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WoWDec 6, 2017 4:00 pm CT

Level-scaling testers wanted on WoW 7.3.5 PTR

You may have heard World of Warcraft’s upcoming patch 7.3.5 is making some big changes to the leveling experience. And if you hadn’t, well, I’m happy to be the first to tell you. The thing about overhauling the entire leveling system as we know it is… well, it’s a pretty big endeavor.

Being such a big endeavor, there are things Blizzard just can’t catch all on their own — at least not in a reasonable amount of time. As such, they’ve put out a call-to-arms to anyone who wants to test the new leveling experience and give feedback on it. If this sounds like something you want to help with, there are a few specific details they’re looking for when it comes to feedback.

Check out the official announcement below to see what those are, and then join us afterward for a discussion about the whole process.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

WE NEED YOU!

  • What You Want: To help make World of Warcraft a satisfying and seamless world to level through.
  • What We Want: Your feedback—the good, the bad, and the ugly—so we can iron out the wrinkles.
  • How We Do This: Create a new character on the PTR, level up as far as you can, and send us your considered, original opinion on the overhauled leveling experience.

THE BIG ASK

As you may have heard, we are significantly overhauling the leveling experience in World of Warcraft to make life more interesting for all the lower-level characters out there. Leveling zones from 1–100 will dynamically scale to your character’s level for a certain range, so you can spend longer in the places you love and experience more of your favorite quest lines and stories as you travel through Azeroth.

This is where you come in. On the 7.3.5 PTR, we want you to level a character, then give us your detailed, original feedback on the changes: zones, dungeons, quests, and the entire end-to-end experience in the zones you love and at the pace you enjoy. Share your thoughts on the experience, warts and all, and give us valuable insight that will change the game for the better.

JUST THE FACTS

  • You will need to access the PTR build for Patch 7.3.5 (see below on how to do just that).
  • Level up over the course of the 7.3.5 PTR and provide detailed feedback on the experience. Examples could include:
    • Specific zones you played, and what level you were when arriving and moving on
    • Pick a leveling range to tell us about
    • Tell us which zones you chose and why, and what dungeons you completed
    • Your thoughts on the difficulty, pacing (including any specific quests or areas you had trouble with), and rewards
    • You can also let us know about any bugs you find: big, small, and downright squishy
  • We would also like to know:
    • Class
    • Specialization
    • The bug was annoying” is nowhere near as helpful as “When I arrived in Hellfire Peninsula at level 58 the quests were grayed out.”
    • (In other words: the more detail you give us, the better you will help us make the game!)

WHERE TO SEND FEEDBACK

DYNAMIC LEVELING FEEDBACK: 7.3.5 PTR FORUM

If you’re at all interested in doing this, the full post details just what you need to do to get the PTR up and running. The short version is that you’ll have to make a PTR account and download the PTR, though.

Trust me, it’s not a big hurdle to leap over.

Why should I do this?

If you’re anything like several of the commenters on the official post, you might be wondering what exactly the reward is for doing this. The good news for people who love an enriching, altruistic experience is that you get to have an enriching, altruistic experience. The bad news for anyone else is that there are no “rewards”– achievement, free beta access, so on — for doing this.

Really, though, testing of this nature falls in line with testing any of World of Warcraft’s expansion betas. The people who are there want to experience something new before it’s out and ideally also want to help make sure that experience launches bug free. And while reaching a launch that’s 100% free of bugs is probably never going to happen, everyone who helps test pushes that percentage a little higher.

We all play the game, and even something like a new leveling experience can have repercussions in unexpected areas. For instance, someone on the PTR discovered that soloing old raids was much, much more difficult — which, I have to assume, is not Blizzard’s aim in all this. It’s these sorts of things that testing helps iron out.

And if you don’t want to help, then don’t! No one’s forcing you to here — but if you’re bored and/or want to do your part, Blizzard’s looking for you.

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