Make an early descent into World of Warcraft®: The War Within™. You'll journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds filled with hidden wonders and face an ancient evil lurking in the darkness when you sign up to test the next major expansion!
Do you need to sign up if you got the epic edition?
Let me in, LEMME IN!
what you mean “test”?
Isn’t that what QA is for…?
why pay for q and a if you have your minions to do it
If you would also like a chance to get invited to Alpha most likely yes.
Probably get it sooner or later with the usuals beta waves.
Looking forward to beta so i can check out earthen
YESSSSSSS.
I’m so hyped to see what’s to come.
Let’s not pretend that isn’t a standard practice to beta test games this way.
man. Blizzard this is your last chanse to rework UH/Frost DK you better take feedback from DK players this time.
so i bought the epic edition some time ago, i don’t understand. Is this “opt-in” for the beta or the alpha? Since i got the epic edition i got guaranteed beta, but what about alpha?
No matter how excellent your internal QA, the truth is that we are using PC’s, and using PC’s means having 2398572952852952 different configurations of hardware and software settings, and therefore you need to have a lot of people at least try to run it and play it to see if anything breaks.
Once you’re done with that, some feedback on gameplay is always helpful - although as far as I’m concerned I think they’ve already travelled much too far down a road that treads in the opposite direction of where I want them to go in terms of class design, and I fear that not only will my feedback therefore be so fundamental they can’t even react to it, and I may not even be able to play the game before addons arrive. That was the case in DF (and I gave that feedback).
I don’t know if they’ll pick me; but if they do I will send some feedback and do some testing with Linux (Yes, they do care. There are several things in WoW that only work on Linux, and there are error messages and keybinding options related to Linux-only features), as I always do.
Doesn’t mean it’s okay 
But it is though. I have absolutely no problem with putting out a public test. Blizzard has done it for every game they’ve ever made since Diablo. The only thing I dislike is what WoWHead does immediately upon seeing it. Spreading thousands upon thousands of spoilers across the internet to the point where there is no way for people to avoid them.
Different expectations I guess.
I expect a company of this size to actually test their stuff, and make sure it’s up to snuff and functional, and not rely on players to find and report issues.
When you make a release of this size, and there are so many configurations on which people will install it, you cannot test everything. It’s just not possible, even if you had football-field sized halls full of testers situated next to an even bigger hall full of monkeys with typewriters trying to destroy something at random.
At the software company I work at we also release “preview drops”, aka beta tests of the next version. Yes, we run our own software and millions upon millions of automated tests every day, yes we have over 600 QA staff. But it still slips through. It’s nice to have someone external try to use it and see if it conforms to their expectations and works well before they take it into use.
We appreciate it, they appreciate it.
It is coming! Hold my hand! 
I agree to a certain extend.
Different experiences, as a game dev as well.
I really fail to see how its not okay.
Beta testing allows for players to test the content and give vital feedback and identify problem areas.
Some issues aren’t even identifiable until there are a large number of players trying at the same time.
Not to mention the playerbase is very good at trying things that haven’t even been considered.
It is wholly okay.