Am I the only one who finds it a little silly that they’ve decided to wait until a month after not only announcing Deathwing but showing 2 full games with him to put him on the PTR? A simple announcement is one thing, I get that. Showing full gameplay with fleshed out talents and abilities is something else though; they’re clearly close to being done with his development. Plus people got to play him at Blizzcon so he’s in a testable state.
Maybe I’m just being impatient here but this is someone we’ve been waiting years for. At least let us try him out on the PTR. I don’t mind waiting until December for a full release because that makes sense but showing us all of this, letting people play him at Blizzcon and then saying we have to wait 3 more weeks to even try him out is torture.
Now maybe they misspoke at the in-depth showing when they said he’d be on the PTR in a few weeks (which I’m really hoping they did). I’m just really excited for a character of this magnitude even though he actually doesn’t look that useful in most games lol I’m just a warcraft junkie who’s liked Deathwing since he was green.
There is a possibility they’re bundling Deathwing’s release with the Tassadar rework, and they want both in a testable state. I dunno why they wouldn’t just throw Deathwing up early, but whattayagonnado?
Oh for sure. The PTR would help give some feedback on those changes though and a character as popular and requested as this one will need a lot of feedback.
They said in the spotlight that there are animations and gameplay elements that they aren’t set on yet and the hero shown was incomplete.
Delaying the PTR until he is in better testing stages is sound…
Yet they had people playing him at Blizzcon? If they’re not set on an animation or gameplay element they can change it.
I know their team is very limited right now but waiting 3 weeks after Blizzcon is a little long. As JoblessLoser (felt weird typing that) said above, the most likely reason is that they’re bundling him with other updates that will be coming in December.
Last year you could play WC3 Reforged… STILL NOT OUT. Diablo 4 Playable at Blizzcon will not be released for a while (like year and a half at least)
Its not deathwing thats holding it up until December its the new XP globe system they don’t want to release that before the end of this season of ranked because of how much it will change the game. The 4th week of Novemeber is Thanksgiving a traditional 4 day holiday so they probably want to either ptr it the week before or the week after with the next week being new season and new xp system (which is going to suck imo)
The PTR is for bug testing in a way that they can’t possibly do on their own. Also a lot of bugs won’t manifest unless you were to do external testing as well.
Throwing out a hero that’s not ready just because people want him is a surefire way to kill hype even more than simply not having him out asap.
Comparing a single character in a moba to a remaster or a brand new game is reaching a little bit.
I’m not talking about releasing him to the live servers, just the PTR. The PTR is for testing and feedback which for a character this requested and this unique is going to be needed. I understand waiting for the next season to release him to the live servers and am perfectly fine with that. I just think he’s ready for all of us to test and give feedback. But like I previously stated it’s more likely than not that they’re planning on putting ALL of their new updates on the PTR at the same time rather than adding them one after the other. I personally don’t like them doing it this way, it makes it difficult to analyze each update on its own when they’re all thrown at you simultaneously.
Comparing HotS to WC3 or even Diablo 4 is unfair and falls flat to say the least. You could NOT play WC3 Reforged or Diablo 4 as such. They gave you Demos, not the full game. Same with Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. They gave us a single level to play simply so we could see what the overall game MIGHT be like. It’s more about showing people the general intention of what the finished product is supposed to look like, not allowing them to play a finished product.
HotS is different because we’re not playing a “demo” as such. It’s a Heroes game like any other. Deathwing is more or less fully playable, minus some number-tweaks, bufixes and animation finetuning. The XP Globe system is the bigger part overall for the game in general, but even that was part of the “Blizzcon Build”, and thus was clearly in a testable phase.
If you’re worried about XP Globes affecting Ranked… why? They already said the Patch won’t come until early December, didn’t they? PTR wouldnt affect Ranked at all, since it’s a completely different server and build, so what gives?
They are waiting because they don’t want to have the PTR up for almost 30 days, they want their standard release process of week before PTR release the next week release to live. Given where thanksgiving is and the fact that xp globes fundamentally change the game, they want to have both release for the new season.
Why not separate them ? because they don’t have the staffing that they used to and it would be a pain to unbundle them (but didn’t they say they would reverse the xp globes… yes at the end of the season they’ll decide to stay or go)
Their lack of staff is actually why I think they should have the PTR up earlier. It gives them more time to fix bugs that people find. Putting it up a week before release is irrational because if people find something that needs balancing or fixing (which people probably will) the likelihood of them actually fixing it in time is pretty low.
Where the heck are ppl getting this information from? They said next patch after blizzcon, that falls on the 12th. Unless of course they are skipping that. But next patch usually means next patch. Tho Blizzard is known for delaying big releases and egging people on.
As for PTR, I’m certain for a big release like this they did all the bug testing out themselves and used blizzcon games for feedback so they can go to an instant release such that only the blizzcon players have a little if any experience using him. I am more for a full release as opposed to a PTR.