures and opnions than yours.
Just simple like that.

[Sorrowreach]

"Oh God, I get really mad when I see people talking shit :@ !"
Come on dude.
You do not need to understand and can't understand.
Humans are really complicated.
And you have to respect different postures and opinions than yours.
Just simple like that.

There you go guy, I fixed it for you since you can't spell.