Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Gorsameth]

For real? That sounds aweful lol. I'm wondering how Blizzard could aim to fight this behavior. Maybe removing the m+ timer or (which they won't do haha) banning of details? You can hate all you want againt Diablo Immortal, but it's actually refreshing to not have logs/dmg meters and people seem much chill there even though it's a hack and slay mmo lol (although fair enough, I only played a bit during release so that may have changed).

Anyways, atleast in a testing environment people should chill out - this isn't a demo ...

Its the logical result of turning M+ into an e-sport.
'Normal' players see actual 'good' players do highly optimised and practised routes and want to be like them and repeat what they do without the coordinated and practiced group used during the MDI.

Whenever a game shows players how they 'should play' more casual players will try to emulate it and fail. No different from LoL where silver/gold players pretend they are playing on the Worlds stage.

[micwini]

They posted one with the first build =)

Ooh thank you. I missed this somehow.Although it doesnt contain which classes/profs, but it is better than nothing.

[Nymrohd]

Its the logical result of turning M+ into an e-sport.
'Normal' players see actual 'good' players do highly optimised and practised routes and want to be like them and repeat what they do without the coordinated and practiced group used during the MDI.

Whenever a game shows players how they 'should play' more casual players will try to emulate it and fail. No different from LoL where silver/gold players pretend they are playing on the Worlds stage.

Wait, people WATCH the MDI? Really?

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For Legion they announced whole expansion there. Right now all their big projects are already announced and even have release windows. They can easily wait for next Blizzcon before announcing anything new.

Blizzcon 2023 is a long way off tbh. D4 may well be out before Blizzcon. An exact release date will probably not come until after beta has launched. But they do have other properties they can present there.

[Dracullus]

If the new survival game is in a nice looking state and ~4 years or so out from release, they could announce it there.

Nah, most likely survival game and 11.0 will be main reveals for Blizzcon 23. They need strong set for return.

For gamescom I expect heavy Dragonflight promotion, release date (15th November?) included. Even more likely Beta start, event lines up with end of Phase 6 of Alpha.

[Lahis]

Wait, people WATCH the MDI? Really?

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Blizzcon 2023 is a long way off tbh. D4 may well be out before Blizzcon. An exact release date will probably not come until after beta has launched. But they do have other properties they can present there.

D4 is coming out close to Blizzcon. They don't really need any announced-but-not-coming-out-this-year games to fill between D4 release and Blizzcon. Makes more sense to dump massive number of post D4 announcements on on Blizzcon.

[Valysar]

Wasn't it already confirmed we're going back to the Forbidden Reach? I remember hearing that in an interview a few months ago though I could be wrong.

Yeah, it's an endgame zone

[Nymrohd]

Btw should we expect Beta soon after phase 6? In the past they transitioned to beta soon after all zones became available in Alpha. That would mean beta by the end of August.

[Feali]

Wait, people WATCH the MDI? Really?

I do. And I'm not even subscribed right now. I just like having it on somewhat in the background.

[Hitei]

Btw should we expect Beta soon after phase 6? In the past they transitioned to beta soon after all zones became available in Alpha. That would mean beta by the end of August.

Too lazy to go check, but IIRC there wasn't even like a proper stop-start the last couple test cycles. They just expand the test pool a large deal and update the testing focuses.

[Nymrohd]

Too lazy to go check, but IIRC there wasn't even like a proper stop-start the last couple test cycles. They just expand the test pool a large deal and update the testing focuses.

They have made it clear that they are changing the way they are testing so past experience probably means nothing Well I think we can still expect it to change to beta eventually (and feature much larger invite waves).

[huth]

Do we need to revisit their starting zone?
We never went back to the Wandering Isle in MoP either.

It's not that we need to, it's that Blizzard already told us we will eventually.

[micwini]

I think Forbidden Reach is more like the maw. At least for dracthyr. Starting there and then returning to it as an end game zone.

[Feali]

Do we need to revisit their starting zone?
We never went back to the Wandering Isle in MoP either.

Which is a shame really, the zone was breathtaking!

[Gorsameth]

Wait, people WATCH the MDI? Really?

275k views for the final currently on Youtube so... yes?

And not everyone that plays M+ needs to watch it, that stuff trickles down

[Dracullus]

Too lazy to go check, but IIRC there wasn't even like a proper stop-start the last couple test cycles. They just expand the test pool a large deal and update the testing focuses.

Last time there was, Beta was start of testing endgame systems like covenants, they did online event, streamers get first Beta build under NDA, etc.

[Hitei]

Last time there was, Beta was start of testing endgame systems like covenants, they did online event, streamers get first Beta build under NDA, etc.

I didn't mean there wasn't a "start point" to beta. I mean as far as I remember in recent expansions. Alpha doesn't stop, they just enable some more features (like they do during alpha builds anyway) and start sending out more widespread invites and the Alpha transitions to beta.

There was a new Alpha build for Shadowlands on July 8th
https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowl...zations-316771

That same day during a livestream they announced that beta would be starting next week, with the covenants and level 60 cap, etc.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowl...65#coming-soon

So there was no start-stop, alpha just turned into beta in the midst of regular builds dropping. In specific, what I meant is that if they plan for Alpha to be 6 phases, rather than "soon after", the very next build/week will probably just open up invites and turn into beta, or even phase 6 itself.

[Lady Atia]

I didn't mean there wasn't a "start point" to beta. I mean as far as I remember in recent expansions. Alpha doesn't stop, they just enable some more features (like they do during alpha builds anyway) and start sending out more widespread invites and the Alpha transitions to beta.

There was a new Alpha build for Shadowlands on July 8th
https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowl...zations-316771

That same day during a livestream they announced that beta would be starting next week, with the covenants and level 60 cap, etc.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowl...65#coming-soon

So there was no start-stop, alpha just turned into beta in the midst of regular builds dropping. In specific, what I meant is that if they plan for Alpha to be 6 phases, rather than "soon after", the very next build/week will probably just open up invites and turn into beta, or even phase 6 itself.

Yeah, if they still use the same parameters beta should start with phase 7.

Beta means Shadowlands is feature complete but there's still lots of work to do.
Level cap increased to 60
First look at endgame, including Covenants, Soulbinds, Raids, Max-Level dungeons and more
Many more invites!

[Cheezits]

Interesting that they didn't change the Slime Cat to LFR. I get that they want incentives to raid but people really want more and more low effort rewards.

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Yes, they gave them 2 names because they have to for technical purposes.

Design-wise they are one and the same thing, to the extent that the evoker talent tree even has skills that enhance their racials.
They even introduced them as "a race that's also a class" in the expansion previews.

The starting zone lore is that Evokers are just one special unit of the Dracthyr army, so they must have scrapped the "package" idea pretty recently.

In fact I think Dervishan(?) is the only other Evoker you meet, unless the two commanders are as well.

[Skildar]

275k views for the final currently on Youtube so... yes?

And not everyone that plays M+ needs to watch it, that stuff trickles down

I wouldn't put too much weight on this number as they were doing a ptomotion that rewarded a title to people who would tune in for an hour on youtube. I don't know how many viewers would have been there because of this but I'm betting it did play on the figure.

[Sondrelk]

Interesting that they didn't change the Slime Cat to LFR. I get that they want incentives to raid but people really want more and more low effort rewards.

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The starting zone lore is that Evokers are just one special unit of the Dracthyr army, so they must have scrapped the "package" idea pretty recently.

In fact I think Dervishan(?) is the only other Evoker you meet, unless the two commanders are as well.

NM needed an actual tangible reward, otherwise everyone would just do LFR once and then nothing else. NM is at least a bit more challenging, which means you could be attempting it for several weeks.