Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

Seems totally arbitrary. Why is a guild that takes 9 months to reach farm status fine but not one that takes 10 or 11?

That's not arbitrary, what you've said doesn't capture the meaning of my statement. Mid expansion patches last on average 6 months, so that's the time to go. Anything beyond that is convenience for guilds to clear raids and solely because Blizzard wasn't / isn't capable / willing to deliver expansions faster.

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They still need to make that expansion. It's not gonna spring out of the void fully formed. Whether you like that or not has little to do with the reality of them having to do the work.

Ok? Who said something different?

[shoc]

This thread seems not to know that there is always one team developing an expansion while another is dealing with the current one.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This thread seems not to know that there is always one team developing an expansion while another is dealing with the current one.

Maybe an # of people working on the new expansion but its all part of Team 2(WoW devs).

[Relapses]

This thread seems not to know that there is always one team developing an expansion while another is dealing with the current one.

Has this ever been confirmed? I know Blizzard has different teams and it makes sense that different groups of people would be working on individual projects but I'm pretty sure in a company the size of Blizzard a lot of the people would float between teams.

[huth]

Has this ever been confirmed? I know Blizzard has different teams and it makes sense that different groups of people would be working on individual projects but I'm pretty sure in a company the size of Blizzard a lot of the people would float between teams.

If anything, it has been contradicted. Programmers and such would be pretty useless early on anyway, it's the concept guys that switch over first. Having two teams would leave a large group of people with essentially nothing to do, so that'd be stupid.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I don't think that narrative has ever gotten an official quote by any developer. If anything the art asset guys are probably moved on to next expansions first if anything. Which adds up with the theory of BFA being the start of the updated assets for 10.0.

[Nyel]

I think we all can agree on that not the entire team was working on Shadowlands. If indeed the entire team was working on Shadowlands, nothing can save WoW at this point if that's everything they're capable of nowadays. So lets assume a huge bunch of their employees was already working on 10.0.

[Sondrelk]

The dual team theory is a myth and always has been.
All sings point to WoW being made on an assembly line. The team that makes environments and the team that designs raids don't work on the same part of the expansion not because they alternate expansions, but because the environment team has moved on to the next patch or expansion by the time the raid design team gets to start putting bosses in.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Has this ever been confirmed? I know Blizzard has different teams and it makes sense that different groups of people would be working on individual projects but I'm pretty sure in a company the size of Blizzard a lot of the people would float between teams.

I always assumed the WoW team was floating between current and upcoming expansions, with primary resources being allocated to expansion launch content.

[Hitei]

That's not arbitrary, what you've said doesn't capture the meaning of my statement. Mid expansion patches last on average 6 months, so that's the time to go. Anything beyond that is convenience for guilds to clear raids and solely because Blizzard wasn't / isn't capable / willing to deliver expansions faster.

Mid expansion tiers stay around during the final tier though, and become progressively easier by virtue of the next tier showing up.

[Tyris Flare]

Art team definitely moves ahead early. Some of them have been working on 10 for over a year

[micwini]

Maybe Team A has been working on 10.0 for a while and BFA & SL were both made by Team B.

[Hitei]

Maybe Team A has been working on 10.0 for a while and BFA & SL were both made by Team B.

There is no team B.

[Luck4]

So, I was thinking today, if a World Revamp does not come in 10.0, and 10.0 end being something entirely different, without using the new human building models, what would that mean?

Revamp in 11.0? Waste of resources? Revamp canceled?

TL, DR: In case 10.0 isn't a World Revamp, what could be the purpose for these new buildings?

[Dracullus]

The dual team theory is a myth and always has been.
All sings point to WoW being made on an assembly line. The team that makes environments and the team that designs raids don't work on the same part of the expansion not because they alternate expansions, but because the environment team has moved on to the next patch or expansion by the time the raid design team gets to start putting bosses in.

Raids are made from patch to patch and expansion is just another season. Especially since BfA where they didn't test at all second big raid during Beta. But zones/dungeons/new features must be made through whole expansion, it's not like team is working on patch zone for 6 months and then BAM whole continent is ready for Alpha few months after last patch.

Clear example why some things are made very early is Anima. It works exactly like AP and I bet it supposed to be artifact 3.0. But they saw people are sick of this and repurpose Anima into cosmetic territory.

Team A/team B thing is obviously bullshit. Some expansions are more popular than others (usually when stars align and good theme is combined with good patch support, new feature that clicks and new class on top of that), but everyone had different flaws. There are things that SL or BfA did better than Legion, WoD did better than MoP, Cata better than Wrath. A lot of things actually.

Our theory about 10.0 revamp is different thing. Shadowlands is clearly smaller by design (nothing to do with covid, reveal was 2019), especially compared to massive BfA. It really feels like some people are doing other things. And remember that second revamp would require much more resources than first one, Cata was just 5 years after Vanilla.

Btw, anyone counted how many quests has SL compared to BfA? I think difference is most noticeable in that field.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I don't think that narrative has ever gotten an official quote by any developer. If anything the art asset guys are probably moved on to next expansions first if anything. Which adds up with the theory of BFA being the start of the updated assets for 10.0.

I wouldn't even be sure about that. Blizzard has 2 very heavy projects with lots of fires to put out besides WoW right now. I wouldn't be suprised in the least if some of the devs and artists are currently busy putting out those fires in OW2 and D4, so they will ship before 2025. I certainly wouldn't set myself up for disapointment and expect that the overwhelming part of the current team is already working at the next expansion like sneaky little ninja-devs and they just left a skeleton crew to pick up the pieces since before the expansion even launched.

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Btw, anyone counted how many quests has SL compared to BfA? I think difference is most noticeable in that field.

I think there was once a count of individual new assets per expansion and it has been a steady decline since legion? Certainly SL was rather far behind during 9.0 and 9.1 didn't add very much either. Probably a question for our resident dataminer.

Edit: Found a reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...nts_added_per/
9.2 would have to be massive to catch up to BfA, but it's still possible, I guess.

[Letdown]

I wouldn't even be sure about that. Blizzard has 2 very heavy projects with lots of fires to put out besides WoW right now. I wouldn't be suprised in the least if some of the devs and artists are currently busy putting out those fires in OW2 and D4, so they will ship before 2025. I certainly wouldn't set myself up for disapointment and expect that the overwhelming part of the current team is already working at the next expansion like sneaky little ninja-devs and they just left a skeleton crew to pick up the pieces since before the expansion even launched.

Can't speak to Blizzard, but as someone that works in a AAA game studio with multiple projects, this is EXTREMELY unlikely. These games have different styles and code bases, the ramp up time likely wouldn't be worth it because they'd need to spin back down to move to 10.0. It's more likely these gaps are filled with contract workers.

[Dracullus]

I think there was once a count of individual new assets per expansion and it has been a steady decline since legion? Certainly SL was rather far behind during 9.0 and 9.1 didn't add very much either. Probably a question for our resident dataminer.

I was only talking about SL compared to BfA - and only with quests/zones/dungeons, cosmetic game is growing every expac, nowadays they add more mounts in patch than in whole old expansion. Both BfA and Legion are massive, I don't know what count as "new asset", but it sounds like bullshit. Just compare modern zones to old wastelands from TBC/Wrath.

[huth]

Can't speak to Blizzard, but as someone that works in a AAA game studio with multiple projects, this is EXTREMELY unlikely. These games have different styles and code bases, the ramp up time likely wouldn't be worth it because they'd need to spin back down to move to 10.0. It's more likely these gaps are filled with contract workers.

I don't think most people realise that you can't just shove people around and expect them to work at full capacity. Let's not forget having the existing devs having to take time out of work to bring the new ones up to snuff.

It'd probably end up in an overall loss of productivity to try that, with no gains worth noting.

[shoc]

The 'dual team' thing was discussed extensively during the transition from MoP to WoD. It's the reason so much of WoD was unfinished. The old team training the new team was a massive drain on productivity and the Devs talked quite a bit about the challenges during that time.