A new way to Beta - Your thoughts?

[Excessiv]

So Blizzard seems to have a regularly occurring issue with the amount of time between the final patch and the next expansion. As a result, i've thought of perhaps a way to shorten this issue.

Blizzard has never released the beta until the expansion has been announced. However, imagine a test realm where the only thing available is the 100-102 questing zone. No names, No maps, nothing. All you can do when you log in, is to do the quests, kill things, and see how it performs. Rinse repeat this process throughout the waiting period, continuously collecting information, whilst keeping the theme quiet (obviously no big character quests. E.g. involving main antagonist. Also, should mention no quests have quest text, just find X at Y, or kill A of B.

This way, a large proportion of zones and features are tested continuously without it ALL having to be done at one time like usual, and information stays quiet.

What are your thoughts? Would this work? Do you have any ideas?

[Woadnson]

Not a PTR frequenter, but I think the reductive nature of this sort of setup wouldn't allow Blizzard to see how things are integrating and somewhat defeats the idea of testing. Everything could appear fine with the placeholder data and once they decide testing is over and insert the actual quest text, they could find it falls over and they have to test again to find what's caused it.

There is no point testing 'lite' versions. Your paper model of a boat in a basin is not the same as your clipper on an ocean.

[Jester Joe]

I'm confused, don't they already do that? They release zone by zone, and some quests won't have all the proper text.

I'm guessing you mean release the beta before the actual announcement, but in that case, the easier fix would be announce the expansions earlier.

[TheWindWalker]

Honestly, I really think they should straight-up have the PTR host the new max level with new all the current new talents and class changes and such without any of the new world or content featured. Several months or so before the alpha/beta even happens. Specifically so they can have a massive amount of "tests" going on to show them what those class changes do in practice as they have an incredibly difficult time figuring it out from internal testing as we've seen for years and years now.

So yeah, a non-spoiler beta that's just to test people at level, let's say, 110 is a lot less obnoxious than holding off until they've got a billion other bugs to work on.

[Excessiv]

I'm confused, don't they already do that? They release zone by zone, and some quests won't have all the proper text.

I'm guessing you mean release the beta before the actual announcement, but in that case, the easier fix would be announce the expansions earlier.

Correct, however Im saying BEFORE announcement. Hide all information as to NPC's involved, just kill A of B and return to NPC C in Location D. This way, announcement isnt spoiled, and information isn't there to be spoiled, but questing gets tested as well as the zones in general.