Dragonflight Alpha added to the Battle.net App Catalog

[Lumy]

Dragonflight Alpha added to the Battle.net App Catalog
The Battle.net app catalog was updated in preparation for the upcoming Dragonflight Alpha. This is usually one of the last things to happen before a client is released, so we'll probably see that appear in the next few days.

For comparison, the Shadowlands Alpha catalog update also happened on a Friday (April 3rd, 2020), with the client releasing the Wednesday after (April 8th, 2020) and realms going live one day later (April 9th, 2020).

[Zorachus]

So based off that, the game release is most likely March / April 2023, not end of 2022?

I always thought the December 2022 release date was BS, and Blizzard knows it too, I still say Dragonflight release is Spring 2023.

[Sensa1]

What's troubling about that is that Shadowlands was released on Nov 23rd, 2020 meaning that the Alpha/beta was / will be about 3 months longer than the alpha/beta will be for Dragonflight ... and we all know how well that went. And there is zero evidence that Blizzard's productivity has improved enough to make up for 3 less months of bug fixing etc so unless they want to delay the game and face a class action lawsuit for failing to release it in 2022 Dragonflight is in big trouble. Some may say they are only doing talents / profession revamps in Dragonflight but there really weren't new systems in Shadowlands either because they were on their 3rd expansion with borrowed powers so the tech was already in place. Add in the fact they are adding dragon flight flying, which will be technically challenging considering they still have trouble with pet pathing and mage's blink, and the significant overhaul of talents which could (more than likely be) an unholy unbalanced mess the odds of dragon flight being Legion like and saving the franchise have considerably decreased.

[Kuntantee]

So based off that, the game release is most likely March 2023, not end of 2022?

I always thought the December 2022 release date was BS, and Blizzard knows it too, I still say Dragonflight release is Spring 2023.

Blizzard knows for a fact that those who pre-ordered are mostly addicts. These people will not cancel the pre-orders no matter what. So for them, it is pretty safe to just postpone the launch after getting all the pre-order money for the quarterly report.

[Sensa1]

Blizzard knows for a fact that those who pre-ordered are mostly addicts. These people will not cancel the pre-orders no matter what. So for them, it is pretty safe to just postpone the launch after getting all the pre-order money for the quarterly report.

pending class action lawsuit incoming...in 1...2..3...

[Kirbydude65]

So based off that, the game release is most likely March / April 2023, not end of 2022?

I always thought the December 2022 release date was BS, and Blizzard knows it too, I still say Dragonflight release is Spring 2023.

Alpha/Betas in the past have only run for 3-4 months. That would firmly put it at an October November release date for 2022. Where is this idea that Alphas and Betas last 6 months?

[RobertMugabe]

Blizzard knows for a fact that those who pre-ordered are mostly addicts. These people will not cancel the pre-orders no matter what. So for them, it is pretty safe to just postpone the launch after getting all the pre-order money for the quarterly report.

Nah, everybody incl. Blizzard knows that the only addicts in this game are those people who constantly keep calling it a bad game... and yet they play it every time

[ablib]

The beta for Cataclysm, the expansion that nearly totally revamped the whole game, was less than 5 months. Other betas were similar in length.

I still don't understand where this Spring 2023 nonsense is coming from. Especially since Blizzard has already stated it will release this year.

[RobertMugabe]

What's troubling about that is that Shadowlands was released on Nov 23rd, 2020 meaning that the Alpha/beta was / will be about 3 months longer than the alpha/beta will be for Dragonflight ... and we all know how well that went. And there is zero evidence that Blizzard's productivity has improved enough to make up for 3 less months of bug fixing etc so unless they want to delay the game and face a class action lawsuit for failing to release it in 2022 Dragonflight is in big trouble. Some may say they are only doing talents / profession revamps in Dragonflight but there really weren't new systems in Shadowlands either because they were on their 3rd expansion with borrowed powers so the tech was already in place. Add in the fact they are adding dragon flight flying, which will be technically challenging considering they still have trouble with pet pathing and mage's blink, and the significant overhaul of talents which could (more than likely be) an unholy unbalanced mess the odds of dragon flight being Legion like and saving the franchise have considerably decreased.

Blizzard can find and fix bugs without having a public beta lol, which is mainly just marketing and a small number of people actually report bugs anyways.

[Zorachus]

Alpha/Betas in the past have only run for 3-4 months. That would firmly put it at an October November release date for 2022. Where is this idea that Alphas and Betas last 6 months?

They just said for Shadowlands, the Alpha started in early April, and the official release was end of November, so that's 7 to 8 months from alpha to release, so... that would put Dragonflight release around Feb / March. Certainly not a Nov/Dec release.

Legion entered alpha testing in late November 2015. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X on August 30, 2016. From alpha to release was 9 to 10 months.

Battle for Azeroth started restricted alpha testing in early February 2018. Public beta testing began in late April 2018. Expansion release August 14, 2018. So alpha to release was approx. 6 months.

[[Apok]]

The beta for Cataclysm, the expansion that nearly totally revamped the whole game, was less than 5 months. Other betas were similar in length.

I still don't understand where this Spring 2023 nonsense is coming from. Especially since Blizzard has already stated it will release this year.

There was a preeeetty lengthy f&f alpha prior to the beta going live though.

[Eon Drache]

Alpha/Betas in the past have only run for 3-4 months. That would firmly put it at an October November release date for 2022. Where is this idea that Alphas and Betas last 6 months?

Actually, the average alpha/beta launch to release is 7 months over the last 5 expansions. MoP and BFA being the shortest at 188 days each. To make a 2022 deadline DF Will have to have the shortest alpha/beta to release timeframe in WoWs history. Beta usually lasts 3-4 months, but not alpha and beta combined.

With that said, I think blizzard could manage to pull it off since they don't have to test as many systems and it looks like the talent trees aren't really adding a lot of new things, just taking away baseline things and making them talents.

[RobertMugabe]

There was a preeeetty lengthy f&f alpha prior to the beta going live though.

The modern equivalent of a "friendy and family alpha" for DF has also been up on the CDN for many months now too.

[Kirbydude65]

They just said for Shadowlands, the Alpha started in early April, and the official release was end of November, so that's 7 to 8 months from alpha to release, so... that would put Dragonflight release around Feb / March. Certainly not a Nov/Dec release.

Legion entered alpha testing in late November 2015. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X on August 30, 2016. From alpha to release was 9 to 10 months.

Battle for Azeroth started restricted alpha testing in early February 2018. Public beta testing began in late April 2018. Expansion release August 14, 2018. So alpha to release was approx. 6 months.

Shadowlands suffered from a difficult transition to Work from home caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was noted by several Blizzard Developers. It took them a much longer time to get their work flow back to normal, compared to other game studios.

Legion released late November. In the US that means it was fighting the Thanksgiving + Winter Holiday season, slowing down development and basically causing two months to be a wash.

BfA was about 6 months, but didn't last much longer than that.

It'll be a stretch, but its certainly not impossible for a November or December release for Dragonflight, especially since outside of the Dracthyr, Talent, and Profession re-works, there isn't a ton of new development features that haven't had streamlined. A 5 Month time line isn't unreasonable.

[RobertMugabe]

Actually, the average alpha/beta launch to release is 7 months over the last 5 expansions. MoP and BFA being the shortest at 188 days each. To make a 2022 deadline DF Will have to have the shortest alpha/beta to release timeframe in WoWs history. Beta usually lasts 3-4 months, but not alpha and beta combined.

With that said, I think blizzard could manage to pull it off since they don't have to test as many systems and it looks like the talent trees aren't really adding a lot of new things, just taking away baseline things and making them talents.

One thing that no one ever mentions too is that it's also very likely that Blizzard has significantly changed (not the first time in recent years) the way how they handle QA. Maybe they have simply decided to invest less in public betas and instead test more internally. This could then justify a much shorter alpha/beta, as in they may be way more ahead currently than usual.

[exochaft]

pending class action lawsuit incoming...in 1...2..3...

Nah, all they would have to do is allow refunds to avoid any issues. As the person you quoted stated, the people who have already preordered would likely never ask for a refund anyways. It's free money basically.

If anyone seriously worked on the alpha/beta for Shadowlands, you'll know that while the systems themselves were a big issue that delayed release, it wasn't the only thing. The main problem was that despite issues being pointed out for several builds, the changes weren't consistently addressed in later builds up to and past the initial launch date. Putting aside all the potential arguments of whether Blizz was willfully ignorant or incompetent when it came to the a lot of the issues that got fixed many patches later, the issue they had in the Shadowlands testing phase was that changes in general were slow and/or not addressing major issues besides stability from build to build. Even with all their new acquisitions in terms of personnel, there's not feasibly enough time to have them doing meaningful legwork on Dragonflight prior to launch without affecting/slowing down everyone else.

Even if there's no major power systems coming in Dragonflight, there's still a bunch of new or adjusted systems that will still take quite a bit of time to test thoroughly. Being concerned that this testing phase is probably too short is very legitimate considering there's no real evidence to say that things are any different from before in places where it counts.

[ablib]

TBC - 3 months
Wrath - 4 months
Cata - 5 months
MoP - 6 months
WoD - 5 months
Legion - 8 months
BfA - 6 months
Shadowlands - 7 months


https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Beta


People are forgetting that there isn't much to Dragonflight. AND the biggest reason why you shouldn't judge previous Beta cycles, is because it has nothing to do with the game today. Releasing a beta to the public at large isn't necessary for software development.

[Wonderment2]

With no massive new systems. So maybe they'll be able to probably test it in time.

I expect Envoker to be totally unbalanced at launch

[Flatspriest]

As someone who has participated in several beta tests, the alpha lasts about a month then the beta runs for about 3 to 4 more months

[exochaft]

Blizzard can find and fix bugs without having a public beta lol, which is mainly just marketing and a small number of people actually report bugs anyways.

While I'd like Blizz to transition to where there is no public beta/PTR and everything is competently handled internally, they're in no state to do that... and there's not really any reason to believe they can handle it now. Maybe with their new personnel acquisition they could do that, but that'd be probably next expansion, not Dragonflight.

The beta is certainly used for PR purposes, but the bug testing part is actually very important despite not many people taking it seriously. I know I put in thousands of bug reports and suggestions every beta, but I also know I'm the extreme minority. The major problem is that over the past several expansions, Blizz hasn't been taking the feedback seriously or just outright ignoring it. It gets to the point that the testers recognize issues that could be fixed, but end up going live... sometimes lasting until major patches or later to get fixed. Furthermore, Blizz now has a trend of gaslighting issues in their blue posts and responses (to be fair, this happens in more than just WoW), which is a sure-fire sign that they don't respect the player tester feedback or get caught with their pants down.

Regardless, Blizz has burned through all their good faith credit and has been in debt for a looooong time. This is why they started throwing everything into the game that players have been asking to be added for years after the scandal... and while people like to get excited and think "This time things will be better!", it's no indication of real change. More like panic, especially when you think about it many of these changes should've been added years ago. Blizz can certainly try to earn the player's trust back, but that's going to take a long time for people who don't huff copium on a daily basis.