Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Marlamin]

100%! Did you manage to get some rest and remedy your eye a bit before the exciting week to come?

lolno, Alpha week is going to be interesting to get through!

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think this expansion lives or dies with a consistent patch cadence.

The base product being empty and worthless is not really a problem if they A) Communicate well (lol) B) The Patch Cadence mimics BFA, at least.

I mean we got 5 months on this testing cycle. It means a condensed build after build environment. So it will mean that the full image of Dragonflight before launch will be on display relatively quickly.

[Catastrophy349]

They are adapting feedback from season 3 to season 4 already. So no, it's not "everything from the alpha". The constant naysaying is honestly annoying. Dragonflight looks super cool so far and Alpha will launch in a few days. Hypeeee!

Let the content creators get their super secret (LOL) Alpha access for Tuesday/Wednesday. Then, we get ours on Thursday. Hopefully, some datamining before Thursday, too. HYPE indeed.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Regardless, I am still excited for the lore and the fact that we will see so much new stuff regarding Titanic Lore/Dragon lore while also having worrying potential switcheroos' for future content patches. But, I really hope they stick to the Dragon Isles and stop with the theme switching of the narrative. But, I mean I am expecting with the 10.1 villain and 10.2 villain that things may get out of hand extremely quickly again. But we'll see.

I'm just excited to see how this process unfolds and what special sauce they got ready to be revealed in the builds that make everyone excited again.

Also honestly I just want to finally see something before my very eyes rather than hypotheticals and text based nonsense that don't really work when the trust levels are in the ditch anyways. Thankfully the waiting period is almost over and we can actually see their work and whether Ion was right or not about the state of the products progress.

[Catastrophy349]

Let’s take bets on NOT what we hope will be available in the early Alpha this coming week, but what we think will be available for testing?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Let’s take bets on NOT what we hope will be available in the early Alpha this coming week, but what we think will be available for testing?

I mean this is going to be what is going to meltdown the community if they've restricted it completely or not. If they've listened to feedback and they now regard the testing period as a period only for specialized testing of what they want testing instead of PR and marketing.

Then it will be a very awkward scenario where we will end up not knowing much about the actual product itself until launch. Which under better circumstances would've been celebrated but now becomes a bit of a different concern with whether they are hiding the actual value of the game from the consumer or not.

I honestly don't really expect the Team to restrict the Builds that much. They need the PR/Marketing from Datamining to carry some sort of positive message to the consumers about the expansion. I just don't think they really have any interest in restrictions but they want to play ball with the community feedback as best as they can which probably leads Patch story content being restricted further.

But, I mean there's always the chance that on Thursday. We have the Drac'thyr Evoker introduction and thats' it for a month without any dataminable content. It would be very funny.

[Marlamin]

Let the content creators get their super secret (LOL) Alpha access for Tuesday/Wednesday. Then, we get ours on Thursday. Hopefully, some datamining before Thursday, too. HYPE indeed.

If we get datamining before Thursday, that puts the people under NDA/embargo in a weird position where they can't talk about anything that's being datamined by the various sites/community for 2 full days.

The only way to fix that is to give anyone with early access only access to an encrypted client, but with that also comes the danger of someone leaking the key and (some) sites datamining it anyways, or even worse, gives access to earlier builds encrypted with the same key as well. There's currently 2 armadillo encryption keys out there, 1 for wowdev builds and 1 for vendor builds, neither of which Blizzard probably want to see hit the public.

If they were to roll with a secret client for the early access event they'll either have to create a separate directory on the CDN for it encrypted with a new key specific to this event (with the danger of it still leaking early), or by doing the entire preview outside of the public through VPN and/or remote cloud-based sessions or literally on location at Blizz (which is possible in Towelliee's case but not so much for Taliesin). Hmmmm!

Either way, I'm going to be keeping a close eye on things tomorrow as that should be set-up day for whatever happens the rest of the week.

[Bsirk]

Let’s take bets on NOT what we hope will be available in the early Alpha this coming week, but what we think will be available for testing?

I think Dragonriding, new profession overhaul, and talent revamp will be available for testing.

[Catastrophy349]

I really hope they do a better job of keeping story spoilers encrypted; I’m fine with zone exploration being shown. We’ll see.

[Nyel]

They are adapting feedback from season 3 to season 4 already. So no, it's not "everything from the alpha". The constant naysaying is honestly annoying. Dragonflight looks super cool so far and Alpha will launch in a few days. Hypeeee!

That's not the point though, it's about dedicated player feedback they get during alpha/beta and choose to ignore until half a year later. This happened both in BfA and Shadowlands. That they're better with feedback later on during an expansion is nothing new.

[Catastrophy349]

That's not the point though, it's about dedicated player feedback they get during alpha/beta and choose to ignore until half a year later. This happened both in BfA and Shadowlands. That they're better with feedback later on during an expansion is nothing new.

My friend, you are 100% right. You are also right in assuming that the same will happen again in Dragonflight. However, I’m an optimist and the only way that changes is if Blizzard outright ignores feedback again in Dragonflight during Alpha/Beta. Of course there’s a higher chance that they’ll ignore feedback based on precedent. Again, I’m agreeing with you. Unfortunately, I can’t just outright assume that’ll happen again for Dragonflight (even if history tells us it likely will).

Now, if Blizzard does listen to feedback this testing cycle, we’re in for a treat!

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm gonna guess it won't be monday that we'll see Alpha.

[Catastrophy349]

I'm gonna guess it won't be monday that we'll see Alpha.

Alpha is Thursday. That’s confirmed at this point. Marla is specifically talking about the process right before Alpha/datamining that becomes available.

[Dracullus]

I'm gonna guess it won't be monday that we'll see Alpha.

It's 99% Thursday, maybe we will see blue post on Monday, maybe not, it doesn't really matter. What important is that dataminable build can drop any day (and it could be their late day/EU early morning as well).

[Makorus]

I would love for them to split M+ Seasons from Raid seasons. Have two M+ seasons within one Raid season. Dunno about PvP because I dont really care about it.

[Catastrophy349]

I’m really interested to see how Dragonriding looks, in real-time, with everyone in the game flying around (in other words, think of how everyone looks flying on flying mounts in the sky, but now imagine our dragons doing cool tricks).

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Just want muh early access to Evokers.

[Arcinatoss]

I’m really interested to see how Dragonriding looks, in real-time, with everyone in the game flying around (in other words, think of how everyone looks flying on flying mounts in the sky, but now imagine our dragons doing cool tricks).

i just hope there's plenty of secrets and hidden items or mobs you can find only with dragonriding up to places.

[Catastrophy349]

Just want muh early access to Evokers.

Didn’t Legion Alpha start with DH access? I know there were two alpha cycles, technically, I’m just speaking in terms of firsts.

Regardless, I really want to see Evoker, too. I have every intention to main one unless something during testing turns me completely off.

- - - Updated - - -

i just hope there's plenty of secrets and hidden items or mobs you can find only with dragonriding up to places.

Yessssss! Same! I really want there to be areas we physically can not access without Dragonriding and/or without increasing our Dragonriding skill to a certain point, first.

[Raetary]

Just want muh early access to Evokers.

That isn't happening until pre-patch.