Blizzard Is Making Big Changes to How It Tests New World of Warcraft Content
As World of Warcraft prepares to release the Dragonflight alpha version this week, one notable concern is that if Dragonflight is scheduled to drop this year, this is the shortest alpha that World of Warcraft had in recent memory. / It’s going to be a beta cycle. However, Blizzard states that this is due to a change in the way the tests are run and is not a source of concern.
Talking to IGN prior to the release of the alpha version, production director Patrick Dawson reassures Dragonflight that he has plenty of time to cook. For one thing, he says, it was under development before Shadowlands shipped and the team has spent as much time as other expansions.
But to answer the late Alpha question, Dawson has come to a “troublesome” time compared to past Alpha, which Blizzard has changed the way the Public World of Warcraft test is handled quite dramatically. I admit that it is because of it.
“In the previous alpha version, in a two-and-a-half-month process, things went online in an unplanned and unstructured way,” he says. “Maybe you have to wait a couple of weeks after getting one zone, and maybe even longer until the next zone. The system doesn’t run at a constant speed, such Thing.
“But … one of our favorite models was methods such as RAID testing. What we’re doing is opening a boss so people can focus, everyone playing that boss, and that Get great feedback focused on, shut it down and move on to the next boss. Similarly, consider an alpha strategy and say, “How can I get that type of feedback from alpha?” .. And the answer is, instead of using this long alpha, compress it a bit and focus your feedback on specific things each week. “
What this means for Dragonflight is that while the next alpha version focuses on one zone, Azure Span, it will not be available in the alpha version during the testing period. When Blizzard receives feedback focused on that particular zone, it shuts down Azure Span and opens a completely different zone.
But besides testing efficiency, there are other reasons for the new model. World of Warcraft is a data mined game in a large number of communities among the areas of alpha, beta and public testing. But this time, Blizzard wants to keep more secrets out of the open until it’s fully open.
“Don’t ruin everything in alpha,” says Dawson. “Don’t ruin everything in the test. Try to test that level of gameplay so that everyone has a quality experience when playing, but to surprise and please the player. I may refrain from doing so. “
We also told Dawson how Dragonflight’s Dragon Isles are the largest expansion continent Blizzard has ever created, and how Dragonflight is building more evergreen updates than expansion-specific. Blizzard is trying to open Dragonflight Alpha to the first wave of players, so you’ll hear more about Dragonflight in the coming weeks. For now, you can see a complete preview of what you’ve seen so far.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN.She can be found on twitter @duckvalentine..
