General WoD Alpha/Beta Discussion

[brothernads]

Relatively minor point - Did anyone else see that War Crimes is now officially announced to be coming out June 3, 2014 instead of the previously listed date of May 6, 2014? http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/18/ex...el-war-crimes/

"The Shattering" novel came out October 19, 2010 - Which was a little less than 2 months before Cataclysm release, but right around a month before the Cataclysm pre-event which started on November 16, 2010 with the actual 'Shattering' of the world on November 23rd.

"Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War" novel came out August 28, 2012 - Which was the same day the Mists of Pandaria pre-patch came out and exactly one month before Mists of Pandaria launched on September 25, 2012.

Nope, it's still set to come out on May 6 - according to Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft...rds=war+crimes

The WoW Insider article you link to is old and has the old release date.

[stormgust]

Relatively minor point - Did anyone else see that War Crimes is now officially announced to be coming out June 3, 2014 instead of the previously listed date of May 6, 2014? http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/18/ex...el-war-crimes/

Huh, it's exactly the other way round or not?

[Krazzorx]

Relatively minor point - Did anyone else see that War Crimes is now officially announced to be coming out June 3, 2014 instead of the previously listed date of May 6, 2014? http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/18/ex...el-war-crimes/

"The Shattering" novel came out October 19, 2010 - Which was a little less than 2 months before Cataclysm release, but right around a month before the Cataclysm pre-event which started on November 16, 2010 with the actual 'Shattering' of the world on November 23rd.

"Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War" novel came out August 28, 2012 - Which was the same day the Mists of Pandaria pre-patch came out and exactly one month before Mists of Pandaria launched on September 25, 2012.

Are you sure? That article is from 4 months ago.

- - - Updated - - -

Huh, it's exactly the other way round or not?

He must've found an old article.

[Dhomeli]

Whoops! My bad. I saw the article get linked in a thread that was posted just 3 days ago and thought it was new. ( http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Getting-Closer )

[Krazzorx]

Beta + Beta vs. Beta + Title Release

Guess which affects revenue.

The amount of people who would get into beta is already small + how many of those would actually stop getting RoS to play beta? (Which the excitement lasts like all of a week at the start) Its likely small enough to be insignificant to Blizz.

- - - Updated - - -

Rygarius said on Twitter that it's scheduled for late this week.

I'm pretty sure that it said "later" which is a good amount different than "late". Still think its coming wed/Thursday though.

[Dawnseven]

"The Shattering" novel came out October 19, 2010 - Which was a little less than 2 months before Cataclysm release, but right around a month before the Cataclysm pre-event which started on November 16, 2010 with the actual 'Shattering' of the world on November 23rd.

"Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War" novel came out August 28, 2012 - Which was the same day the Mists of Pandaria pre-patch came out and exactly one month before Mists of Pandaria launched on September 25, 2012.

I noted this myself, but as you said it's a minor point and not something I felt I could work into my release date prediction reasoning. That said, it's still interesting IMHO.

(Edit: It's interesting just like Blizzard saying they have around 40 pages now of patch notes all typed up, translated, and ready to be posted as soon as someone pushes the Beta button. How can beta not be in March? Why would you do all of that, and tell everyone that it was done, if you were still a month or more away from pushing the button?)

[brothernads]

Anyone think the extended maintenance tomorrow has anything to do with WoD beta / preorders (i.e., prepping battle.net and website) or is it more likely RoS-related? They did announce it two days ahead of time - I don't think we usually find out about maintenance that far ahead of time unless there is a patch on one of the games or something like that.

[Tiberria]

I agree with all of this. The consequence of yearly expansions would have to be that we don't get as much content as we're used to. And I'm sure that they could get away with charging half as much while potentially not affecting their bottom line too much ($20 per year/xpac instead of $40 every other year). 3 new zones and maybe a big raid (Naxx) and a small one (Obsidian Sanctum)? (Sorry WotLK was the last time I raided. LOL) But is this model really appealing to people? It isn't to me for some reason. I think I prefer having a LOT to do (relatively speaking), and a long time to get it done. Obviously I can play at my own rate, but once an expansion comes out and the masses move on, it gets pretty damn lonely.

The problem with doing twice as many expansions with half the price is that it's a lot more time consuming and expensive to develop a whole new expansion than it it is to develop new content for an existing expansion. They wouldn't break even with yearly expansions for $20.

[Valysar]

500 pages !

[Fluffernut]

I hope we get something a little more exciting than a blog. But - I will take what I can get!

[stormgust]

Anyone think the extended maintenance tomorrow has anything to do with WoD beta / preorders (i.e., prepping battle.net and website) or is it more likely RoS-related? They did announce it two days ahead of time - I don't think we usually find out about maintenance that far ahead of time unless there is a patch on one of the games or something like that.

They want to apply some client side fixed to D3 2.0.1 I guess. Also they encountered some hardware problems during last weeks D3 maintenance, so they may be doing a more thourough check on hardware as well.

[enchanted]

Page 500! Achivement Earned.

[Msi]

Ah well, its time for a new model tbh

[Krazzorx]

Anyone think the extended maintenance tomorrow has anything to do with WoD beta / preorders (i.e., prepping battle.net and website) or is it more likely RoS-related? They did announce it two days ahead of time - I don't think we usually find out about maintenance that far ahead of time unless there is a patch on one of the games or something like that.

Or it could be just random maintenance. I could be wrong but I don't know why it bein announced ahead of time would matter. They don't do that even for large content patches I think

[Dhomeli]

I'm just hoping that we get a new Artcraft in addition to the information blog we're supposed to be getting later this week. Beta would be much better of course, but that'll come out of the blue as usual I'm guessing. At best we might see the beta box show up beforehand, or get a post a few hours in advance. Although with MoP the client showed up before the official post about beta.

Yay for page 500!

[Ehnoah]

Still no Beta this week sadly =(

[Dawnseven]

Anyone think the extended maintenance tomorrow has anything to do with WoD beta / preorders (i.e., prepping battle.net and website) or is it more likely RoS-related? They did announce it two days ahead of time - I don't think we usually find out about maintenance that far ahead of time unless there is a patch on one of the games or something like that.

I'm glad you said this. LOL I thought the same thing when I saw the announcement last night (Why are they telling us so early? Why is it for longer than usual?? /heavy breathing), but i didn't say anything because I became convinced that the hype was getting the better of me. I'm really (really!) trying not to read to much into anything, but at the same time the imagination does run away with things when you don't have anything more solid to go on.

[Mawnix]

Still no Beta this week sadly =(

Says who? Stop saying that.

[Scourge12309]

I'm glad you said this. LOL I thought the same thing when I saw the announcement last night (Why are they telling us so early? Why is it for longer than usual?? /heavy breathing), but i didn't say anything because I became convinced that the hype was getting the better of me. I'm really (really!) trying not to read to much into anything, but at the same time the imagination does run away with things when you don't have anything more solid to go on.

Where did they say this, twitter?

[The Hero of Legend]

Really hoping for a new model to be shown soon. Troll male? Yes please!