When is the 8.0 Beta?

[clevin]

You can quote me if i'm wrong but I absolutely think your time scales are WAY off. Blizzards commitment to quicker content will continue with an expansion. I think your looking at a full release in May sort of time.

They ARE NOT RELEASING CONTENT FASTER.

It's amazing how many people believe that they are, but they're not. ALL they've done is split the usual patches into two parts, one with the world content, the other with the raid. For most expansions, we saw patches about every 5 months or so. These had quests, other world content and a raid. In Legion they're delivering patches every 2.5 months with the first half being world content and the second half being the raid. But it's STILL 5 months between, say, 7.1.0 and 7.2.0 or 7.20 and 7.3.0. Likewise it's 5 months from 7.1.5 to 7.2.5 to 7.3.x (the raid patches).

They're releasing the same content, in smaller chunks, more often but we're not getting more content faster.

Look at the screenshot on page 1 - note the gap between announce and beta. They're not doing beta in Dec or January. I'd be surprised if it's earlier than March. An April expansion release is delusional. Some of you do this every expansion and aside from the trollish posts, it amazes me that people continue to ignore what's happened before and argue that 'this time it's different' just because they want it to be.

[Nyel]

I honestly don't hate the idea of staggering content out a little bit more like I think they are trying to do. Wrath was a good example of a time where they could have extended their raid cycles out just slightly longer and Icecrown wouldn't have felt so....awful. Ulduar never really had time to breathe before Trial of the Crusader was out.

I really just wish they had something in place that made old content relevant. I love FF14 for this reason - none of their content is ever really "out of date". But I digress, that's totally not the point of this thread.

Ulduar (and maybe Throne of Thunder) are the tiers that come to my mind that have been too short - maybe. Ulduar definitely.

I really don't have a problem with decoupling patch and raid release when there wouldn't be 3 months between them like it's in Legion (7.2 in March, ToS in June, 7.3 in August, Antorus in November). I think 4 weeks are more than enough there is absolutely no need to delay it 3 months. If you don't have enough content to fill an expansion cycle just make them shorter overall but don't delay content just because of that.

[Dracullus]

If I have to guess:

- Alpha will start soon after Christmas break, something around mid January,
- Beta will start in June,
- 8.0 pre-patch will launch mid August,
- Expac will start late September.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I do not see this happening at all lol, Announcement at Blizzcon, Beta starts at blizzcon, beta till Feb-Mar, Release date April.

You are going to be very disappointed as the months tick by and you slowly realize a pre-fall release isn't happening.

[Nyel]

Look at the screenshot on page 1 - note the gap between announce and beta. They're not doing beta in Dec or January. I'd be surprised if it's earlier than March. An April expansion release is delusional.

As I said it makes absolutely no sense to release Antorus in November and beta shortly after. That's just counterproductive in every way possible.

[Maudib]

We need an alpha before beta begins.

Legion's alpha took, what, 5 months?

So, not for a long time.

Blizzard hasn't done Alpha for the past 2 expansions. Closed beta slowly goring in size of "testers"... then launch. What this means is simple: At least 10 months of 7.3.2 Enjoy. Beta begins 3rd week of April.

[CosmicGuitars]

Blizzard hasn't done Alpha for the past 2 expansions. Closed beta slowly goring in size of "testers"... then launch. What this means is simple: At least 10 months of 7.3.2 Enjoy. Beta begins 3rd week of April.

They've done alphas for both Legion and WOD, they just served very different purposes and weren't exclusively F&F.

[Maudib]

They've done alphas for both Legion and WOD, they just served very different purposes and weren't exclusively F&F.

Incorrect. No alpha for either.

[Eleccybubb]

Who cares? There's no way we could know what their internal build state is at this point?

What matters is when they release and no one here, including you and your friend Jay know this.
Throwing around terms like "internal alpha" or "beta" like we were somehow privy to their fucking scrum backlog is just incredibly pretentious and not to mention completely futile. It simply doesn't matter what their internal status is - because there's no way for us to verify any of it.

Once they start publishing public builds we can start speculating.

Who said anything about the state of the internal build? A build of a game is a build. Alpha is usually the early stuff. Maybe the first zone, any new race/class stuff and a dungeon or two.

If you really believe Blizzard don't have an Internal Alpha then well I don't know what to say.

There is no speculation. Why would a company not have their own builds of the next expansion 2 weeks before it's announced? They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they presented just a floor build and had no internal ones of their own. You really want to grasp at straws and suggest the only build they have is a floor demo build? Because then I can't take your debate seriously.

Any big company in the gaming industry has internal builds of a game this close to announcement. It's not rocket science to figure that out. And again if you really believe they don't that's just amusing at best.

[Release]

They ARE NOT RELEASING CONTENT FASTER.

It's amazing how many people believe that they are, but they're not. ALL they've done is split the usual patches into two parts, one with the world content, the other with the raid. For most expansions, we saw patches about every 5 months or so. These had quests, other world content and a raid. In Legion they're delivering patches every 2.5 months with the first half being world content and the second half being the raid. But it's STILL 5 months between, say, 7.1.0 and 7.2.0 or 7.20 and 7.3.0. Likewise it's 5 months from 7.1.5 to 7.2.5 to 7.3.x (the raid patches).

They're releasing the same content, in smaller chunks, more often but we're not getting more content faster.

Look at the screenshot on page 1 - note the gap between announce and beta. They're not doing beta in Dec or January. I'd be surprised if it's earlier than March. An April expansion release is delusional. Some of you do this every expansion and aside from the trollish posts, it amazes me that people continue to ignore what's happened before and argue that 'this time it's different' just because they want it to be.

We'll see, I'm sticking to my guns on an end of June release. If i'm wrong i'll hand my hands up but I think the next expansion will be quicker for a variety of reasons.

[clevin]

We'll see, I'm sticking to my guns on an end of June release. If i'm wrong i'll hand my hands up but I think the next expansion will be quicker for a variety of reasons.

Mostly your wish for it to be faster. Is it POSSIBLE? Sure. But you have to have some reasons for this time to be pretty different from all of the other times. For a June release we'd need BETA in Jan or early Feb and they've never done beta that swiftly after announce.

[CosmicGuitars]

Incorrect. No alpha for either.

Disputing an easily verifiable and common fact is bizarre, my guy.

[Eleccybubb]

Incorrect. No alpha for either.

There was a family and friends Alpha for WoD.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/13020212559

So yes they have.

And Legion most certainly had an Alpha.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/19998547

[willtron]

F&F Alpha after Blizzcon, Beta in March.

[Maudib]

Nope. Didn't happen.

[Release]

Mostly your wish for it to be faster. Is it POSSIBLE? Sure. But you have to have some reasons for this time to be pretty different from all of the other times. For a June release we'd need BETA in Jan or early Feb and they've never done beta that swiftly after announce.

My reasons mainly revolve around the amount of subs they lose with such a huge content drought and the fact the game can't really afford it anymore due to it's age and competitors. Alongside what they actually say about delivering content faster perceived or not. WoW isn't the powerhouse it once was and I don't think Blizz will want to risk any more subs than they absolutely have too.

This is my reasoning and its all obviously just conjecture we'll see if i'm correct in a couple of months or whatever.

[Coffeh]

Again this won't happen, April Release Date.

LOL. So they're going to go from 12 years of expansions averaging around a year from announcement to release suddenly down to 5 months? You are delusional. It'll be September at the earliest.

[Ragnarocket]

My reasons mainly revolve around the amount of subs they lose with such a huge content drought and the fact the game can't really afford it anymore due to it's age. Alongside what they actually say about delivering content faster perceived or not. WoW isn't the powerhouse it once was and I don't think Blizz will want to risk any more subs than they absolutely have too.

This is my reasoning and its all obviously just conjecture we'll see if i'm correct in a couple of months or whatever.

We always say that "the game can't survive a content drought" and yet it always does. I don't disagree they're gonna want to pump out the new expansion as fast as possible but I also think they might still be stinging from Warlords which in a lot of people's minds was rushed. They're still going to want to polish whatever content it is up.

[Darknessvamp]

Well from the WoD final major patch to Legion launch it was about 1 year 2 months and 7 days or 14 months and since they're suggesting they might have a minor 7.4 patch after the 7.3 raid content opens up I'd say beta would be about 6 months after the raid/4 months after the final mini patch and then release 7-9 months after taking into account any design flops.

[Release]

We always say that "the game can't survive a content drought" and yet it always does. I don't disagree they're gonna want to pump out the new expansion as fast as possible but I also think they might still be stinging from Warlords which in a lot of people's minds was rushed. They're still going to want to polish whatever content it is up.

I'm not being dramatic I know it will certainly survive and a lot of people would come back and buy the new expansion regardless of the time it takes. However, they also supposedly have a ton of new devs working on WoW now who should be up to speed through Legion which is another reason I think the time will be shorter.