I noticed that 
Looks sweet!
*Eats pet*
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Newspaper thwap! Bad Tias!
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*Eats newspaper*
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If you have ever been a tester, or QAE (Quality Assurance Engineer) for any major company, such as Microsoft, Oracle, (companies that are worth billions) etc., then you would understand the process a little better and what is really at stake.
What you see now are issues on a short list of issues. Though it might seem like big issues to you, the majority of issues and bugs have been discovered and fixed.
Blizzard may not do what I’m about to post exactly, but it goes something like this.
First, this is a PTR (Public Test Realm), which simply means, hey, we are done with the initial design, development and testing (80-95% complete of initial road mapped features), it is time to get some feed back from a select few -
Phase 1, or Alpha testing.
Gather feed back, report bugs that will crash the system, servers, or game when a minimal load is applied. Minimal load meaning smaller group of testers (100 people or so, depending on the project). 60 - 70% completion to projected release date.
At this point there are still a lot of unforeseen bugs and server issues that exist. But the initial reported bugs and imbalances have been fixed. Still, bugs are discovered and fixes continue.
Phase 2
Public Testing - announce release of testing platform (PTR). 80-90% complete. Game companies do this, because a larger group of people provide more eyes on the product. Also with more people, reported discovery of exploits happens faster.
The PTR allows for testing of various things that are beyond the scope of the game’s roadmap. Peripheral to this, it allows players (who are not really testers and reporters of actual game issues) to play around with the new content and give feedback of their experience. This is important in designing and developing new content, or improving old.
Phase 3
At this point, the game is about 85 - 95% complete. Final polishing and “boxing” occurs, Marketing do their thing, Legal gives their blessing, announcements made. This usually happens rather quickly.
Some companies release their products with a satisfaction rating of 80-90% with the idea of fixing issues post release (patches). As long as there are no glaring issues that could cause a complete halt to the product (game), then the product will be released.
Here are some glaring, or Critical 1 issues that will halt release.
- Server latency issues
- Game crashes on login
- Game crashes when viewing profiles
- Character lists disappears for a large number of people.
- Copy Characters causes servers to crash.
- Security loopholes when attempting to authenticate.
- The list goes on.
Phase 4
Release the product, with developers and infrastructure engineers on standby to do emergency fixes. Continued feed back and reports of minor bugs that will be fixed and released in patches.
What is at stake
If a company release a product that have some of the glaring issues above, the company could stand to lose millions of dollars. People would lose trust in the Company’s ability to produce quality products, resulting in loss of interest, resulting in loss of revenue.
Furthermore, and in some rare cases, the Company could be sued for various number of reasons, and lose millions that way.
Imagine what would happen if they released the Alpha version to the public.
This thread is a year old. Pay attention to the date of the thread next time before posting to avoid necroing. If you have something pertinent to say relating to an old post, create a new post and link the old thread for reference. Thank you.
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Yup thank you, realized that.
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The irony of claiming to know everything about testing and the process and steps that should be taken - and then not knowing what you are replying to.
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Amazing necro. It resurrected a thread that even has Nevalistis posts.
And yet you keep it going. 
The irony of posting a reply to point out irony, and they themselves attempting to point out something that was clearly not claimed.
Ummm…ok. You sure about that?
These should be archived after they have been inactive for a long period of time.