Don't Call it a Beta

It might be a little confusing that the current onslaught of information is coming from the Warlords "Alpha," rather than the Beta. In a recent interview, Celestalon and Zarhym clarified that the line between Alpha and Beta are being blurred.

In the past, Blizzard would do a "Friends and Family Alpha," where, after internal testing, they would allow close associates of Blizzard employees to try out the game in a very, very rough form. Typically, these would come with an NDA, but invariably, someone would surreptitiously leak what they had, and MMO-Champion and other data mining sites would post what they got.

This time around, however, Blizzard is smooshing the Alpha and Beta together. What that means is that the information for Warlords of Draenor is actually being downloaded to our computers already. The only distinction they are making between Alpha and Beta is who gets invites - who gets the keys to unlock the ability to check out the new stuff. So we can expect that during the "Alpha," it's probably only those close associates, and once they start inviting random people who have opted in to test out the new stuff, we can start calling it a Beta. But regardless of whether you or I can try things out, the files are available, and that's why those wonderful Data-Dwarves over at MMO-Champion and WoWHead (and others, I'm sure) are going to work.

What this all boils down to is that hey, at least the testing has truly started.

The developers also made mention of why this might differ from, say, the Mists Beta. During the beta for Mists, many (a huge number) of players signed up for the annual pass, which among other things, gave them a guaranteed spot in the Beta. This actually led to probably too many people being in the Beta, and not really helping to test (I tried to help, posting about bugs and such. I remember the turtles in Valley of the Four Winds near the steps up to the Veiled Stair seemed to have a "disconnect you" ability.)

What I think we can expect is that there will be fewer participants in the Beta this time around. We don't know how long this Beta is going to go for (it's got to be finished by December 20th, though I expect it will be much earlier than that.)

While the lack of a new class or a totally revamped talent system does suggest that there will be less technical stuff to work through, one must remember that the item squish, the gear revamp, and Garrisons are all fairly new systems that could have hidden complexities.

Still, this is good stuff, and it means that Warlords is truly on track.

Also, there's apparently another 5000-word post that they're getting ready to put up with more information.