Rygarius: "Way too soon" for Warlords of Draenor Beta

[Gurbz]

I dismiss the beta duration of the first 2 expansions as largely irrelevant, because the game was completely different and less complex back then. TBC only had one raid size/difficulty for each boss, and they released raids in a perpetually broken state and fixed them later. That type of quality control would never be acceptable today. Wrath only shipped with 2 new raid bosses; everything else was a rehash of Vanilla Naxx. Neither of those beta cycles are comparable to a new 14+ boss raid tier with 4 different difficulty levels. That is what we saw in Cata and MoP, and the resulting betas lasted 5 and 6 months. It's much closer to what we will see in WoD than TBC/Wrath.

On top of that, the main reason every beta cycle is longer than the previous one is because of feature creep. Every time you add a new class, a new race, a new profession or a major new feature, you make the cycle of updating the game for the next expansion get longer and longer - it just adds more work. When you look at MoP alone, we have pet battles, flex raiding, scenarios, heroic scenarios, the Monk class, challenge modes, proving grounds, the Pandaren race, flex raiding, etc. All of those things need to be continued and updated for WoD, and those are all things that didn't exist in TBC or Wrath. That's why beta cycles keep getting longer and longer, and why the trend continuing and WoD beta taking 7 months or so wouldn't at all shock me.

Go back to threads during the MoP beta. People said the same thing that MoP isn't adding as much new content, doesn't have the Vanilla revamp and can not possibly take the 5 months that the Cata beta took. It ended up actually lasting longer.

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No, they don't have until end of day tomorrow to make the announcement if the goal is to give 2 full lockouts notice. Weekly quests/valor and conquest caps all reset tomorrow morning at 6 am EST as always. If they don't announce it before then (which realistically means it has to be tonight), it isn't 2 full lockouts.

The longer beta for MoP had more to do with them redesigning an entire zone right in the middle than feature creep. Either way, it is still an opinion and not an incontestable truth. The beta could still be shorter. My opinion is that it will be, and that opinion is no more or less valid than yours stating that it will not.

The end of season announcements have almost always come on a Tuesday. And it would still be 2 complete lockouts. Just not 2 resets.

Lockout 1: Feb 4-Feb 10
Lockout 2: Feb 11-Feb 17
Earliest start of new season: Feb 18

And that is if they stick with the usual 2 weeks notice. They don't technically have to, they would just face a certain amount of backlash of they decided to change it.

[Dasffion]

Go back to threads during the MoP beta. People said the same thing that MoP isn't adding as much new content, doesn't have the Vanilla revamp and can not possibly take the 5 months that the Cata beta took. It ended up actually lasting longer.

It wouldn't have lasted as long if they hadn't made some major changes to a couple zones in the middle of the beta.

[CosmicGuitars]

It wouldn't have lasted as long if they hadn't made some major changes to a couple zones in the middle of the beta.

Get your logic out here.

Clearly beta will be 7 months minimum!

[Mawnix]

It wouldn't have lasted as long if they hadn't made some major changes to a couple zones in the middle of the beta.

Oh shit I forgot about this.

They completely restructured Jade Forest...

[CosmicGuitars]

Oh shit I forgot about this.

They completely restructured Jade Forest...

And made Krasarang and the Dread Wastes as their own zones.

[Tiberria]

I do not believe the instant 90 mechanics are tied to the patch. I just think that Blizzard is using this PTR to test the tech needed to make it work. But there is nothing required client side (except maybe button artwork/placement info) so it could be deployed at any time without a patch. So that should not be considered when estimating the patch release.

I am pretty sure that getting the instant level 90 and CE pet/mount in the game is the primary purpose of the patch in the first place. They want to get pre-orders out ASAP because they will hope that people will buy it and then be less likely to unsubscribe while waiting for WoD with the ability to use the free 90 right away. It's definitely going to require client side changes, because granting the free 90 boost alone is going to require interface support, etc, which you can see from the profession bonus, etc strings added in the new build.

They already have had the new PvP season gear, etc in the game files since 5.4 went live, so they didn't technically need to put out a new patch for it. I think they are using the need to patch in the L90 boost and CE items as an opportunity to bundle in some balance changes with the new season, but getting pre-orders out ASAP is the primary purpose of it.

[Mawnix]

And made Krasarang and the Dread Wastes as their own zones.

Oh crap they did that too. I forgot when they initially unveiled Mists how underwhelmed I was at the fact there were only 4 zones..

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Oh crap they did that too. I forgot when they initially unveiled Mists how underwhelmed I was at the fact there were only 4 zones..

I don't even remember that. ._. Man....amazing how things change over development.

[Mawnix]

I don't even remember that. ._. Man....amazing how things change over development.

Yeah there was a shitload that changed from Blizzcon to launch with Mists.

Monks initially weren't supposed to have an auto attack and had a Dark/Light Chi system, too.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Yeah there was a shitload that changed from Blizzcon to launch with Mists.

Monks initially weren't supposed to have an auto attack and had a Dark/Light Chi system, too.

That I do remember. Just not the zone changes. Man.....I just hope nothing drastic changes in WoD Beta.

[Mawnix]

That I do remember. Just not the zone changes. Man.....I just hope nothing drastic changes in WoD Beta.

The changes they performed to Mists though was for the better. They know what they're doing IMO. They're paid to know what they're doing at least.

[Mormolyce]

Did we just have a 37 page argument over the meaning of the word "way"?

[Mawnix]

Did we just have a 37 page argument over the meaning of the word "way"?

Welcome to Mmo-Champion.

[TheWindWalker]

Monks initially weren't supposed to have an auto attack

And instead they gave them autoattack and made jab, an intentional thought-out punch, do less damage than spur-of-the-moment chops and palm strikes from the autoattack.

[Mormolyce]

Welcome to Mmo-Champion.

Nice to meet you! I'm Mormolyce. I hope you guys are nice!

[Dryadius]

In fact, I don't think they CAN. 5.4.7 is on the PTR and as far as I know, the beta uses the PTR infrastructure. Of course, they could bring up separate beta servers, but they've never run a PTR for the current release and a beta in parallel. Again, they COULD... but past indicators are that they won't.

Thing to take into account here is that with 5.4.7 being as small as it is, don't be too surprised if we see it live within the next 2 weeks. Just a thought.

[brothernads]

Thing to take into account here is that with 5.4.7 being as small as it is, don't be too surprised if we see it live within the next 2 weeks. Just a thought.

I'd be shocked if Blizzard doesn't give the standard two weeks notice for the end of the PvP season. So that means we have what's left of today to find out whether Blizzard plans to release 5.4.7 on February 18 or not - if they do, we should get a blog post by 8-9pm PT. No blog post means we wait another week to see if the patch hits on February 25.

Of course, this assumes they will stick to the two week notice window and not just spring it on us with less notice.

[wych]

That I do remember. Just not the zone changes. Man.....I just hope nothing drastic changes in WoD Beta.

To me it sounded at Blizzcon like they were toying with the idea of making Zangar Sea an actual zone given their talks about the concept art of it.

I hope that comes into fruition