Chances on more beta invites?

[Gilian]

What do you guys think? It's still 2,5 months before Cataclysm will be released. Will blizzard do another mass beta invite or something?

Sorry if this has been asked like a 100 times but I couldn't find anything about it that fast.

[Drayl]

What do you guys think? It's still 2,5 months before Cataclysm will be released. Will blizzard do another mass beta invite or something?

Sorry if this has been asked like a 100 times but I couldn't find anything about it that fast.

Source?

[Deleted]

2.5months is seeming a bit steep now that we have entered september(time flies omg!) and I bloody hope they do, im bored as hell on weeknights* :P

*originally weekdays

[Christan]

Source?

i second the motion

[lawomous]

It's probably a good guesstimate of ~ Nov 23rd. Nothing was announced though.

[Cream]

bumping for great justice

[pillowpants]

It's possible that more invites may go out. A guildy got a Starcraft 2 beta invite a week before the game launched. Lame timing and wrong beta (wanted Cata), but you never know.

[jakj]

Unless you honestly think Chris is just going to say "Screw this. I'm tired of dealing with Beta nonsense. Just cut it and ship it.", and subsequently can pop the DVDs, including Collector's Edition boxes, fully-formed from his forehead, you can't possibly think the Beta is near to completion.

Certainly not when as little as a week ago did they roll out an entire new UI mechanic to the point that they feel they need to disable add-ons again to get better testing done. Oh yeah, and glyphs aren't done, talents aren't done, gear isn't done, quests aren't done, zones aren't done, and oh yeah, dungeons aren't done.

Man...can't be more than a couple weeks, maybe as early as the end of this month, right? Yes, master Po, that's right! Mmhmm.

[Gilian]

No one said they are done with beta.

2 and a half months is just a guesstimate. Most shops guess 18 november or something for their pre orders.

I just don't see how they would need to invite more people later on in the beta. I would just invite enough people right away so you get more tested. So I was wondering if there would be more invites since I really want to get in the beta. *cross fingers*

[Togarox]

No one said they are done with beta.

2 and a half months is just a guesstimate. Most shops guess 18 november or something for their pre orders.

I just don't see how they would need to invite more people later on in the beta. I would just invite enough people right away so you get more tested. So I was wondering if there would be more invites since I really want to get in the beta. *cross fingers*

1st they test the content. Then they test whether or not the content can take a massive amount of people running through it. You still got a chance, don't worry.

[Kryos]

1112 (!) beta keys will be handed out by the german PC Magazin "PC Games" at 15. September 2010. I guess they will not be the only ones who got beta keys.
So expect tons and tons of new beta keys in a two weeks. And I guess this will be the last time they give beta keys. Similar stuff happened befor WotlK.
That PC mags got tons of free invitations to spread. For me that's a good sign. I expect Cataclysm release in November.

[digiNuck]

Unless you honestly think Chris is just going to say "Screw this. I'm tired of dealing with Beta nonsense. Just cut it and ship it.", and subsequently can pop the DVDs, including Collector's Edition boxes, fully-formed from his forehead, you can't possibly think the Beta is near to completion.

Why do people keep thinking that the game needs to be done for them to produce the physical media? It's an online game, online games get patches when they're released. As long as a lion's share of the assets are in place, which I'm willing to bet is probably already the case and has been for quite some time, they can stamp the client onto a CD and have a small patch to fix any bugs or minor issues on release day. Remember that the client isn't the game, the client is just a local copy of all the graphical assets and other stuff that would be too massive to send in real-time. Most balancing and tweaking happens on the server, which can happen regardless of what version the DVD client is.

Hell, I remember the day the TBC expansion was released, I had to download 2 patches as soon as I got it installed.

Speculation is fine, but atleast know a little about the process before you start calling people out, m'kay?

[jakj]

Hmm, PTR you say? I've never been in on a beta process like this before in WoW. Are we talking about just the next stage of closed testing, or does the game go into public PTR? (Gamma testing?)

[Gilian]

I also don't remember Blizzard having a PTR after beta testing before the release for WotLK.

[Alazon]

Two people in my family just got invites this week so they're still going out. And they haven't even started stresstesting. In wotlk they sent out masses of invites towards the end of beta to stresstest the servers.

Why do people keep thinking that the game needs to be done for them to produce the physical media? It's an online game, online games get patches when they're released. As long as a lion's share of the assets are in place, which I'm willing to bet is probably already the case and has been for quite some time, they can stamp the client onto a CD and have a small patch to fix any bugs or minor issues on release day. Remember that the client isn't the game, the client is just a local copy of all the graphical assets and other stuff that would be too massive to send in real-time. Most balancing and tweaking happens on the server, which can happen regardless of what version the DVD client is.

Hell, I remember the day the TBC expansion was released, I had to download 2 patches as soon as I got it installed.

Speculation is fine, but atleast know a little about the process before you start calling people out, m'kay?

As someone in the beta, I can say they're nowhere near ready to start shipping soon. Maybe in a couple of months. But they haven't even released female worgen, tons of models are nowhere near being done, zones are not complete, professions aren't in, archaeology isn't in, etc... it's gonna be a while.

[Nillah]

Two people in my family just got invites this week so they're still going out. And they haven't even started stresstesting. In wotlk they sent out masses of invites towards the end of beta to stresstest the servers.

This. They start sending out tons of invites near the end of beta, chances are you'll get one.

[Deleted]

Unless you honestly think Chris is just going to say "Screw this. I'm tired of dealing with Beta nonsense. Just cut it and ship it.", and subsequently can pop the DVDs, including Collector's Edition boxes, fully-formed from his forehead, you can't possibly think the Beta is near to completion.

Certainly not when as little as a week ago did they roll out an entire new UI mechanic to the point that they feel they need to disable add-ons again to get better testing done. Oh yeah, and glyphs aren't done, talents aren't done, gear isn't done, quests aren't done, zones aren't done, and oh yeah, dungeons aren't done.

Man...can't be more than a couple weeks, maybe as early as the end of this month, right? Yes, master Po, that's right! Mmhmm.

Because they can't have everything but the CDs done and all the new content ready to be tested but are choosing to trickle release it to get the best testing can they...

Ontopic:

As said they will invite a fair amount to stress test stuff near the end.

[digiNuck]

Two people in my family just got invites this week so they're still going out. And they haven't even started stresstesting. In wotlk they sent out masses of invites towards the end of beta to stresstest the servers.



As someone in the beta, I can say they're nowhere near ready to start shipping soon. Maybe in a couple of months. But they haven't even released female worgen, tons of models are nowhere near being done, zones are not complete, professions aren't in, archaeology isn't in, etc... it's gonna be a while.

Well I wasn't saying they were ready to ship, just pointing out that fabricating DVDs has no bearing on when the release date will be.

However, your statement is another "beta" statement that always makes me scratch my head. You're just in the beta, you're not an employee of Blizzard. I can promise you that the they are ATLEAST 2 versions ahead of you. Internal testing is the most important part of developing a game, a beta is just for load testing and catching those bugs that can only be found by introducing normal load to a system. You may see things as unfinished, but that's because you only see what they need tested. For all you know, they could be done their internal testing and balancing tomorrow. You'd never know it because the chances of the beta servers getting the actual release version are pretty slim to none.

Basically what I'm saying is that nobody but the production team can know what state the game is in, so unless you happen to be one of those people, just being in the beta gives you 0 insight into the state of the game or of a release date.

[Alazon]

Well I wasn't saying they were ready to ship, just pointing out that fabricating DVDs has no bearing on when the release date will be.

However, your statement is another "beta" statement that always makes me scratch my head. You're just in the beta, you're not an employee of Blizzard. I can promise you that the they are ATLEAST 2 versions ahead of you. Internal testing is the most important part of developing a game, a beta is just for load testing and catching those bugs that can only be found by introducing normal load to a system. You may see things as unfinished, but that's because you only see what they need tested. For all you know, they could be done their internal testing and balancing tomorrow. You'd never know it because the chances of the beta servers getting the actual release version are pretty slim to none.

Basically what I'm saying is that nobody but the production team can know what state the game is in, so unless you happen to be one of those people, just being in the beta gives you 0 insight into the state of the game or of a release date.

I completely agree with you, I just don't think they would release it with those many things going untested. It's one think for a few things to be implemented without beta testers, but when there's such a large amount of things left to go in I think it's safe to say Blizzard wouldn't release it. Things like archaeology are complicated and they will want people to test it extensively. Do I know this 100%? No, it just seems logical to me. Shipping the game with only half of it testing would defeat the purpose of beta.