General WoD Alpha/Beta Discussion

[Roshar]

Why don't we stop trying to read into what time reference he used?

This is why they shy away from giving us info on Twitter.

Good. I hope they completely avoid using Twitter.

[Arbs]

Good. I hope they completely avoid using Twitter.

What is so bad about twitter ?

[Krazzorx]

What is so bad about twitter ?

Because apparently people put all their eggs in a basket when they say anything hinting of good news like "more info about JP/VP in coming weeks".

[Brewhan]

3 weeks or 30 weeks means weeks

[Deleted]

What is so bad about twitter ?

Nothing is bad about Twitter. The way Blizzard uses it is bad.
Twitter was originally designed to send out short messages (hence the word limit). Blizzard uses it to inform people in a very, very vague way, which causes confusion in the end.

[Puupi]

3 weeks or 30 weeks means weeks

Or hours... using the Blizzard terminology - it's just not convenient to calculate it in hours....

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing is bad about Twitter. The way Blizzard uses it is bad.
Twitter was originally designed to send out short messages (hence the word limit). Blizzard uses it to inform people in a very, very vague way, which causes confusion in the end.

Twitter is horrible due to that 160 character artificial limit....

[Krazzorx]

3 weeks or 30 weeks means weeks

I put 0 weight on the statement, just that the average person would take "weeks" to mean about 3ish-7ish weeks.

[Puupi]

I put 0 weight on the statement, just that the average person would take "weeks" to mean about 3ish-7ish weeks.

February 20th 2014:
"Recent PR events have led to sneak peaks of upcoming Warlords changes. We're working on releasing a large amount of info on Warlords. (cont)"
"In the mean time, please hold tight, and forgive me for not answering every question until our big burst of info goes out. Thanks!"
"It's a grand flood, indeed. Currently at 13000 words, and still growing every day. That's 33 pages."
"Sooner than what we've commonly used Soon™ to refer to."
"Well, I suppose you could count it in hours, but it wouldn't be very convenient."
https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...50638601342976


So TL;DR: Blizzard isn't your average person.

[Krazzorx]

I don't think we'll ever learn exactly what happened, but what Celest was referring to was the 2 blogs we got about racial changes and healer changes. And that was shortly after those tweets by most standards of "short".

(As a note, I consider any discussion on why 13,000 pages became only 2 blogs, which I personally liked, and then silence impossible to answer likely until we get beta).

[Aceveda]

The 2 blogs we've got so far was about 2707 words.

[Demetrii]

Dear Blizzard,

I am not a hater, long time player since vanilla and I still play the same holy pally since day 1. This is my first post on MMO-C ever. I am on the edge of unsubscribing because I am bored. I am in agreement with the "savage" and "vanilla feel" of WoD because I have played since vanilla and MoP was just ... weird. Pandas! Pandas everywhere! In a LOTR style video game? I still don't understand that. I appreciate the variety of types of content you have developed since the early days but 5.4 is very old and I have leveled my alts, boosted a new alt, and stockpiled some gold for the new content. I really don't want to experience the same content on a different toon and I really don't want to grind the legendary cloak quest a second time. I have more than 100K coins on two toons in timeless isle and one toon has 6 burdens with nothing to buy. You get the picture, I am sure many of your devs and employees feel the same way - bored.

To use a simple analogy, it is like going the movie theater and seeing that you have seen all 10 movies already. The tweets and posts and eventually patch notes are interesting but they don't change the fact that logging into the game is a disappointment.

I realize a small content patch pushes out the expansion but this lapse in new (and interesting) content is a real disappointment. I am disappointed along with millions of other players that feel the same way. Our 25 man raid is struggling for attendance, no surprise there ... for I am no longer excited to log in on raid nights. It has been many months since blizzcon. It seems to me you set an expectation of more progress than we are seeing so the negative emotion you are seeing is justifiable.

I realize there is not a unique thought in my post - all have been said before but I just wanted to reinforce the message which is this: pick up the pace please and please learn from your mistakes. Thank you for reading.

[CosmicGuitars]

Kind of odd how the blogs / information drip just stopped abruptly in the past two weeks.

[Luko]

Kind of odd how the blogs / information drip just stopped abruptly in the past two weeks.

They realized they got in over their heads. They knew people would over analyze the shit out of them so in the beginning it was all good fun, but when they realized that they simply didn't have enough to sate the onslaught of curiosity that they themselves instigated, they not only backed off but began flooding their social media pages with very non-work related things.

[Soulwind]

They realized they got in over their heads. They knew people would over analyze the shit out of them so in the beginning it was all good fun, but when they realized that they simply didn't have enough to sate the onslaught of curiosity that they themselves instigated, they not only backed off but began flooding their social media pages with very non-work related things.

That's not hard to believe. However, Boub stating that the beta would arrive in february or march indicates that it really was their plan (he doesn't usually talk out of his butt) and they were hyping us accordingly. Something must have happened that has pushed things back.

As much as I understand how hard is to give bad news to a community like this, I think they should explain what happened. Their silence doesn't cure the disappointment they have caused.

[Ceethemage]

That's not hard to believe. However, Boub stating that the beta would arrive in february or march indicates that it really was their plan (he doesn't usually talk out of his butt) and they were hyping us accordingly. Something must have happened that has pushed things back.

As much as I understand how hard is to give bad news to a community like this, I think they should explain what happened. Their silence doesn't cure the disappointment they have caused.

Right I agree, I think the original plan was for Feb/March release of beta but something happened that caused a delay and they had to move it.

With as much...anger that has been going on in threads not only this one part of me thinks that they quieted down because of the negativity. Probably isn't so but that is how it feels right now.

[Aspen]

Dear Blizzard,

I am not a hater, long time player since vanilla and I still play the same holy pally since day 1. This is my first post on MMO-C ever. I am on the edge of unsubscribing because I am bored. I am in agreement with the "savage" and "vanilla feel" of WoD because I have played since vanilla and MoP was just ... weird. Pandas! Pandas everywhere! In a LOTR style video game? I still don't understand that. I appreciate the variety of types of content you have developed since the early days but 5.4 is very old and I have leveled my alts, boosted a new alt, and stockpiled some gold for the new content. I really don't want to experience the same content on a different toon and I really don't want to grind the legendary cloak quest a second time. I have more than 100K coins on two toons in timeless isle and one toon has 6 burdens with nothing to buy. You get the picture, I am sure many of your devs and employees feel the same way - bored.

To use a simple analogy, it is like going the movie theater and seeing that you have seen all 10 movies already. The tweets and posts and eventually patch notes are interesting but they don't change the fact that logging into the game is a disappointment.

I realize a small content patch pushes out the expansion but this lapse in new (and interesting) content is a real disappointment. I am disappointed along with millions of other players that feel the same way. Our 25 man raid is struggling for attendance, no surprise there ... for I am no longer excited to log in on raid nights. It has been many months since blizzcon. It seems to me you set an expectation of more progress than we are seeing so the negative emotion you are seeing is justifiable.

I realize there is not a unique thought in my post - all have been said before but I just wanted to reinforce the message which is this: pick up the pace please and please learn from your mistakes. Thank you for reading.

While I agree with every single thing in your post I'm becoming more convinced that voices like ours will change very little.

[Luko]

That's not hard to believe. However, Boub stating that the beta would arrive in february or march indicates that it really was their plan (he doesn't usually talk out of his butt) and they were hyping us accordingly. Something must have happened that has pushed things back.

As much as I understand how hard is to give bad news to a community like this, I think they should explain what happened. Their silence doesn't cure the disappointment they have caused.

Totally agree. I was thinking this as I made my post, but I didn't want to get too far into it in fear of sounding like a ranting hater, which is clearly not the case. I believe everyone who's been following knows that for all their flaws, blizzard has always been very talented when it comes to baiting a social enthusiasm and that this past month (or two) has been a huge stain on that otherwise positive aspect.

It's clear that something unexpected happened and I, too, would appreciate a little word on it. Just something that puts it out there that this is all going to take a little longer than initially expected. Not an apology for I don't believe they owe anyone that much, but a simple heads up.

Constructive communication. Enough with the quippy hints and stale attempts to egg on something that clearly isn't happening in any sort of relevant timeframe.

[Flutterguy]

I wouldn't doubt that garrisons and to a lesser extent the new questing dynamics are creating a programming nightmare, especially with how ambitious they're being with the garrisons. It's the kind of issue that could cause a stall in the production pipeline.

[wych]

That's not hard to believe. However, Boub stating that the beta would arrive in february or march indicates that it really was their plan (he doesn't usually talk out of his butt) and they were hyping us accordingly. Something must have happened that has pushed things back.

As much as I understand how hard is to give bad news to a community like this, I think they should explain what happened. Their silence doesn't cure the disappointment they have caused.

Agreed, something significant HAS to have happened, there's simply no other explanation for the entire debacle.


Would love Boub to shed some light on it all

[Wow]

I wouldn't doubt that garrisons and to a lesser extent the new questing dynamics are creating a programming nightmare, especially with how ambitious they're being with the garrisons. It's the kind of issue that could cause a stall in the production pipeline.

While garrisons seem to be a huge part of wod I don't see why they would delay everything for it. And what I mean by that is there is a lot of beta testing that could be done without garrisons so that when they are ready to be tested most of the other work needed is done. It makes no sense to hold off testing everything else if it was one thing so my thoughts is its something more that caused this.