General WoD Alpha/Beta Discussion

[Aboubacar]

Its ironic that an alternate universe vehicle xpac has as one of its features in the instant 90 a mechanic which solves the issue of the going into the past while leveling 60-80.

Yeah that doesn't solve anything. They should at some point get another small team to update older content while the good team works on next expansion. In before that "cost a raid tier" nonsense, hire more people, assign them to do to the old zones what they did to the new character models, keep it 99% the same but update it visually so trees actually look like trees and stuff and fix something up in the questlines so the timeflow paradox nonsense actually makes sense.

It's really off-putting when the old content and areas aren't up-to-date. A small example being stormwind is still in rubble from the Cataclysm. Realistically, that would have been fixed by now and reconstruction on theramore, or any other random towns/outposts(im not alli btw, but idk what horde stuff needs fixed).

Once I finish all the Draneor content, or wanna go back to old zones, I don't wanna think, "wow this looks like trash and the quests are boring". Oh and another thing I forgot, hopefully they have a way to make that new quest/objectives thing consistent throughout the game at some point. Wishful thinking lol.

[Valnoressa]

Yeah that doesn't solve anything. They should at some point get another small team to update older content while the good team works on next expansion. In before that "cost a raid tier" nonsense, hire more people, assign them to do to the old zones what they did to the new character models, keep it 99% the same but update it visually so trees actually look like trees and stuff and fix something up in the questlines so the timeflow paradox nonsense actually makes sense.

It's really off-putting when the old content and areas aren't up-to-date. A small example being stormwind is still in rubble from the Cataclysm. Realistically, that would have been fixed by now and reconstruction on theramore, or any other random towns/outposts(im not alli btw, but idk what horde stuff needs fixed).

Once I finish all the Draneor content, or wanna go back to old zones, I don't wanna think, "wow this looks like trash and the quests are boring". Oh and another thing I forgot, hopefully they have a way to make that new quest/objectives thing consistent throughout the game at some point. Wishful thinking lol.

Hiring more people will cost us a raid tier. xD

[Hyve]

Hiring more people will cost us a raid tier. xD

That joke is getting really old, and really annoying.

[Aboubacar]

I've heard that Blizzard inreased their team size by 40% to bring out faster xpacs. If that is true, according to this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month), you can thank Blizzard for making WoD come out almost exactly 40% slower than the past xpacs, on average.

[Hyve]

Is it a joke? Seems more like truth wrapped in some (sad) humor. It's Blizzard that created it in the first place by so often repeating that they can't design dungeons, scenarios, new quests-hubs and raids all at the same time because they don't have the resources...

So, they're lying? The company with access to that information is saying they can't do it, so, they can't do it.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I've heard that Blizzard inreased their team size by 40% to bring out faster xpacs. If that is true, according to this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month), you can thank Blizzard for making WoD come out almost exactly 40% slower than the past xpacs, on average.

I have a strong suspicion it wasn't hiring that has caused the problems, but firing (or at least not retaining). Historically you need to pay a premium to get high quality IT staff; if those 40% came in on higher wages than the people already there, it could have caused some friction. It may well have led to some of the experienced developers making a stand; more money, or they walked. Given Blizzards penny pinching ways in recent years, it wouldn't be a surprise to find they thought they could get away with letting them leave. Only to then discover their development was stalling, and the expansion needed to be put back.

All wild supposition, of course. But it does fit what we have seen with this expansion.

[Aboubacar]

I have a strong suspicion it wasn't hiring that has caused the problems, but firing (or at least not retaining). Historically you need to pay a premium to get high quality IT staff; if those 40% came in on higher wages than the people already there, it could have caused some friction. It may well have led to some of the experienced developers making a stand; more money, or they walked. Given Blizzards penny pinching ways in recent years, it wouldn't be a surprise to find they thought they could get away with letting them leave. Only to then discover their development was stalling, and the expansion needed to be put back.

All wild supposition, of course. But it does fit what we have seen with this expansion.

That's a good point we don't know much about their internal workings, the ghostcrawler loss could have been huge. their could have been others of lower status lost as well to rival companies offering better salaries.

[Hyve]

So you're acknowledging that it's not a joke but reality then?

No, it is a stupid joke. It appears all over these forums, that everything costs a Raid Tier, and it's quite stupid and annoying. Blizzard acknowledging their limitations isn't stupid, considering the vastly improved mechanics, game play and amount of content added with each expansion. Kids making snide comments on forums about stuff they've no clue about is just sad.

[Aboubacar]

No, it is a stupid joke. It appears all over these forums, that everything costs a Raid Tier, and it's quite stupid and annoying. Blizzard acknowledging their limitations isn't stupid, considering the vastly improved mechanics, game play and amount of content added with each expansion. Kids making snide comments on forums about stuff they've no clue about is just sad.

TLDR on that whole joke lore: different people work on different things, pet battles don't cost a raid tier because there are specialties and assignments.

It's a bad joke and should be blacklisted. And what's funnier is going back watching all these devs at Blizzcon on youtube and face-palming, as this xpac takes longer than any other despite no "filler" patch like Halion raid or something else minor.

[Dawnseven]

I took nearly 2 days off from reading the thread and got caught up rather quickly. Disappointed, but not surprised, that I didn't really miss anything. 2 thoughts...

1. I confirmed, to myself, that I'm not reading any other threads but this one. Most are just really over the top toxic. This thread slides on occasion, but by and large there is no comparison. Kudos to the posters here for that.

2. Aeluron and Paula should be required to return to their previous avatars.

[Wrathonia]

I took nearly 2 days off from reading the thread and got caught up rather quickly. Disappointed, but not surprised, that I didn't really miss anything. 2 thoughts...

1. I confirmed, to myself, that I'm not reading any other threads but this one. Most are just really over the top toxic. This thread slides on occasion, but by and large there is no comparison. Kudos to the posters here for that.

2. Aeluron and Paula should be required to return to their previous avatars.

But changing avatars can be refreshing.

[Dawnseven]

But changing avatars can be refreshing.

No bull for you!

[otarma]

I think, as someone might have pointed out but the thread is too long to catch up, the lack of info is to wait and counter the release of Wildstar. Blizzard provided 6.0 alpha info exactly on April 4, the same day TES Online released. I suppose they are about to do the same for Wildstar.

[Kirsia]

I've heard that Blizzard inreased their team size by 40% to bring out faster xpacs. If that is true, according to this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month), you can thank Blizzard for making WoD come out almost exactly 40% slower than the past xpacs, on average.

That is assuming they added those 40% when it was already "late." The delay caused by adding new people is caused by trying to get them up to speed on what has already happened. If they were there for the beginning of the project, that isn't a factor. There is still a minor communication difficulty increase with more people, but their increased output should outweigh that drawback.

[Dawnseven]

...the lack of info is to wait and counter the release of Wildstar. Blizzard provided 6.0 alpha info exactly on April 4, the same day TES Online released. I suppose they are about to do the same for Wildstar.

Agreed. Blizz can say what they want, but I call baloney. As @Brothernads(?) basically said a page or two (or three ago), what else was Zar going to say? "Oh yeah, it's ready for testing but we decided to sit on it and let everyone suffer for weeks because we want the Breaking News on all of the gaming sites to be mostly about our alpha/beta and not entirely about Wildstar's release." That would go over well I'm sure.

[solgog]

Maybe we should lobby them to at least put a new build up for someone to datamine. Just to give us something to talk about...

[Enosh]

That joke is getting really old, and really annoying.

then maybe they shouldn't have used it as an excuse for everything if they didn't want it thrown back to their face

[Areto]

I think, as someone might have pointed out but the thread is too long to catch up, the lack of info is to wait and counter the release of Wildstar. Blizzard provided 6.0 alpha info exactly on April 4, the same day TES Online released. I suppose they are about to do the same for Wildstar.

I'm thinking they might have something bigger planned to counter Wildstar, specifically after the 10 Day Open Beta they had. Maybe Alpha footage and Beta starting dates, or an influx of very important details, something that can be considered "shiny" as a lure.

Of course that's just the business fox inside of my head that's talking and for all we know they might not do anything at all to counter the release of Wildstar.

[ATZenith]

Wildstar does look fun. The questing sucks but it seems like the end game would be really fun. If my computer ran it better (Idk why but it lags really bad. My computer isn't the best but not that bad) I'd buy it and play it instead of WoW.

- - - Updated - - -

WoD is too far off lol

[enchanted]

I'm thinking they might have something bigger planned to counter Wildstar, specifically after the 10 Day Open Beta they had. Maybe Alpha footage and Beta starting dates, or an influx of very important details, something that can be considered "shiny" as a lure.

Of course that's just the business fox inside of my head that's talking and for all we know they might not do anything at all to counter the release of Wildstar.

I don't think a game developer would actually go out and literally say that they want to counter 'X' games. All or most gaming companies rival and compete against each other so definitely Blizzard will do something at the release of wildstar, like they did with ESO when they released the patch notes.