They call it “beta testing”.
I call it “marketing”.
At best, they’re stress-testing and watching the general reception of major gameplay features. Maybe some balancing & tuning.
With how long development cycles are these days, the expansion launch stuff is more-or-less DONE; or at least it should be. Realistically, this is the equivalent of the last pass and test-screening before release at best.
But it’s quite apparent that “beta-testing” in WoW is, and has been for well over a decade, is mostly just part of pre-release hype machine.
I guess we’ll have to see. But to me that sounds like once beta goes live, those of us who’ve preordered the epic version get access to it immediately.
As we are reminded from MoP Remix - exploit early and exploit often. I wonder what the 3 day early access people will find that gets nerf’d before others have access to it <.<
I bought the regular version because it was less expensive than a Level Boost for a character. Even though it includes the same boost. Then I used gold to upgrade that to the Epic version of the expansion for the transmogs, battle pet, mount, and hearthstone.
One I played way too much which meant the expansion launch was sort of ruined. Now I tend to try and focus on what I think might be useful and only do the first zone and then a bit of max level content focussing on new features - so I don’t do dungeons or raids leaving them for live.
For me what’s useful is participating in volume testing for the launch day test (if they have one) and Ill focus on testing delves as a solo player as they are a new system. Ill also look at the professions Ill be using and warbands - as that is also a new system.
I imagine that it will mostly be a monopoly on the crafting materials at first. During the start of an expansion people will pay ridiculous amounts just to max crafting as far as they can. And three days to gather stuff, you then have another wave needing it.
People will also be more mythic ready and had plenty of time to get as much dungeon stuff as they want. This may actually make dungeons easier for those coming in just a bit later, with people with higher ilv.
Just because I don’t want to buy a $90 expansion doesn’t mean I’m poor, I just don’t find it reasonable to pay that much for cosmetics, which will probably be added to the store one day; most likely, not all of it will be added, but the hearthstone will be added for sure. That and, I don’t really care for the early 3 days or getting into beta. If you aren’t an avid toy user, then yeah, it’s not worth the money unless you have some extra cash to spend or in-game gold, then fine. But I don’t really care what people spend their money on, I just don’t get why they do.
I just buy Heroic because some of the stuff they offer is pretty cool
