Spamming people with youtubers and streamers in order to give them beta keys.

[FelPlague]

I never doubted (just to be clear) that most keys are given out via opt-in, compared to ones given away via streamers.

I think epigramx is merely saying the whole process of having to convince/beg/whatever a content creator to get a key is frustrating and boring. But as others have pointed out, it's really a no lose situation for Blizzard.

Still think an open beta would have been better.

Open beta is horrible idea, telling you from someone who has been in the past open betas, it's becomes a fucking mess of people who have no connection of it being a beta, and treat it more as "play the expac early" the obscene level of spamming chat about bugs, hell first weeks of beta it was really bad, I missed alpha, unable to talk in chat without having 5 people crying about how shitty this unfinished game is why the fuck did they release it like this it's so buggy.

No ones having to get streamers ,you enter giveaways, that's it. It's not begging or convincing, it's just pressing a button and hoping your number gets picked. Some add like "post a screenshot of you with a dragon!" To try and filter out the bots, but even that they don't look at the pictures, they just enter it into a roll.

And again, if they put all the keys they gave to content creators into the "random invite" pool we would be worse off, as a lot of the picked players don't actually want to play the beta, or only do a couple minutes, so making people have to seek out the key, instead of just getting it. Means they are more likely tompkay for awhile, and ya know, actually test
So yeah it's better to have 50 actual testers.
Instead of 5 actual testers
15 people who play it as a demo
And 30 people who don't even play it.

- - - Updated - - -

So you want to protect the OP's freedom to say w/e they want... By supressing FelPlague's right to say w/e they want. Riiight.

FelPlague is a content creator. That's their source. For literal legal reasons, they cannot show you the statistics they have access to, because of an NDA that basicly all Alpha testers HAVE to sign before they are allowed any where near the content. I cannot say for certain what other information this afford content creators, but basing FelPlague's statement, and my actually knowing them outside of MMO-Champ, I'm inclined to take their more reliable word, then someone who just finished contradicting themselves in the same sentence.

Actually to correct you, no NDA for me, not for many, some people got in REALLY early and they needed an NDA,one for those who got in before shadowlands alpha announcement or before drsgonflights. But early alpha players for shadowlands/dragonflight did not. This is how people like Taliesin and platinum wow had full dragonflight videos day of the alpha launch, cause they got in early. And of course has to sign NDA's to not say/post anything till the alpha went live.

However of course there is things we are told/learn that we could legally say, but ya know.
Blizz may not be able to sue for saying, but they very much will not invite you back if you say it.

(And of course everything above is public knowledge, if there is anything I have signed an NDA for it is not mentioned above)

[Orange Joe]

...back in the late 90s early 2000s there were little browser games that required this kinda thing...back in my Newgrounds days Outwar was one of the biggest ones doesn't mean they are a majority just means the most annoying

never thought I would see someone else mention this game lol

[Nerph-]

Open beta is horrible idea, telling you from someone who has been in the past open betas, it's becomes a fucking mess of people who have no connection of it being a beta, and treat it more as "play the expac early" the obscene level of spamming chat about bugs, hell first weeks of beta it was really bad, I missed alpha, unable to talk in chat without having 5 people crying about how shitty this unfinished game is why the fuck did they release it like this it's so buggy.

No ones having to get streamers ,you enter giveaways, that's it. It's not begging or convincing, it's just pressing a button and hoping your number gets picked. Some add like "post a screenshot of you with a dragon!" To try and filter out the bots, but even that they don't look at the pictures, they just enter it into a roll.

And again, if they put all the keys they gave to content creators into the "random invite" pool we would be worse off, as a lot of the picked players don't actually want to play the beta, or only do a couple minutes, so making people have to seek out the key, instead of just getting it. Means they are more likely tompkay for awhile, and ya know, actually test
So yeah it's better to have 50 actual testers.
Instead of 5 actual testers
15 people who play it as a demo
And 30 people who don't even play it.

Yeah to be fair I think I'm wrong about an open beta. I remember Rift's open beta, while it had a huge amount of people trying and playing, most weren't reporting bugs I imagine. And the sheer amount of people playing made it harder to actually test out anything.

[FelPlague]

Yeah to be fair I think I'm wrong about an open beta. I remember Rift's open beta, while it had a huge amount of people trying and playing, most weren't reporting bugs I imagine. And the sheer amount of people playing made it harder to actually test out anything.

Yep, imagine how horribly buggy and laggy and cluttered an expansion launch is, now imagine it's a beta where there is already to s of bugs. The game is not optimized, add-ons are fucked, and there is a couple servers and layers.

That is what the stress tests are for, and they are awful every time.

Like when they enabled add-ons on the beta, the amount of people complaining about shitty bugs... That were caused by their add-ons that they forced onto the beta even though they haven't been updated in years was awful, still is.

[ClownPrincess]

And
Let me explain, if blizz instead of giving away these keys, just randomly added these few to the generic pool, it would be far more likely many of those keys would go to people not even really interested.

By having people have to "work" for the keys, it makes sure the people who get these ones actually really want them. Most keys just go randomly to people, but a lot of those people also never log in, or log in for 10 mins to try out their class. These keys while in much smaller quantity. And harder to get, make sure those players are players who really want in.

That's not a strong argument, because beta keys are not a finite resource. They can monitor beta servers player activity and if it's too low keep issuing more keys until enough of them fall into the hands of motivated players.

Let's be clear, streamers and youtubers are marketing tools and nothing more.

[FelPlague]

That's not a strong argument, because beta keys are not a finite resource. They can monitor beta servers player activity and if it's too low keep issuing more keys until enough of them fall into the hands of motivated players.

Let's be clear, streamers and youtubers are marketing tools and nothing more.

They already do that first part...

But that still takes time to gather the data...

[Sanguinerd]

It's bad enough streamers are as popular as they are (as I find them bad for the gaming industry as a whole) but this is absolutely abhorrent by Blizzard when they're pretty much just saying "hey go watch these imbeciles for a beta key" its ridiculous. There shouldn't be extra steps to getting a beta key, especially not this way.

I'd love to say; to each their own (suppose its true in terms of wether or not you enjoy watching streamers) but I just don't agree with them doing it this way.

[Big Thanks]

Wait...everyone i know has beta access by now, me included...is this rare?

[Varanus]

Wait...everyone i know has beta access by now, me included...is this rare?

Conversely, noone I know has beta access.

[RobertMugabe]

I mean at this point almost everyone who has signed up for Beta and is playing at least for a couple of years has probably gotten a Beta Invite by now. And personally idc if I get invited to Beta or not.

The WoW beta's are mostly marketing tools anyways. By the time they publicly release anything to test, ALL design decisions have already been made a long time ago. You're just there basically in order to figure out random bugs and maybe some feedback will change some thing a little bit.

[Peacemoon]

I’m not sure why people get so excited for beta. The game will be out for real soon enough and surely that is a better experience than playing it in some test capacity with random characters.

[RobertMugabe]

Conversely, noone I know has beta access.

Did they sign up specifically for the beta and how actively are they playing the game?

[Puupi]

Conversely, noone I know has beta access.

Most of my wow buddies have beta access, myself included. Like 8 out of our 10 man team.

[Varanus]

Did they sign up specifically for the beta and how actively are they playing the game?

Dont know and dont know. Havent really been paying attention to others play habits. But noone I know has been on very often. Except myself. And I did sign up for the beta, and usually play like 4+ hours a day, on and off.

[RobertMugabe]

It's bad enough streamers are as popular as they are (as I find them bad for the gaming industry as a whole) but this is absolutely abhorrent by Blizzard when they're pretty much just saying "hey go watch these imbeciles for a beta key" its ridiculous. There shouldn't be extra steps to getting a beta key, especially not this way.

I'd love to say; to each their own (suppose its true in terms of wether or not you enjoy watching streamers) but I just don't agree with them doing it this way.

It's extra cheap marketing for Blizzard and WoW. The beta's are already 99% there for marketing reasons, so in any way how you look at it, all that is just there for marketing and creating hype, nothing more. If WoW Beta's were open to everyone automatically from day one, it wouldn't change anything in the game after all, since most feedback is useless and by that point where they can even release a beta (or alpha), all design decisions were already made a long time ago.

btw. if this makes you feel better: All these WoW streamers, as popular as they look like, are combined very small compared to the entire WoW base. Furthermore, some 5-6 streamers alone make up >90%+ of all WoW related viewership and out of these, the reason why they are popular is because of their personas and not really their WoW content. The "actual" WoW streamers are very small and nobodys overall.

[Unholyground]

If blizzard wasn't a bunch of scared pussies they would just have an open Beta week or weekend for people to try it but they're that unconfident of their product that it will never happen.

[Lochton]

It's such a suboptimal and frustrating process. Instead of giving keys to people directly: most people have to beg youtubers and streamers and others with a personal financial benefit in wasting people's time with ads and irrelevant promotions in order for you to have a chance (not even a guarantee) to get a key to a beta software (software that is not high quality/finished).

There is a massive load of keys going out to players already. Permitting Streamers and YouTubers to give out keys opens a door for people without an active account to get a try at it. I've already met some that wouldn't have gotten beta if it wasn't for a streamer he followed. It is common PR to offer people to try it out incase they haven't enabled to receive beta offers, or don't have an active Battle.net account.

[ClownPrincess]

I think last week's invite wave was large, but there are still probably lots of people nor in the beta. On another forum that i frequent, there don't seem to be a lot of beta testers.

Invites are probably not just about increasing the amount of people playing in the beta but also about maintaining it. A lot of people probably don't bother leveling more than once in the beta for instance, so they likely need fresh testers to do it again in more recent builds.

[Lochton]

I think last week's invite wave was large, but there are still probably lots of people nor in the beta. On another forum that i frequent, there don't seem to be a lot of beta testers.

Invites are probably not just about increasing the amount of people playing in the beta but also about maintaining it. A lot of people probably don't bother leveling more than once in the beta for instance, so they likely need fresh testers to do it again in more recent builds.

You also have to remember people have to actively go on their account and say that they are interested in beta invites.

[bloodwulf]

I can't speak for a lot of the people on the most recent giveaway list, but one is the guild leader of my guild (Sparty) and he is genuinely a good guy. He doesn't push opinions on anyone and tries to foster a strong sense of community, especially because he is heavily invested in the US-Stormrage Alliance community, being an active player and guild leader of the same guild since Vanilla. His method of giving away his keys is doing things that involve our guild(s) and interacting with others in our faction. He doesn't stream as a full time job, so for him, streaming is just a fun side gig he does to interact with people. He has also only tweeted the promotion one time to my knowledge and has not spammed our discord or any other media streams.