9.0 General Discussion

[Penegal]

When the game has less content then you literally need to test less

No islands
No warfront
2 fewer dungeons

Only 5 zones

No azerite so you just have to balance soul bonds and covenant abilities

Less testing

- - - Updated - - -



Mid august

I say @Chickat had a pretty good prediction table

Like, did you read past the first sentence? Just because it has less content doesn't necessarily mean there's less to test. It depends on how stuff is working. It depends on how complex it is. It depends on how it's supposed to work. There are a lot of dependencies that will determine how much testing needs to be done. While it certainly seems plausible to need less testing, considering how undertested BFA was for the time it was being tested, I'm hard-pressed to believe 6 months of testing will be enough to deliver a product that was developed with the feedback of the playerbase. At best we might get some adjustments made on arbitrary feedback.

Also, considering that the entire leveling part of the game needs to be retested after the squish, I'm not sure testing needed is less. If they can give like a 1-2 week of a testing period per expansion, we'd need like 2 months at minimum for that alone. Then you have the 5 zones. Each leveling zone should at least have 2 weeks of testing with the maw at least a month. Another two months of testing max level content at a minimum just to iron out any stupid bugs and make sure balance is achieved. I'd be disappointed if we get a testing period that's less than 8 months.

[eillas]

When the game has less content then you literally need to test less

No islands
No warfront
2 fewer dungeons

Only 5 zones

No azerite so you just have to balance soul bonds and covenant abilities

Less testing

- - - Updated - - -



Mid august

I say @Chickat had a pretty good prediction table

6 zones. The lowbie island zoner

Torgasht

[Revamp Man]

6 zones. The lowbie island zoner

Torgasht

Torghast is a dungeon just with different floors

[Bindanda]

The last wing of LFR opens today in NA and tomorrow in EU, dont get your hopes up. They'll be more worried about anything that might happen with that

[Sondrelk]

The last wing of LFR opens today in NA and tomorrow in EU, dont get your hopes up. They'll be more worried about anything that might happen with that

That is a nice reminder. Makes playable Alpha next week sound very likely actually. Question is just whether we will get a datamineable build tomorrow or Thursday to build up hype for the playable version showing up on Twitch.

[Timewalker]

Today is the day according to the prostitute I hired to hold me while I cry.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I just got up. Hopefully there will be something in the morning lol

[MrGMYT]

Happy datamine day

dont... don't give me hope

[therumblings]

Dawn of the final day

[Nathanyel]

dont... don't give me hope

Sooo tempted to use the "Hulk giving Antman [something]" meme. Are memes allowed in this thread? I know they aren't on the forums in general.

[Eurhetemec]

EDIT: actually there probably no random at all in wow and its all smoke and mirrors ill post some psudo-code in the morning as its 3am here that shows how i would o it to look random without any calls to a random algorithm.

This is what I would personally expect, yeah. Other MMOs have certainly taken this approach previously.

Re expertise, sorry if that seemed like a diss, it's not intended as such. It's clear you know your stuff, I just mean that they're a high-paying, high-prestige (still) employer and they seem to have solved their brogrammer problems of the past meaning they can access the full talent pool, and this is absolutely key for them, so they will have experts. You may be an expert too - but I had assumed not, which is on me.

[Marlamin]

Sooo tempted to use the "Hulk giving Antman [something]" meme. Are memes allowed in this thread? I know they aren't on the forums in general.

Generally not really, but this thread is a bit less strict. I am able to pull it off from time to time.

Just don't tell the mods.



mods please dont read this post thanks

[Eurhetemec]

Torghast is a dungeon just with different floors

Torghast is an attempt to combine WoW with games like Dead Cells and Slay The Spire. It's going to require some hellacious testing and balancing, because that will not be easy, to put it mildly. Especially as it scales to 1 to 5 players and probably takes account of specs, like Visions do (IIRC).

[Hyrja]

I mean weren’t you were the one praising the Almighty streamer God who said that we wouldn’t get anything for at least another week?

But yeah we are probably going to get something tomorrow or today

Towelliee knows stuff relating to the alpha servers coming up, he doesnt know when the first dataminable comes out. But its gonna be this week.

[MrGMYT]

Towelliee knows stuff relating to the alpha servers coming up, he doesnt know when the first dataminable comes out. But its gonna be this week.

That is generally how it works for creators. The determinable build stuff is simply when they move the data from the encrypted wowdev > unencrypted wow_beta CDN. They probably wouldn't be told when that happens.

[Edward Wu]

Just woke up with a single thought:

Streamers probably have a rough idea when the alpha will hit. I don't think Blizzard tells them anything about the first public build hitting the testing realms that's only dataminable. We could really see something this week.

[MrGMYT]

Just woke up with a single thought:

Streamers probably have a rough idea when the alpha will hit. I don't think Blizzard tells them anything about the first public build hitting the testing realms that's only dataminable. We could really see something this week.

isn't that exactly what I said above?

[Edward Wu]

isn't that exactly what I said above?

Yes. I tend not to scroll up the thread every time I open it.

[Tartys]

Dawn of the final day

Due to CodVid19 spread... this sound very bad.

[Monster Hunter]

This is what I would personally expect, yeah. Other MMOs have certainly taken this approach previously.

Re expertise, sorry if that seemed like a diss, it's not intended as such. It's clear you know your stuff, I just mean that they're a high-paying, high-prestige (still) employer and they seem to have solved their brogrammer problems of the past meaning they can access the full talent pool, and this is absolutely key for them, so they will have experts. You may be an expert too - but I had assumed not, which is on me.

the games industry has a very bad reputation amongst engineers and programmer's, that and games programmers are in some ways looked down on by "real" programmers as they call them selves (not saying its right, just i have seen many times at programmer conventions derogatory remarks towards games programmers and engineers) this compounds the all ready bad recruitment problem that is across all the industry's in need of programmers atm, not that i am complaining about that as it drives up wages. but then games also has the reputation of being the lowest paying industry you can go into as a programmer.

its part of the reason why solving there brogrammer problem was such an important thing for them, they need to have access to a much wider talent pool because there searching for a niche within a niche within a niche, a programmer with the right skill is hard to find, finding one that does c++ with enough expertise, is happy to work in the games industry for that pay and conditions but also can work well with artist types... well i wouldn't like being a recruiter in the games buis, and the recent bad press for the industry over the past few years hasn't likely helped.

though solving the brogrammer problem also isn't really a measure of the quality of code a team produces, quality code is a measurable metric, whats right and wrong and whats best practise and not is logically defined and measurable, so the physical characteristics and personal experiences of the individual programmer are basically meaningless, only there ability to solve problems and there experience really matter, and that's roughly true in most engineering professions. solving that issue means you have a wider pool of junior and mid tier programmers to select from but as experience is the most valuable trait, it doesn't help for hiring in the very top older programmers with the most experience for the senior programmer roles as the new more diverse crop hasn't yet matured enough to widen that pool. so its not much use if you say for example need some senior graphics programmers to come in and over see and direct adding vulcan support to wow as its a pretty binary do they or do they not have the experience to do that job.

but that's getting into the whole pyramid problem which tbh will solve its self in time as more people come into programming and progress through there careers and gain experience.

my sudo code need's re write so probably look at that after work, i realised as i was writing it wow items are broken down into PPM and base % chance, writing a fake random that looks random using a table and heuristics is one thing but wont be enough, it needs more constraints adding to it.