Alpha invite

Hi I would like to take part in the alpha thanks you :slight_smile:

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If you wish to participate in alpha/beta testing you’ll want to opt in, which you can do at the bottom of the following website. Players who are opted in may be selected to participate in one or more phases of testing.

Customer Support has no involvement with Alpha/Beta testing and cannot grant access.

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As someone that’s been playing since Classic, and has yet to have an invite to ANY alpha or beta, aside from signing up is there any way to get in? I see a lot of people ALWAYS get one, or almost always do, including relatives which feels real crappy. Is it really possible to have that bad of luck?

Yes. Bad luck streaks exist just as much as good luck streaks do.

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Alpha’s typically seem to be for friends, family, and streamer testing. Game reliability is usually quite poor.

Beta’s seem to be the testing environment the rest of us might get.

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Once beta starts, Wowhead eventually does weekly giveaways for a beta invite and the prerequisites are usually fairly common.

Streamers used to have a small number of keys to give to followers, but I don’t follow anyone on Twitch so I’m not sure if that’s still a thing.

I’ve gotten 2 beta invites from Wowhead, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for!

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Blizzard largely got rid of keys because of the fraud/scamming that was going on. Also people would sell them for real money. Most giveaways you need to give your Bnet email that is passed on to Blizz and Blizz enables the Beta on the account.

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Yes, sorry, my wording was unclear. Streamers still do beta giveaways, but yes, there’s no key codes they give to you. If they choose you, you give them your email address in private DM’s and I assume they pass that on to Blizzard to have your account flagged for beta. Using the term “keys” would definitely be confusing, thank you for catching that! :blush:

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Sorry if this is a little off topic, I can delete if it is.

What exactly is the point of alpha? What’s being tested at that point in time? What are streamers contributing besides publicity for it? And is it even worth it that early on?

Don’t mean this in a confrontational way or anything, just kind of curious how Blizzard handles alpha testing :slight_smile:

The basic stuff a steamer and anyone else is to basically go around and test the basic framework of what they have - NPCs can be talked to, mobs can be hit/attack/die, etc. More often then not, it’s just something the dev team use to ensure everything is rather working and rather bug free for the most part.

Beta is when they stress test the stuff that the alpha gone through - how a given amount of players can affect the coding, how fast mobs repsawn, bug test in the coding for major issues.

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It seems those questions would be better for Community or the Game Development team, and I’m not part of either of those teams, but I’ll answer as best as I can with the insights I have.

Alpha at its core, it just an early phase of testing to see if the content is working the way it should. So in this case, testing our character creation with the new options, new race, etc. Initial testing of talent trees, dragon riding, professions, and the first steps into the released zones.

QA and the Dev teams do a good job in finding issues with the content, but getting other sets of eyes on something is extremely beneficial in this stage. It’s like having someone else proof what you’ve written. You may have reread it twenty times, but your brain will continue to skim over that one typo. Fresh eyes read the same thing and go… wait… that looks weird.

Beta is more for stress testing and looking at a more broad spectrum of data. There is something to be said about having thousands of people hammering away at some content. Players are creative and often find things that may have been missed in general play. Granted, once hundreds of thousands of people log in all bets are off, because nothing compares to when the game goes live, but the initial Alpha/Beta stages are designed to help minimize any issues that might happen.

In my opinion, streamers allow folks that may not have been invited to alpha/beta, the ability to experience and, and in some ways, review the content. Many times it generates discussions and provides feedback that we wouldn’t otherwise get. It of course increases exposure.

Not everyone enjoys beta testing because it isn’t exactly like trying out the game, but it can allow them a glimpse into what they may be able to expect from the content.

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but I remember at least for the shadowlands beta, some EU fansites were given beta keys to distribute. Not sure if this will repeat for Dragonflight but im just saying that even for shadowlands, beta keys weren’t totally phased out.

“Largely” does not mean they were thrown out entirely. Just that they were not as prolifically available as they were previous expansions.

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So I went back and checked, and Wowhead uses key codes for their weekly draws; at least they did for the BfA giveaway. I was doubly lucky that year and got a Blizzard invite the same week I won the Wowhead weekly draw (week 3 of their giveaways), and they sent an email with a beta key code and instructions on how to use it.

And while emails can be fake, and phishing is common, this was legit. I entered the draw, and a day or two after it ended I got a pop up when I went to Wowhead (you get achievement pop ups for various Wowhead things) saying “A WINNAR IS YOU”. I went to my profile page and confirmed I won the weekly draw, then went to my email and checked for the email from the person handling the weekly draws. I went to my Bnet to enter in the key code and saw my account had already been flagged by Blizzard, so I emailed the Wowhead guy and said I didn’t need the key and it could be used in a future draw.

Not sure if that was the case for SL, or will be for Dragonflight, but anyways… opt in for beta, and check bigger fan sites and streamers for extra chances to get in! And good luck for all wishing for an invite! :blush:

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I heard somewhere that for the new expansion Blizz has changed the character selection screen for gender to body type, so instead of male or female, it’s body 1 and body 2. Same applies for the barber shop where changing gender has been modified to changing body type. Anyone know if that is correct?

It’d be better to look at any testing forum as the blues here ain’t able to get info about the testing of the game or what the devs is putting into it on the daily. More to the point; this is more better suited for general as the CS forum is more for account issues, less so about questions for alpha/batas.

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I’m a starter account. Since some of the people who post here are regular players, they might be able to check it in the Alpha if they have access and even if not might otherwise be aware of that change.

Best not to hijack another thread though really :wink:

And yes, currently in the Alpha they have caught up with the times and have re-worded the two body models (which haven’t changed) to Body 1 and Body 2. Thankfully most people are capable of looking at both and determining how they want their video game character to look and choose that one.

Again, this is just Alpha. Who knows what the coming months will bring.

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