9.0 General Discussion

[Dracullus]

So 4000 is the new goal now? *Hope is waning*

No, it's 2012.

[Yarathir]

No, it's 2012.

No, it's Patrick.

[Paula Deen]

If Towelliee is to be believed, they've told him multiple times to get ready for testing to start, only to change course and deny them the alpha:
https://www.twitch.tv/towelliee/clip...e=7d&sort=time

So clearly something is going down behind the scenes and it's not difficult to imagine that it's not going as they planned initially, aka behind because [X] reason.

He does this literally every Alpha/Beta Cycle. He is dumb. Nothing more or less.

[Yarathir]

He does this literally every Alpha/Beta Cycle. He is dumb. Nothing more or less.

Man who needs an audience for a living hypes things up to drum up a larger audience.

More news at 11.

[Chickat]

He does this literally every Alpha/Beta Cycle. He is dumb. Nothing more or less.

I'm not going to go as far as to call him dumb, but I think he clickbaits sometimes for views. I'm sure he will know a day or two before it starts perhaps, but I can't believe anything he says at this point due to how many times he's been wrong/ how long he's been putting "Alpha soon" in his stream titles.

- - - Updated - - -

Man who needs an audience for a living hypes things up to drum up a larger audience.

More news at 11.

I still think it's a shitty thing to do.

[razorpax]

He does this literally every Alpha/Beta Cycle. He is dumb. Nothing more or less.

he knows no more than any other content creator close to blizz

[facefist]

Its coming this week. Release early nov.

[Skildar]

I think we must reach the page 2020 for the alpha to be released. This is the path we must take!

[Chickat]

With a late 2020 release date there could probably hold alpha off another 2 months.

[Valysar]

Did Nostradamus make a prediction about the alpha's release date?

[Dracullus]

Did Nostradamus make a prediction about the alpha's release date?

All his predictions were about SL Alpha, people just read them wrong.

[Newname1234567890]

With a late 2020 release date there could probably hold alpha off another 2 months.

Why would they though? The longer the game is in alpha the better. Its probably approaching a playable state seeing as cornoavirus only been a big thing for a few weeks now in the west and it was due any second now.

[Monster Hunter]

I wish mate... I could do with manager money. But you did find someone who actually understands how it works, and is having to WFH right fucking now and for the foreseeable future, and is not fucking happy about it. I may end up having to burn time off just so I don't have to work from home, that's how frustrating it is.

Look

Thing is everything you complained about is an infrastructure issue.

And as you said you work for legal firm, we know its not a money issue, same as for the technical devs working for blizz. The fact you don't want to have a high tech home or don't want to invest in personal tech isn't a problem with working from home, it's a you problem and what you have chosen that makes WFH more difficult.

I have gig Internet, 2 small private Linux dev servers, a beefy gaming machine (needs a small update now) 2 company lap tops, 4 private laptops. And ultra wide monitor and 2 extra monitors if I need them, now I don't expect the modern worker to have any of those comforts I've built up all of that over a decade. But I would expect any modern office worker to have taken some care in there home set up so that if there working from home they have more than slow speed net and a works laptop. There is fiber broad band running through every town and city here in the UK, and every suburb.

It's 2020 get with the times. We arn't talking about low skilled workers here, we're talking about devs and programmer's and artists that are well paid.

[Sondrelk]

Look

Thing is everything you complained about is an infrastructure issue.

And as you said you work for legal firm, we know its not a money issue, same as for the technical devs working for blizz. The fact you don't want to have a high tech home or don't want to invest in personal tech isn't a problem with working from home, it's a you problem and what you have chosen that makes WFH more difficult.

I have gig Internet, 2 small private Linux dev servers, a beefy gaming machine (needs a small update now) 2 company lap tops, 4 private laptops. And ultra wide monitor and 2 extra monitors if I need them, now I don't expect the modern worker to have any of those comforts I've built up all of that over a decade. But I would expect any modern office worker to have taken some care in there home set up so that if there working from home they have more than slow speed net and a works laptop. There is fiber broad band running through every town and city here in the UK, and every suburb.

It's 2020 get with the times. We arn't talking about low skilled workers here, we're talking about devs and programmer's and artists that are well paid.

Just because you have a great setup doesnt mean that everyone does.

Sure, there is probalby some truth in that software engineers probably have decent home setups, but there is no guarantee that it is suitable for the work they are doing. There might be proprietary software, or even hardware required to properly develop WoW, which would be on borrowed laptops, but not on home computers.
There is also the possibility that the developers have a spouse or other who also needs to use the home computer, or even that said person already was working from home and is therefore using hte computer all day while the developers would have been at work.
The developers might have children who now need to be entertained seeing as they are also probably stuck because of Corona.

And that is of course without getting into the fact that some work simply is not as effective from home. An artist might need constant feedback to ensure his work is going in the right direction, and even with a Discord or similar that allows for instantly sending screenshots it simply isnt the same as being in a work enviroment.

And of course the fact that is is very true that mentally going into work mode might be difficult if you have never worked from home before. Even if you live alone, and perhaps especially if you have a custom computer setup that you normally use for something completely different.

[Aucald]

This thread is not about the current events, work-from-home rigs, or software development - it is about the Shadowlands expansion for WoW. Please stay on topic and take tangent conversations to PM.

[Eurhetemec]

Look

Thing is everything you complained about is an infrastructure issue.

And as you said you work for legal firm, we know its not a money issue, same as for the technical devs working for blizz. The fact you don't want to have a high tech home or don't want to invest in personal tech isn't a problem with working from home, it's a you problem and what you have chosen that makes WFH more difficult.

I have gig Internet, 2 small private Linux dev servers, a beefy gaming machine (needs a small update now) 2 company lap tops, 4 private laptops. And ultra wide monitor and 2 extra monitors if I need them, now I don't expect the modern worker to have any of those comforts I've built up all of that over a decade. But I would expect any modern office worker to have taken some care in there home set up so that if there working from home they have more than slow speed net and a works laptop. There is fiber broad band running through every town and city here in the UK, and every suburb.

It's 2020 get with the times. We arn't talking about low skilled workers here, we're talking about devs and programmer's and artists that are well paid.

This is such a ridiculously out-of-touch with reality opinion.

I work for a law firm but I'm not a lawyer. I'm not an American. I'm not over 45. I don't own a house. My wife and I rent a one-bed flat, because in London, that's what we can afford (whilst saving to maybe one day own a two-bed flat). There absolutely are very significant money issues on my end. You already fantasised that I'm a manager, now you have a weird fantasy where I'm a rich guy. It's weird.

You absolutely cannot get 1GB internet where I am in the UK for any reasonable price (you can in other parts of London). I have 20/70 up/down internet which is as fast as you can get here. Amazingly it makes my ping to EU WoW 12ms, which is great.

I do not normally work from home. I normally work in a plush office with a $1000 chair (amazingly, we all get them, even the low-end people), an adjustable table, two modern monitors and so on. I am lucky because I have space for a desk, and if I got rid of my one big monitor, I could have two smaller ones. This is a ONE-bed flat, not some palatial fucking mansion. If you're an American and you don't live in a big coastal city, there is ZERO chance you understand this. Because if I lived in the US, which I can't, but if I did, and got paid this much, I'd have a decent-sized house, and not renting either.

But even with all that, the biggest problem isn't on my end, except for the lack of two monitors (which, to be fair, I was close to convincing work to supply me with, before all this happened).

It's with my law firm. That's the one place you're not being a fantasist. It is an infrastructure issue. They don't infrastructure in place for as many people to work from home as are now, in the UK, going to have to work from home. They're scrambling to try and get it, but as you can imagine, it isn't easy right now - there's a ton of demand for anyone who can do that, and for the hardware as well.

We don't know how well Blizzard is set up for this. A lot of their employees are under 40, and living in what, Austin? So probably don't have a huge amount of space or money. Some will have good equipment, most/all will have good internet. But the issue is stuff like specialized software. I don't know what tools Blizzard uses, nor do you, but we both know there's going to be a gigantic amount of specialized software used by a huge number of people. On top of that. they have a culture where people work together and have communal areas and so on. Will it slow them down meaningfully? Impossible to say. It might even speed them up, though it is unlikely!

But as much as I get you're a professional work-at-home guy, and have a truly awesome setup, and I think working from home is cool for a lot of people, it's not cool for everyone, and not everyone is well-prepared for it, and not every business is well-prepared for it. And you should be real about that instead of making rich-guy assumptions about it. Also, well-paid? If you're a software dev, and you're not involved in game dev, you're probably paid at least 20%+ MORE than people at Blizzard (maybe a lot more if you're a contractor as it sounds like, admittedly you'd have more overheads). Game dev is some of the worst-paid software dev simply because of supply and demand - the supply of people who desperately want to do it outstrips the demand for jobs, forcing down pay.

EDIT - Just saw mod post, will continue by PMs - thanks.

[Kathranis]

Well, Blizzard is now teasing the next Overwatch hero, likely PTR soon and live on April 2 when the current event ends, some OW2 internal images got leaked, and the next HS expansion got leaked, with previews / early card release today, and content releases starting April 2.

They do tend to start pushing news/content out across all products at similar times, and things seem to be moving now.

Wouldn't be surprised to start seeing a Shadowlands push too. Already got the Danuser interview a few days ago. More to follow?

[matrix123mko]

Well, Blizzard is now teasing the next Overwatch hero, likely PTR soon and live on April 2 when the current event ends, some OW2 internal images got leaked, and the next HS expansion got leaked, with previews / early card release today, and content releases starting April 2.

They do tend to start pushing news/content out across all products at similar times, and things seem to be moving now.

Wouldn't be surprised to start seeing a Shadowlands push too. Already got the Danuser interview a few days ago. More to follow?

Maybe they will make a content overview or some advertisements today.

[gcsmith]

Had a strange dream last night that the alpha launched with the announcement of a new class called Archon A mail class with 3 specs, a ranged dps spec using guns/bows etc, a holy archer. A ranged melee spec like Kayle from League of legends. And a healer spec based around anima. I know it's just a dream, but still a cool one

[Edward Wu]

Is the new Hearthstone content preview today? Like that one poster before said, they do tend to announce things in clusters.

My confidence that something about Shadowlands will be announced this week is definitely rising now.