Far Sight Exploration Poses a few questions...

[MetroStratics]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcsJlQsKEbI
First of all, check this out. I have seen various others exploring the world in this manner and it has brought up a few questions that I would like you all to be a part of answering.
1. Parts of the world are incredibly unfinished. I for one was a huge supporter of a speedy launch, but considering it took such a long time just to actually see the game on a test server makes me think we have a long ways to go. But then number 2.

2. Parts of the world are incredibly finished. Take a moment to look at the spires of arak in the linked video and maybe you will agree with me. This is a high level area, in a test where we have access to one of the STARTING areas at a time. This makes me immediately think the opposite of the first point and leaves me conflicted.

What is your opinion?
I am torn between:
- They are MUCH further than they are letting on, and delayed it mostly to hit Wildstar. The frequency of patches speaks volumes of this, and once the remainder is textured we will see the level 100 content pouring in.
- They have had a lot done since Blizzcon, but their comment about internal setbacks was accurate. They have made relatively little progress recently, and the things we are seeing have been done for months. It is likely the testing will be slow and steady, and level 100 content is months away.

Of course, feel free to add your own thoughts.

3. The final point I have to make, mostly as an aside, is the things MMOchampion posted this evening are not indicative of what I have seen in the world. It appears as Nagrand is mostly finished on their preview, but when exploring it myself it appears to be the quite the opposite. Do they have some advanced server that the general alpha testers do not have the privileged of? If so, does this support the opinion on them being further than they let on?

Either way, I hope to engage in conversation with many of you.
If you have any questions or something you'd like to see, just let us know.

[sarecho]

this will be a VERY late 2014 release at best. we're not getting new content until 6.0 and that will probably be early fall

[MetroStratics]

this will be a VERY late 2014 release at best. we're not getting new content until 6.0 and that will probably be early fall

So which do you believe?
They are ahead of schedule but there is just that much to test
or
they are behind schedule and struggling to keep gears moving?

[jsz]

Internal development is well ahead of the alpha patches that the testers get. There isn't really a way to define "ahead of schedule" and "behind schedule" because there are no known milestones, ie. a concrete release date.

[Spraxle]

Blizzard just plods along at their own pace to a degree. I don't think they're as dumb about 'competitors launches' as they act, but I also don't think they're sitting around some weji board plotting games demises in relation to patches.

I feel it's a mixture of things. Take the Hero's of the Storm Alpha for example. Parts of it are really polished and other parts are garbage, but it's still an Alpha. They are probably working harder on 'end game' content then the starter stuff since they know everyone will be spending most of their time there. I'm sure the starter stuff will get polished. But the game has to still look good/be fun at level cap. And that's something that WoW has struggled with lately in my opinion.

[Caerule]

They've got the zone map already in there for 4 out of 7 zones, and the other 3 are looking better with every build. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[eillas]

Blizzard is likely behind schedule. By what I hear, alpha should have occurred earlier. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprise that they pulling crunch hours.

- - - Updated - - -

They likely readjusted schedule. Cut things down, and made a new schedule

[Zoaric]

I think they're slightly behind schedule. Like a weekish behind. (Note, this is referring
to development, not testing.)

As others have said, the zones that are not done take a leap forward with every build,
and Blizzard is always several builds ahead of us.

[iamthedevil]

Everything Blizzard has announced has always come late. This will be late, everything in the future will be late.

[Caerule]

They had problems with the servers, but there's different teams. Just because Alpha isn't up as quick as they might like, doesn't mean the class ability team, landscapers, modelers, raid-builders, animators and quest-writers are sitting on their hands. I doubt they are too far behind.

[MetroStratics]

Everything Blizzard has announced has always come late. This will be late, everything in the future will be late.

I could agree with this, unfortunately.

[Drilnos]

Just because we go through the zones in a set order doesn't mean Blizzard creates them or makes progress on them in the same order. Spires of Arak being in an advanced state of completion means nothing as to the state of the content between it and the starting zone.

[w4rl0]

Blizzard just plods along at their own pace to a degree. I don't think they're as dumb about 'competitors launches' as they act, but I also don't think they're sitting around some weji board plotting games demises in relation to patches.

I feel it's a mixture of things. Take the Hero's of the Storm Alpha for example. Parts of it are really polished and other parts are garbage, but it's still an Alpha. They are probably working harder on 'end game' content then the starter stuff since they know everyone will be spending most of their time there. I'm sure the starter stuff will get polished. But the game has to still look good/be fun at level cap. And that's something that WoW has struggled with lately in my opinion.

One of the reasons I think it has struggled is because there was only 5 levels between last two expansions.

If Draenor is designed with no flying mounts in mind, they do not need to fix a lot of unfinished elements since they will be inaccessible outside extreme exploration. From time spend on sandbox, starter zones are done, Talador, Gorgrond and Nagrand need some polish on the edge of the zones and Tanaan is still in early design. It is not at all a peculiar state for pre-beta; TBC and Wrath were at similar if not worse states at this point.

Do they really not allowing flying mounts? Then what's the point from here on out to buy any?

[Gimlix]

Blizzard is known to be late and slow QQ

[StationaryHawk]

If Draenor is designed with no flying mounts in mind, they do not need to fix a lot of unfinished elements since they will be inaccessible outside extreme exploration. From time spend on sandbox, starter zones are done, Talador, Gorgrond and Nagrand need some polish on the edge of the zones and Tanaan is still in early design. It is not at all a peculiar state for pre-beta; TBC and Wrath were at similar if not worse states at this point.

But flying mounts will be allowed at some point in the future if comments on the subject are anything to go by, so it might as well be designed for flying now rather than when more content needs to go out.

But yeah, I have a feeling Blizzard is running a bit behind. I'm not too worried though.