Testing Raid Content
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 30th 2006 at 9:00AM
When Blackwing Lair was released, way
back in patch 1.6, it was ridden with
bugs. In order to keep the content top secret and preserve fair competition between guilds seeking world firsts
on the live realms, it was never released on the public test realms - and its lack of polish showed. For
Ahn'Qiraj, Blizzard took the alternate approach, releasing it on the public test realms for all to try. Tigole
has already announced plans for an "extended
test period" of Naxxramas, but some question whether having the instance available for testing ruins the race
for world firsts. What do you think - does testing make enough of a difference to be worth spoiling the
surprises?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stefan Apr 30th 2006 12:34PM
I'd much rather have the instance function properly. There are a small handful of guilds that have put in the time required to get a world first and the ratio of those players to players who want to run a non-bugged out instance is large. It seems to me that Blizzard learned their lesson with BWL and decided that keeping the content under wraps wasn't as important as having it work. Yet the official forum trolls are always clamoring that Blizzard doesn't care about their customers.
spencer Apr 30th 2006 5:01PM
I don't like it, personally, but it seems like a necessary evil.
The race to the world first has a very nerd-cool appeal, and a very real sense of accomplishment for the select few who attain it. The bugged content, however, is generally unbearable, and after the fiasco of C'Thun being released in an unkillable "god mode" (haha), Blizzard does need to put some effort towards releasing fully functional content.
Zigbee May 1st 2006 4:28PM
You would think Blizzard would have gotten together a raid party made up of their testers and developers, and actually played the darn thing. Or are the all so Ub3rl33t over there that it wasn't unbeatable for them?