9.0 General Discussion

[puddypounce]

Today is the day.

[huth]

You’re reaaally gonna say WoD had no scrapped content? REALLY? You can’t possibly mean that seriously LOL. If you played WoD you know what was scrapped.

Scrapped patch != scrapped content. WoD never had more than two "major" patches planned.

[GhostPanini]

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

The Corona definitely had and will have an effect on development, implementation, and testing but Blizzard is probably taking that into account meaning they might skip Alpha and do beta down the line. Opting to do more internal testing instead of processing through all the community feedback. As it stands there are already a couple of builds on the CDN so it is already different from previous dev cycles.

So it is likely that alpha as we know it might not be around and get beta instead in a month or so.

[Sondrelk]

Scrapped patch != scrapped content. WoD never had more than two "major" patches planned.

Never is a bit of a strong word, it is quite likely WoD was planned to have 3 major patches or similar early in the development phase, but that was likely cut down to 2 somewhere before Alpha.

[Kumorii]

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 think data mine information is confirmed of what were gonna happen and set in stone. People refuse to realise that LOTS of content that's get thought up and created for testing gets scrapped for various reason and is a normal process in game development.

[Sondrelk]

The Corona definitely had and will have an effect on development, implementation, and testing but Blizzard is probably taking that into account meaning they might skip Alpha and do beta down the line. Opting to do more internal testing instead of processing through all the community feedback. As it stands there are already a couple of builds on the CDN so it is already different from previous dev cycles.

So it is likely that alpha as we know it might not be around and get beta instead in a month or so.

At this point there are really only 3 likely outcomes.

1. The Alpha is delayed or otherwise never intended to come out at this point.

2. The Alpha was supposed to come out after a press event that would have happened recently, but Covid-19 forced Blizzard to cancel it.

3. The Alpha is delayed because there are marketing events outside the deve cycle or option 2 that have been delayed or hindered by Covid-19, like Ion or other spokespeople being bedridden or having near family that are bedridden that requires attention.


Option 1. is the most likely, though i would imagine that option 2. also has a decent possibility, especially since noone knows when the lockdown is safe to end, so Blizzard might be attempting to wait it out to get that juicy press-event. Though i find that unlikely given that there should be someone there smart enough to know that waiting weeks isnt viable.
Option 3. is the least likely, though still a fair possibility given the age of the top developers in the company.

[GhostPanini]

At this point there are really only 3 likely outcomes.

1. The Alpha is delayed or otherwise never intended to come out at this point.

2. The Alpha was supposed to come out after a press event that would have happened recently, but Covid-19 forced Blizzard to cancel it.

3. The Alpha is delayed because there are marketing events outside the deve cycle or option 2 that have been delayed or hindered by Covid-19, like Ion or other spokespeople being bedridden or having near family that are bedridden that requires attention.


Option 1. is the most likely, though i would imagine that option 2. also has a decent possibility, especially since noone knows when the lockdown is safe to end, so Blizzard might be attempting to wait it out to get that juicy press-event. Though i find that unlikely given that there should be someone there smart enough to know that waiting weeks isnt viable.
Option 3. is the least likely, though still a fair possibility given the age of the top developers in the company.

I think its a bit of 1 and 2, since the builds were up on the CDN before Cali was locked down. I also think that Blizz will use the lock down the best they can but having to work from home will delay dev time( not to the as much as that some people think ). I really don't understand marketing so have a say in it.

To expand on it the alpha was delay first for non COVID reasons, then COVID locked down Cali causing more delays

[huth]

Never is a bit of a strong word, it is quite likely WoD was planned to have 3 major patches or similar early in the development phase, but that was likely cut down to 2 somewhere before Alpha.

I don't think so, actually. They had been talking about doing yearly expansions for quite a while by WoD. Turns out they can't pull them off.

[Monster Hunter]

That is still Blizzard asking what is for all intents and purposes random people to do the work of a Q&A team for free on their own time, seeing as the NDA means they cannot show it off to their streaming audience.
There is also no guarantee that just because you stream means you have a good grasp on how to give constructive feedback or come up with ideas, and if they did you might as well just take it from somewhere else that doesnt require makign someone sign an NDA.

All in all it just sounds like quite a bit of faff for little to no obvious gain.

Now if the idea is the streamers get access to Alpha a day or two before it goes public so they can prepare a showcase for when they can actually stream it then i can see the reason why you would do it. But otherwise i don't see what you actually gain from it beyond validating people on forums over why some streamers claim to have insider knowledge.

I think people are reading into the alpha builds but forgetting the situation. I don't think any one but blizz employees have access to the alpha and the builds deployed are to make testing from home easier. If it wasn't for crono I don't think we would hae the encrypted builds going up.

[Nfinitii]

Honestly if alpha was ready, now would be the time to launch it with a lot of ppl stuck at home. I doubt they r rdy. Shadowlands seemed like it was in really early development at blizzcon so I’m not even worried when it’s suppose to come out.

[Sondrelk]

I don't think so, actually. They had been talking about doing yearly expansions for quite a while by WoD. Turns out they can't pull them off.

Suppose that is true, even if i would argue that MoP was the final experiemtn in making a yearly expansion, seeing as it actually only really lasted a year, before it ended with a year long drought.

WoD might have been considered as that, then maybe they rethought it to be 3 major patches, then decided to scrap it and go for 2 instead somewhere before Alpha.

[Bomba the Shaman]

It's easy to work at home these days, especially in gaming industry where everything is done on PCs. I can't imagine the virus delaying them more then a couple of days to get everything set up, a week max. I think the decision to postpone the alpha (if it indeed was meant to be released earlier) has to do with things like, for example, the corruption system having a mixed reception, and since Torghast is supposed to directly lean on horrific visions as a feature, they felt they need more time to flesh thing out or rework it.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You’re reaaally gonna say WoD had no scrapped content? REALLY? You can’t possibly mean that seriously LOL. If you played WoD you know what was scrapped.

It had no scrapped patches, as confirmed by a returning dev. 6.2 = as far as the plans went.

And I did play WoD. Extensively.

[Sondrelk]

It's easy to work at home these days, especially in gaming industry where everything is done on PCs. I can't imagine the virus delaying them more then a couple of days to get everything set up, a week max. I think the decision to postpone the alpha (if it indeed was meant to be released earlier) has to do with things like, for example, the corruption system having a mixed reception, and since Torghast is supposed to directly lean on horrific visions as a feature, they felt they need more time to flesh thing out or rework it.

You seem ot be badly misinformed on the problems currently faced by Blizzard. Firstly, the project is slightyl delayed by the workers have to acclimatise to working at home, this might be a couple days work, but after that you start running into problem beyond the usual.
Maybe the developers have kids at home, or a spouse that already uses the usual computer that one could use to work from home. Maybe someone in their family is ill or otherwise requires outside help.
The developers migth not be able to get into the right headspace to work, maybe they have gotten used to being able to talk to coworkers to get their gear moving, or maybe Blizzard has a cafeteria that they are used to getting their ideas in.
WoW is a team-effort, and for that tight communication is required, and having to send emails or even just pictures over Discord or similar already makes the work delayed, and this is compunded by possibly hundreds of pictures each day, or brainstorming sessions not starting to move as quickly as usual. It wouldnt take long for the time wasted on trivial things like this would be measured in days, then weeks.


Also, Torghast is vaguely similar to Horrific visions only in that both are designed for a group of 1-5. Other than that Torghast has a much higher focus on randomization and being able to take your time. Whereas Horrific visions are more about optimization and going quickly to outspeed the sanity drain.

- - - Updated - - -

It had no scrapped patches, as confirmed by a returning dev. 6.2 = as far as the plans went.

And I did play WoD.

To be fair, it is difficult ot determine what constitutes a scrapped patch.
We know that Shattrath was originally meant to be a raid, and Farahlon a zone, so even if that was supposed to be what 6.2 was originally envisioned as that could in theory constitute a scrapped patch.

[GhostPanini]

It's easy to work at home these days, especially in gaming industry where everything is done on PCs. I can't imagine the virus delaying them more then a couple of days to get everything set up, a week max. I think the decision to postpone the alpha (if it indeed was meant to be released earlier) has to do with things like, for example, the corruption system having a mixed reception, and since Torghast is supposed to directly lean on horrific visions as a feature, they felt they need more time to flesh thing out or rework it.

Its more of a productivity issue, a lot of people will be distracted by family, tv, social media, etc. Most people are not use the discipline needed to focus on work from home. Those skills will take more time to hone then just setting up laptops and vpns.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You seem ot be badly misinformed on the problems currently faced by Blizzard. Firstly, the project is slightyl delayed by the workers have to acclimatise to working at home, this might be a couple days work, but after that you start running into problem beyond the usual.
Maybe the developers have kids at home, or a spouse that already uses the usual computer that one could use to work from home. Maybe someone in their family is ill or otherwise requires outside help.
The developers migth not be able to get into the right headspace to work, maybe they have gotten used to being able to talk to coworkers to get their gear moving, or maybe Blizzard has a cafeteria that they are used to getting their ideas in.
WoW is a team-effort, and for that tight communication is required, and having to send emails or even just pictures over Discord or similar already makes the work delayed, and this is compunded by possibly hundreds of pictures each day, or brainstorming sessions not starting to move as quickly as usual. It wouldnt take long for the time wasted on trivial things like this would be measured in days, then weeks.


Also, Torghast is vaguely similar to Horrific visions only in that both are designed for a group of 1-5. Other than that Torghast has a much higher focus on randomization and being able to take your time. Whereas Horrific visions are more about optimization and going quickly to outspeed the sanity drain.

- - - Updated - - -



To be fair, it is difficult ot determine what constitutes a scrapped patch.
We know that Shattrath was originally meant to be a raid, and Farahlon a zone, so even if that was supposed to be what 6.2 was originally envisioned as that could in theory constitute a scrapped patch.

A scrapped patch to me is a planned patch that gets scrapped.

Easy. They had to scrap tons of CONTENT for WoD because of the release schedule restraint, but the patch cycle was in place long before we got to see what went on.

And since they did more hyping and marketing for WoD than actual development, I'm willing to bet they knew all along what would make it into the game and what wouldn't. That's how shitty of an effort it was.

Meanwhile, we've had zero signs of an 8.3.5. What was it going to contain? When was it planned to come out? Why did they add changes to 8.3 rather than save it and put it into an 8.3.5 patch to appease those wanting an added 5?

8.3.5 having been scrapped is pure speculation. So was the sentiment some out here was spreading during 8.2 where apparently "the expansion had been abandoned midways".

[KridenTagg]

I think it's safe to say that we need some Shadowlands news ASAP. It's starting to get really testy in here mostly due to the frusturation of Ion and the WoW team being radio silent.

[Syegfryed]

what a wonderful day to not get alpha

[Mardux]

You’re reaaally gonna say WoD had no scrapped content? REALLY? You can’t possibly mean that seriously LOL. If you played WoD you know what was scrapped.

If you read what they typed you’d know they did not say WoD had no scrapped content.

LOL.

[Sondrelk]

A scrapped patch to me is a planned patch that gets scrapped.

Easy. They had to scrap tons of CONTENT for WoD because of the release schedule restraint, but the patch cycle was in place long before we got to see what went on.

And since they did more hyping and marketing for WoD than actual development, I'm willing to bet they knew all along what would make it into the game and what wouldn't. That's how shitty of an effort it was.

Meanwhile, we've had zero signs of an 8.3.5. What was it going to contain? When was it planned to come out? Why did they add changes to 8.3 rather than save it and put it into an 8.3.5 patch to appease those wanting an added 5?

8.3.5 having been scrapped is pure speculation. So was the sentiment some out here was spreading during 8.2 where apparently "the expansion had been abandoned midways".

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I mean more in the sense that if 6.2 was SUPPOSED to be Farahlon and a Shattrath raid, but that content was scrapped in favor of Tanaan and HFC raid, then you could argue that it would constitute a scrapped patch, seeing as you have a patch worth of content being removed in favor of something else.