The Burning Crusade Classic Beta Has Begun!

Tienes toda la razón, ya hay jugadores en la beta de la TBC y curiosamente todos son streamers

What if i told you, as an actual game tester for over two decades, that Alphas and Betas are for more than just a fun joyride, eh?

Testing content is only half the job. They’re supposed to report broken content as well in terms bugs and other issues and give feedback on everything.

A streamer sitting there streaming and whining like a stuck pig about how bad they think x content or that y expansion that really sucks isn’t giving feedback, nor is it even going to work in Blizzard’s favor. They only do it to build up hype around the re-release of TBC in a Classic format.

Streamers only care about their view counts, not about in-game bugs. Most of them don’t even report bugs they do find, that can specifically be exploited, which is why it is never a good idea to give streamers priority for either Alpha or Beta access to games.

I’m not saying 100% of all the streamers (Might’ve worded myself wrong in my previous post), but at least up in the 80-90% doesn’t do anything but stream/make videos, play and whine or hype depending on their mood.

I’m also not saying that normal players don’t do the same with the exception of streaming and making videos, but again, the majority is only there for the joyride, not to report broken content etc. What i’m saying is that, the more people who get invited, the more reports they get.

They should either give everyone access right away, to get as much feedback as possible or hire actual game testers (which i am sure they’ve done, hopefully for their sake) who can work for and with the developer to minimize the bugs and issues before they release it. In addition, the more they invite, the more data they also get from monitoring the servers’ stability, though i’m sure there’ll be at least one proper stress test along the way.

Yes, i am well aware that us lowly peasants will get our turn, but by the time the majority have gotten in, the release will be almost upon us either way which means that, for those of us who are genuinly interested in reporting bugs and other issues, to get the best re-release possible, we may as well wait for the game to release officially, albeit in a broken state (Though i sure hope that won’t be the case!) and point our fingers in Blizzard’s face and tell them “We told you so!”.

I am still going to play the hell out of TBC:C though once it does release, because imho it is hands down the best expansion ever made.

The thought of Kharazan (my fav raid ever) and all the other TBC raids being relevant again, grinding out the attunements for the heroic dungeons and more, is making me drool, a lot… :drooling_face:

Blizzard. You Are Not Prepared!

There is so much spite and malice around because streamers got beta. They test the content as well as any other player and many do much more. It is in their interest to do lots of content. They also work as free marketing

They fill in bug reports, they give feedback. They have hours of vods, they make YouTube content about it all. One of the Devs commented how useful all this data is.

However it’s far easier to be snide about streamers. Jealous of the access they’ve gained. It’s very disappointing to see this gatekeeping by a hostile few.

All sorts of people are chosen to test beta. It needs a variety of people to run through various content to see if it’s working. That means every aspect, whether it’s trying to break things or questing. Everything.

Which is exactly why Blizzard are using them, with emphasis on ‘using them’.

Free marketing is the best kind of marketing, but it’s the way they do it that i don’t like.

Some do, but the majority don’t. If you believe otherwise then you truly are fooling yourself.

I’ve seen so many videos from youtubers who got invited, where they sit and do nothing but vent hot air and complain about everything, while they never bother to file a bug report.

They do look for bugs but far too many of them only look for bugs they can abuse post release and ignore everything else. Not saying youtubers are the only ones, obviously.

Obviously, i’m not saying ‘normal’ players are any better, because majority aren’t, but there are far more of the ‘normal’ players, than there are youtubers out there.

In my opinion, they should do it like ZeniMaz did with ESO and how others have done it in the past, and have a proper survey you need to fill out to even be considered for an invite to an Alpha or closed Beta. That would weed out the bad from the good, and they’d get far more valuable feedback that way.

The biggest issue with giving priority to youtubers is that they only end up listening to the youtubers when it comes to feedback, and that is wrong on so many levels…

I’m not jealous, nor am i being hostile about it. I’m debating (which is what a forum is meant for) this because I, myself, am a game tester and have many years of experience, and i’m pretty sure there are plenty of others like me out there who would love to actually do some thurough testing on it.

I’m not blaming the youtubers, i’m blaming the developers and management for using them as a part of their marketing campaign, which is what this truly is when they can get so much more feedback from inviting ‘normal’ players who might also be actual game testers for one, and provide actual feedback based on years of experience.

It’s as if they consider everyone else’s feedback far less valuable when they do it like this, and that i guess, is the main reason for these forum threads.

As i said previously though:

Have a good one!

Most people are well aware of how testing works. I’m kind of surprised you presume that people are incapable of making bug reports and giving feedback. Or that somehow being a streamer makes someone less capable of being helpful.

I am one of those weirdos who loves to find bugs, I love being able to fill in bug reports etc. It also feels very rewarding when things you’ve reported get fixed in later versions or the final version. Because you helped. Shadowlands Beta did this lovely thing at the end of giving you a report of everything you did in the testing. X number of bugs, you did this activity the most etc. A lot of streamers had very high interaction on those.

I do happen to have Beta myself now and having been on the test realm, there are many players who are not streamers. A load of high playtime, high achievers have been given access. They are geared to the teeth in all their raid gear and legendaries, have many fancy titles and mounts. As people who aren’t streamers don’t get noticed, it’s probably why it’s not common knowledge. Then there are the others like me who are on fresh 58s in greens struggling to kill mobs.

There are as many ‘normal’ players who are useless at testing IMO. People who just see it as an opportunity to try classes and don’t care about testing the content. Many don’t even stick at it for long. I will always consider getting into any beta a privilege. It’s an opportunity to be able to help. Testers are ideally from various backgrounds and playstyles so every aspect of the game can be checked.

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Has it though? Kinda seems like The Burning Crusade Classic Advertisement has begun, not the beta.

I said majority, not all, so while i presume based on experience as a game tester, you are assuming a bit much there, eh?

That’s great, but the majority doesn’t think or feel the same way you do.

If that was the case, then surely we’d have zero bugs and such, right?

I’ve never said that there aren’t any ‘normal’ players out there who doesn’t do anything but go for a joyride. I actually stated it quite clearly in my previous post as well…

No. Actual game testers do things in specific ways and repeat their steps to reproduce x bug etc and they write detailed reports where they highlight information about when, where and how they ran into x bug and the steps they did to reproduce it, and in some instances make suggestions on how to fix it as well as other feedback about the general experience.

Bug reports from the majority of normal players be like “found a bug! help!!”…

When a streamer finds a but, they be like “Hmmm maybe i can use this later” or “So if Blizzard is watching this, there’s a bug here!”.

That’s sadly the cold, harsh truth.

I really can’t say the same things again. The testing works fine with people from all sorts of backgrounds. If they wanted to employ professional testers they would. It’s just not necessary.

I think you make an awful lot of presumptions about people who get into betas and how they are incapable of testing. I simply do not agree with you. Normal people, streamers, randoms all manage to do the job fine. The ridiculous notion that someone can’t report a bug is laughable.

It just sounds like sour grapes at not being chosen. I wish you the best of luck getting into one of the waves.

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Most of the testing nowadays is automatic anyway.

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You get a feedback box under every quest, you can highlight something and press F6 or there is a bug report feature on the screen the whole time. All of them work.

You find something not working you just fill in the information and carry on. It really does not require a degree.

On SL beta we had to go back several times for some things to be fixed so you could actually do them.

Sometimes things break on the live version and you bug report. IT’s great when they are fixed.

If you’re talking about automatic bug detection, it is unreliable at best. It cannot compete with human resources when it comes to determining the bug severity, corner and edge cases and the order of priority it should have… There may be some AI currently being developed that might solve those issues in a few years time, but for right now, human testers will always be the better solution due many different reasons.

What is commonly used, are tools to automate bug tracking to make it easier for developers to track and categorize bugs. Using spread sheets for everything is a mundane task. Automatic bug tracking tools cuts down on the testing time and overall development time, increases productivity. In short, automatic bug tracking is extremely helpful.

I’m not making presumptions nor assumptions and i honestly couldn’t care less if you disagree with me or not. I’ve worked on loads of big and small titles as a paid tester, and i can tell you for a fact, that only a small percentage of normal players and streamers actually make use of those in-game bug reporting tools, regardless of how developers implement them and developers knows this because they use statistics tools… It’s not about whether or not they can report bugs, it’s about whether or not they ignore and intentionally avoid reporting bugs.

Developers implement their reporting tools differently, and while Blizzard may have one of the best implementations of a bug reporting tool that i’ve seen so far, the majority will still simply just close the pop-up window, ignore the other variations and carry on playing, or run to the forum(s) to complain about bugs and issues.

This is another thing most, if not all developers have (As i mentioned above). A statistics tool that lets them see the amount of people using said report tools versus those who are playing and ignoring it. The statistics aren’t all that good for the majority of games out there. There’s a reason as to why some games and their expansions/DLC are plagued with bugs after release, and every expansion for WoW have had their share of bugs and issues, why? Read my statement above.

In the end it is up to the devs who they want to invite and how they go about it. I just stated my opinion on their way of doing it.

Trust me, i am not sour for not having been picked to join the beta. I am testing other games, making lots of money. I was simply trying to educate you, since i do have years of experience and insight, and i would have thought that you, being an MVP would at least have enough common sense to stop replying to me after my previous message. You’re not exactly being a role model in this thread with your personal jabs and rude replies.

I’m sorry you still didn’t get into beta, maybe you’ll get lucky soon.

I’m loving it.

The raid testing is coming up next:-

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/beta-raid-testing-next-week/931889

dude you’re king of presumptions

Robert Kurzban believes that we are all hypocrites. But not to worry, he explains, hypocrisy is the natural state of the human mind

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Yeah i kind of get that feeling here as well…

Shilling aka white knighting doesn’t help anyone, especially developers, when shills and white knights sends out the wrong signal to people about the state of the game etc.

I’ve worked on so many titles over the past two decades that i’ve seen how streamers work when they get invited to a beta. It’s pathetic.

I watched a few youtube vids this week and the youtubers all had one thing in common.

They all ignored the bug reporting tool, and what’s even more funny was that there was plenty of time for them to report the bugs they encountered and they did run into a few. Most of them just said ‘Oh, that’s not supposed to happen’ etc, then just carried on.

After watching a few youtube streamers and content creators this week, i honestly don’t care anymore. Read the reply above this to see why.

You can sit there and defend this nonsense until your hair falls off. It still doesn’t change the facts.

Yes you have maintained through out your responses that only you (an expert, highly qualified tester) can fill in bug reports. You have made your position very clear, no one else can be objective, no one else can give any kind of feedback. It’s all doomed.

I cannot wait for TBC as it’s when I began my WoW days… I shall be boxing it once again.

I hope it’s not too far away!

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It’s exactly like I remember (so far). You are probably going to love it!!!

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