Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[AngerFork]

But yeah, I definitely agree that this preorder situation is really odd. I don't know what happened internally for it to go this way. Either they are extremely confident that when preorder hits it will hit hard (Announcement around an event?) or something just feels off, indeed.

This is where I'm at with it as well, especially given how well everything seemed to be lined up beforehand. Datamined mounts/pets/armor was found encrypted. The name was found due to a marketing js that was prepped for pre-orders. We almost certainly don't have another patch coming out with new content, so it's unlikely that it's a secret pre-order bonus as was theorized with Dark Rangers. And with each passing week hype dies down some...Blizz has to know this, it's what happens with every single announcement.

Blizz have never exactly had an issue releasing an extremely early pre-order & putting a fairly late date on it before, so why now?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean the timeframes for Alpha are still on a natural timescale of previous expansions so far. We only start moving out of the ordinary in that regard in July.

I still believe if nothing happens the next two weeks with the Gaming fesitivities that Gamescom will be the target at that point unless and again this is Blizzard it will be a blog post on a random week that has preorders available. Again, there's a lot of potential ways the Preorder situation ends.

I think Gamescom will at least maybe mimic the Shadowlands marketing with a Dragonflight animated short episode and some big announcement. (As there will be an animated shorts series for Dragonflight although unconfirmed what they will be themed around from the interview conducted by DesMephisto with Terran and Marc Messenger)

[Valysar]

I believe that is Shadowmoon Valley (WoD), but while not exactly Dragonflight content it does look really good.

Indeed it is Shadowmoon Valley, very nice environment !

[Lahis]

What has MW2 pre-order to do with Dragonflight though?

ActivisionBlizzard sells both MW2 and Dragonflight. The more presales they can get for both in Q2, the bigger Bobby's bonus will be.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Well, the timeframes for MW2 and Dragonflight are completely different. There's another weird odd rumour in the industry going around Diablo 4 being showcased at Xbox + Bethesda and again I still believe that is complete nonsense since it is the usual suspects in the leak community doing their notepad lists.

I don't think MW2, Diablo 4 or Dragonflight will overlap. I do think maybe that the business side may try and release product to have a nice sustained quarters until acquisition is completed. But, again. This is beyond heavy speculation as again the only really weird oddity with Diablo 4 is the Collector's Edition achievement being put into the game (or on PTR, I forgot) around the same time they added the next WoW Anniversary achievement for the next year which certainly felt odd to me due to the way they time next year WoW anniversary stuff at the tail-end of the year also with said Diablo Collector's Edition achievement.

There's also the chance that Dragonflight is later than Q1 2023 and the Prequel book default date is not creating a release window for Dragonflight with the usual timeframes from book to expansion release.

I emphasize that again this is extreme heavy speculation and I am just wondering if there's a financial incentive for the oddity. It may not be the case at all and there's no actual genuine pursuit of record profits before Microsoft takes over at all. It just has the perception of being that way.

I would also say that it is still unclear what the status are for Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 PVE. Outside of this speculation I still believe Diablo 4 is a 2024 title and that Overwatch 2 PVE is 2023. But, again it is just curious.

June 16ths' Overwatch 2 Reveal also is very interesting cause it will be interesting to see how bountiful the news are or if they will continue dripfeeding the Overwatch fanbase.

We also have the Warcraft 3 Reforged news in June. But, again I doubt that is anything but a forum post.

I personally believe that MW2 and Warzone 2 will probably do enough damage than releasing other products in the same timeframes or within the next quarters. Not to speak of the genuine oddity of MW2 being put back on Steam which sort of feels like Microsoft has more control than they are supposed to which may delay products like Diablo 4 or Overwatch PVE. But, again who knows.

I'm also going to be honest, I genuinely have no idea how preorders work financially as I assume the revenue from preorders would come in during the preorder opening quarter which would put further emphasis on offering as many preorders in a quarter for maximized profit. But, again. (Especially since Activision Blizzard digital preorders function by taking your money upfront) I guess we'll see.

[Marlamin]

While wowdev has been on 10.0 for a while, as of just now it is also called Dragonflight Internal Alpha in the launcher.

[Nyel]

Yep, paired with Ion's original "soon, not TM" it feels like they have some unexpected issues with the alpha, hence the delay in pre-orders. But well, maybe we will get something new in a few hours *fingers crossed*

Why would you assume that? Soon was never a thing of just a few weeks with Blizzard. Last time the soon was 8 weeks and we're almost there. So I'd say it's as expected, they're just misusing the word soon.

- - - Updated - - -

While wowdev has been on 10.0 for a while, as of just now it is also called Dragonflight Internal Alpha in the launcher.

What does internal Alpha mean?

[Marlamin]

Why would you assume that? Soon was never a thing of just a few weeks with Blizzard. Last time the soon was 8 weeks and we're almost there. So I'd say it's as expected.

- - - Updated - - -



What does internal Alpha mean?

Blizzard employee only, but on the public launcher so they'll be able to play at home.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Has this meant anything in the past with "At Home" Family & Friends being allowed any changes in timeframes?

[Marlamin]

Has this meant anything in the past with "At Home" Family & Friends being allowed?

wowdev has never been friends & family to my knowledge, it is purely for employee-only testing (and is encrypted). Friends and Family alphas usually (for for mainline WoW, always) start out on the wow_beta product.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

wowdev has never been friends & family to my knowledge, it is purely for employee-only testing (and is encrypted). Friends and Family alphas usually (for for mainline WoW, always) start out on the wow_beta product.

Ah okay, thanks. Yeah, I get this stuff mixed up a ton.

Still really wondering contextually if this means anything or not timeframe wise.

Honestly, it does seem they are taking their time which is a good thing.

[Marlamin]

Ah okay, thanks. Yeah, I get this stuff mixed up a ton.

Still really wondering contextually if this means anything or not timeframe wise.

No way of knowing really, internal alpha might have been going on with that build from late April for a while (but unlikely since there haven't been any updates) or they're only now just starting it up, if that is the case that means Dragonflight is one step closer to public testing as they're comfortable to letting other employees test as well.

[Worldshaper]

Looking back on Shadowlands real quick, it seems like internal Alpha appeared on April 6, 2020, and datamining started on April 9. So we could be days away!

[Marlamin]

Looking back on Shadowlands real quick, it seems like internal Alpha appeared on April 6, 2020, and datamining started on April 9. So we could be days away!

Shadowlands went on wowdev the 20th of February 2020, not April.

[Worldshaper]

Shadowlands went on wowdev the 20th of February 2020, not April.

At least news websites reported on April 5-6 that the Alpha showed up as internal if you Google it.

Edit:

Wowhead reported in on April 3. Guessing they're the original source.

[Marlamin]

At least news websites reported on April 5-6 that the Alpha showed up as internal if you Google it.

They'd be wrong, you can probably find a Wowhead article that gets it right from around February 20th (give or take a day due to timezones).

[Worldshaper]

They'd be wrong, you can probably find a Wowhead article that gets it right from around February 20th (give or take a day due to timezones).

Check my edit.

[Marlamin]

Check my edit.

Still wrong, this would be the comparable event for Shadowlands (to compare with the first Dragonflight build going up on April 22nd this year):

https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowl...1-33411-311274

More specifically, the note in the post about the Battle.net app would be equivalent to what happened today.

[Worldshaper]

Still wrong [snip]

More specifically, the note in the post about the Battle.net app would be equivalent to what happened today.

Fair enough, I'm just going by what was posted.

"Dragonflight now labelled as internal Alpha."

"Shadowlands now labelled as internal Alpha."

Not my field of expertise.

[Marlamin]

Fair enough, I'm just going by what was posted.

"Dragonflight now labelled as internal Alpha."

"Shadowlands now labelled as internal Alpha."

Not my field of expertise.

I'm assuming you are refering to this news post, which hasn't happened just yet for Dragonflight.



Whenever that "deprecated" value is removed and the various strings are updated to say Dragonflight, then definitely sound the alarm bells as that means a public build is likely coming rather soon (but again, hasn't happened yet for DF).