Cataclysm Alpha Rumor
Rumor has it that the Friends & Family alpha for Cataclysm, the next expansion to World of Warcraft, is about to begin.
A Friends & Family alpha is, as the name implies, a very early mostly private build of the game that is shared with friends and family of the development team only. For most MMO products, this is the first time a build will be available outside the company, and in fact for some companies this will be the first time that company employees who aren’t directly involved with the new product will see it.
In other words, you and I aren’t getting in. *grin*
But if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, one of you is a Blizzard employee who might conceivably be encouraged to consider me a friend (or family!) … Well, I think bribery is frowned on here. But suffice it to say that I would be very grateful. And I will prove my trustworthiness to you by revealing my secret identity! I will even divert suspicion by posting more of these pitiful requests when the beta starts!
On a more realistic note, we can’t really expect to be seeing solid Cataclysm news from players quite yet. (Blizzard is another matter, of course.) F&F alpha players are under NDA (and usually pretty easy to identify if they leak, so they tend to respect the NDA). But more importantly, there is probably a pretty hefty chunk of the expansion that isn’t complete or at least isn’t nailed down yet. This quite likely includes the stuff I am most interested in: new pets! It may also include new pet families (if any) and new or changed pet mechanics.
So for the moment, we’re still relying on Blizzard for our Cataclysm fix.
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This kind of posts make me sad as you are begging for a spot…BEGGING!…Hunters don’t beg!
even for a Cata beta spot…
Cata beta..
Hey, can I join you in begging?
I will even divert suspicion by posting more of these pitiful requests when the beta starts!
AH HA! She’s in the alpha, and has tipped her hand! Get her!
But, but I don’t have Wrath of the Lich King yet! :(
Um…
“This kind of posts make me sad as you are begging for a spot…BEGGING!…Hunters don’t beg!
even for a Cata beta spot…
Cata beta..”
Hey, can I join you in begging? (me, not him.) please?
Begging Starts NOW!
Beg. Beg. Beg.
Beg. Beg. Beg.
Beg. Beg. Beg.
Beg. Beg. Beg.
or do i mean bidding?
Bit later then they were planning, I think. Still and all, I am very, very interested to see where Cataclysm goes. I am enjoying 3.3, but……we’ll see.
A friend of a friend of mine is actually hooking me up with a key for Cataclysm. Not 100% sure if its the friends & Family alpha but given that my friend told me I should be enjoying it soon… I’ll just have to wait and see.
*hides from impending doom*
Call me paranoid Rikaku, but that sounds more likely to be a scam than a valid key :) (Who knows where the ‘friend’ acquired the purported key and any associated login details)
Still, it will be interesting to see what happens – the Wrath alpha leaked like a sieve (remember the wotlk info site and its screenshots of alpha forum blue posts?), to the point where Blizz refrained from posting new builds for several weeks to avoid spoiling announcements they wanted to make at WWI (e.g. the introduction of pet talent trees).
Eh, we’ll see, Nimizar, but I think this is one of those cases were it’s less of a scam, and more of a ‘doing a friend a favor’ deal.
Ahhhh, the Alpha Wiki! I visited there daily. *Laughs*
Guess we’ll just find out XD
Ah yeah Wrath had soooo much info leaked, I almost thought they didnt have a NDA for awhile. XD
Depending on how long the F&F alpha lasts, the closed beta may be starting ‘soon’ … and getting keys for that should be a bit easier than getting into the F&F alpha, which is much, much smaller.
In any case, I do have some hope of seeing Cataclysm before it launches. Whether Petopia is completely updated on launch day like it was for Wrath … is another question. :>
Speak for your self mania, i will so be getting in. I know several people who work at bliz =)
I havent heard anything yet but ill ask.
(*grumble* Stupid people with better contacts than me! *grumble*)
Hey, ihlos! Wanna be my friend? *grin*
OF COURSE there WILL be new pets! There HAS to be! It is an expansion after all! Geez. :P
*comfort Mania*
Kristy:
You are right. They did say we might get Zhevras. I for one want a Zhevra.
Haven’t signed up to the new forums yet so putting this here. Looks like Blizz have done a bit more work tracking down the situation that triggers the CSP bug: “Attempting to use the ability Call Stabled Pet after leaving a cross server instance and changing specs will result in the cooldown being set to 20+ days.” So if you want to switch both spec and pet after leaving an LFD group, log out and back in again first (or switch pets before you switch specs if you can – that obviously won’t work if switching to a BM spec and an exotic pet). Certainly sounds like what happened to me – I was running heroics as BM with a Devilsaur, then switched to SV and tried to use CSP to grab my wolf for an Ulduar. CSP bugged out and I had to switch back to BM for the raid as well.
From: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21724982313&sid=1
Note also that the Arena skirmish workaround is strictly temporary – while it will let you use CSP once, when you do use it it will revert to however much of the 20+ day cooldown remains since you triggered the bug.
MMO-Champion headlines claim the alpha rumors to be lies, all lies!
Rikaku: Not just Zhevra’s tho, cause FOXES it would be so cool to tame a fox :D
or hydras.
pls pls pls Blizz give us Hydras.
At anyrate.
Mania: I do hope you get the beta cat key or someone who can keep you updated informed gets it. And I doubt we’ll really mind if Petopia is updated on launch day.
Cause not like we’ll all be level 85 right spot on the next day lol.
isn’t updated* lol.
Boubouille talks sense (as usual) – given how badly the Wrath alpha leaked, jumping straight to closed beta and skipping all the NDA issues would be a pretty reasonable idea.
Nim: Yeah but you know how it goes. The rule about Fite Club is you don’t talk about Fite Club.
SOMEONE TALKED AND IT ALL WENT DOWN HILL.
IE there’s always gonna be someone who’s gonna leak when they shouldn’t. But at anyrate I don’t really care one way or another for spoilers or spoiling, alright I do but, that’s not really the issue here.
I don’t care about secrets- I do care about one of us hunters getting into the beta when we’re able to so we can find out all the hunter goodies that await us in Cat.
I hadn’t considered the notion that they might skip the F&F alpha. I have seen those fizzle pretty quickly, but I’d figure for WoW that the friends and family involved would be a bit more interested. *grin*
Or perhaps that’s just me. I do have to admit that I spent much of the time I should have been playing the last two F&F alphas I was in playing WoW instead. So … there you are.
One of the things that happened with the wrath F&F alpha was that the CMs were given permission to extend invites to a few helpful forum posters that none of them actually knew in real life. The alpha NDA for those people was then just a click through agreement before transferring characters and downloading the alpha client. So another possibility this time around is that they may hold off on that slightly wider net of invites until the start of the closed beta and stick with a true F&F alpha beforehand (which would be much less likely to leak).
I’m hopeful that I’ll get my hands on a beta key, but I’m not holding my breath about the alpha.
“I will even divert suspicion by posting more of these pitiful requests when the beta starts! ”
Now my coworkers are staring at me as I giggle to myself.
No Alpha yet….
Bu I am hoping for my pets and more stable slots.
I’m personally hoping for Stags to be tamable, I want one of the pure silvery-white ones, and I’d prolly name him Prongs…. =)
Thanks for agreeing with me Rikaku!
what pet do i want, i really want some cool unique skin for crocs maybe a exotic croc?
then i want basilisks ingame wanted those since first time i saw em in stv.
Then what more would be cool…
add kodos to rhino family, thunderbeast …. dimetradon and petradons. Make the silidin bugs tameable too.
And tons of cool new families
Give hydra family plix! Then I’ll be a happy hunter :D
Blizz and it’s Alpha NDA is like the US government and it’s alien secret.
If they find out you squealed, they will keeeeeeeeell joo!
im hoping that they will make the zuk’ash wasps tameble
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