9.0 General Discussion

[Voidwielder]

Im surprised blizzard dont do small little press realises of information like other companies, like art from a dunegonor something. Its basically just a series of flood gates at blizzcon and public QA phase.

Ive not really followed all that many expasion launchs before. Is this thier usual MO?

Previously, alpha just... happened. One day, all of the sudden, everyone goes wild.

[Newname1234567890]

Previously, alpha just... happened. One day, all of the sudden, everyone goes wild.

I wonder why they dont do smaller trailers or snippets etc. Ah well one day soon should be exciting then!

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Previously, alpha just... happened. One day, all of the sudden, everyone goes wild.

And usually a pandemic wasn't happening :P

[Merryck]

And usually a pandemic wasn't happening :P

one more post until 40k. dewit

[Valysar]

What do we say to the god of Alpha ?

https://cdn.dnaindia.com/sites/defau...1/818794-2.jpg

[Queen of Hamsters]

What do we say to the god of Alpha ?

https://cdn.dnaindia.com/sites/defau...1/818794-2.jpg

And we say it again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and...????!!... Nope, false alarm, so again... and again, and again...

T.T

[towelliee]

Beauty of streaming Alpha Beta is you have thousands of reinforced eyes watching your every move. So if you miss something, someone will see it and people will induce in mindless spam. Which is what we want. Guilds on Alpha like mine and Slootbag and Bajheeras etc have reported bugs for years. And people in our guilds actually mostly get reinvites. cause they report too.

Not sure what streamers you all are watching. Maybe you're watching Asmongold climb a mountain for 2 hours and then not play for 2 months? Maybe you're watching a variety stream er who got access for being famous then logged in got 2 levels and never played WoW again. There are lots of genuine streamers who report bugs. Feedback is different. That is a streamer by streamer basis.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Beauty of streaming Alpha Beta is you have thousands of reinforced eyes watching your every move. So if you miss something, someone will see it and people will induce in mindless spam. Which is what we want. Guilds on Alpha like mine and Slootbag and Bajheeras etc have reported bugs for years. And people in our guilds actually mostly get reinvites. cause they report too.

Not sure what streamers you all are watching. Maybe you're watching Asmongold climb a mountain for 2 hours and then not play for 2 months? Maybe you're watching a variety stream er who got access for being famous then logged in got 2 levels and never played WoW again. There are lots of genuine streamers who report bugs. Feedback is different. That is a streamer by streamer basis.

interesting set of words. did someone start flaming streamers for no reason

[Merryck]

some streamers have vowed to provide more feedback this testing cycle and to stream the alpha more regularly. hopefully they act on their promise, because streamers can be great engines of change.

[Queen of Hamsters]

interesting set of words. did someone start flaming streamers for no reason

Some posters earlier on the page made the argument that streamers are not a good idea for Alpha access because of their attitudes and the attitude of their viewers.

But streamers are not a monolith, nor are their fans.

[Revamp Man]

Streamers with thousand of viewers intentionally overhype and skew things in whichever direction the chat is leading them. You could not find a worse measurement than streamer feedback ON stream.

The NDA alpha wouldn’t be on stream

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Ehhhh...

1. Isn't very accurate, because those thousands of viewers are notoriously dumb sheep. You aren't getting a feel for how "players" would react, you're getting a feel for how that one streamer individually reacts to a thing and then the viewers just parrot whatever their mood is.
2. Is also not true. In-house QA tests for both issues and also general playability/enjoyment.

Streamers don't give a good measure of what players really want, nor does their entertainment factor, or having viewers who care what they think, give you a good measuring stick. See LFR, something touted as the ultimate evil by many streamers yet clearly a crucial system that represents a big activity for a huge majority of the players.

1. I’ve seen a few streamers actually interact with the audience and have actual conversations

2. The QA team sucks this expansion in both terms of making sure stuff works and making sure it would be fun with most changes from legion to BFA launch as an example.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Cause someone somewhere decided "Meh Support staff doesn't matter"

[jzhbee]

interesting set of words. did someone start flaming streamers for no reason

What? People on MMO-C, bashing streamers needlessly? Never.
/s

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It would feel a little weird taking portals from one loading screen to the next of a zone. At least IMO


I know at Blizzcon only Bastion or w/e was available so there's no idea what Shadowlands looks like from one zone to the next.

I always thought the way Tera did long distance FPs was pretty cool.

For reference: https://youtu.be/4bLI0VAkESM?t=86

[Chickat]

I'm off tomorrow. Is it the day. Probably not.

[KridenTagg]

I saw that my Battle.net app needed to be updated and got excited for some reason.

Dang. Almost had it!

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

shadowlands isnt coming until 21 def. we'll get something with the unscrapped 8.3.5. no way they can release it this year

[Revamp Man]

Cause someone somewhere decided "Meh Support staff doesn't matter"

Well the remaining QA they have are either overwhelmed or possibly just inept so adding streamers who are constantly involved with the community as testers makes sense even outside of the current f&f alpha

People hate certain streamers and I get that...rich and soda are cancer...but they are still tools blizzard can use if not for actual feedback then for PR.

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shadowlands isnt coming until 21 def. we'll get something with the unscrapped 8.3.5. no way they can release it this year

They can do it this year but the virus screwed the original release

Also why do I keep seeing people say 8.3.5 was scrapped when nobody at blizzard ever mentioned it

[GhostPanini]

It is possible that alpha is not a thing this time around, we could be waiting months before they actually want to show us something. Blizz might want to test the tower/end game first which could be taking more dev time.

If that is the case I much rather wait to see end game then seeing cool quests, armors, weapons, and creatures. I love data mining but testing the stuff we are going to be doing for the majority of 9.0 would be better.

Or they could behind their normal dev cycle. Idk

[Queen of Hamsters]

shadowlands isnt coming until 21 def. we'll get something with the unscrapped 8.3.5. no way they can release it this year

There is no such thing as an unscrapped 8.3.5.
We already got something with the xp bonus. If they asspull an 8.3.5 patch, I bet it would piss people off rather than please.

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Well the remaining QA they have are either overwhelmed or possibly just inept so adding streamers who are constantly involved with the community as testers makes sense even outside of the current f&f alpha

People hate certain streamers and I get that...rich and soda are cancer...but they are still tools blizzard can use if not for actual feedback then for PR.

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They can do it this year but the virus screwed the original release

Also why do I keep seeing people say 8.3.5 was scrapped when nobody at blizzard ever mentioned it

Because people latch onto buzzwords like flies to rotten fruit.
Development doesn't happen on a whim, the contents and schedules of an expansion are not something you wing.

Not even WoD had scrapped patches, what we got was all that they were willing to give, with a nice chunk of empty hype fuel on top such as way more intricate systems and pure concept ideas...

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It is possible that alpha is not a thing this time around, we could be waiting months before they actually want to show us something. Blizz might want to test the tower/end game first which could be taking more dev time.

If that is the case I much rather wait to see end game then seeing cool quests, armors, weapons, and creatures. I love data mining but testing the stuff we are going to be doing for the majority of 9.0 would be better.

Or they could behind their normal dev cycle. Idk

Corona hit, that is why.
There will be an Alpha.

[Chickat]

There is no such thing as an unscrapped 8.3.5.
We already got something with the xp bonus. If they asspull an 8.3.5 patch, I bet it would piss people off rather than please.

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Because people latch onto buzzwords like flies to rotten fruit.
Development doesn't happen on a whim, the contents and schedules of an expansion are not something you wing.

Not even WoD had scrapped patches, what we got was all that they were willing to give, with a nice chunk of empty hype fuel on top such as way more intricate systems and pure concept ideas...

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Corona hit, that is why.
There will be an Alpha.

They absolutely scrapped stuff in WoD. Perhaps not patches but the way it played out wasn't their initial intention. We were supposed to get tannan as N end game zone in 6.0 but that got pushed back. There was at least a daramined raid in what city that perhaps was never intended by the time live rolled around but was once planned. WoD scrapped cities and there are some dungeons that were playing with that never got released. There is the bg, moveable Garrison's, and perhaps the biggest peice of scrapped content is Farahlon. You can't tell me Farahlon wasn't scrapped. No proof but I'm betting 6.2 was supposed to be Farahlon and probably the shat raid with guldan some how ending up in our Azeroth. with the raid and zone update as 6.3 for tannan with the finale and iron horse raid.


Sure maybe they changed their minds in early beta, but that's scrapped on my book. There's proof that all of that existed and a lot of it got pretty far along. They realized people hated the iron horde theme after a year of SoO, so they changed course and redid a lot of zones. Which I'm guessing pit them behind and made them scrap 6.3. they realized they didn't have room for Farahlon anymore since tannan wasn't going to be iron horde so they asspulled 6.2.