A theory: Why isn't beta out yet? What held Battle.net back?

[Gifted]

Thanks for reading this theory thread. I've put some thought and looked at Blizzard as a whole in terms of their projects at hand and some unusual change of events. It all clicked together for me tonight when I was looking at the b.net logo sites. I will need some information if people can look it up and provide it for me.

The basics:

- Blizzard has multiple teams within their company that handle tasks. Some examples of these teams are networking, sound, music, graphics, art, Core WoW, Core SC2, Core D3, Core Project MMO, Core Project Unannounced, tech support, customer support, Public Relations, etc. (Source: Multiple recent video interviews)
- With the way this works, teams with specialties will be required to shift from project to project as needs are met and required. Priorities and deadlines can affect this. (Source: Multiple video interviews lately that explain this.)
- We have proof that some projects are visibly being worked on slowly, such updates on each of the battle.net websites relating to logo changes.
- The release of "closed beta" has been delayed.
- Multiplayer confirmed to be beta ready
- Editor is unknown, but has been confirmed if it's not ready it will come later
- Battle.net is not beta ready. Parts of it's "infrastructure" is not ready for the testers.

Let's go with a basic timeline...

- April 2009: The9 in China confirmed it would lose it's contract to host WoW in China. The new contract would be for Netease early in the month of June.
- May 2009: Blizzard made a call to setup a press event late June for SC2. People received invites and made preparations.
- Early June 2009: The9 loses contract, despite thoughts that everything would be ready, the 'infrastructure at Netease' was not prepared. Blizzard confirmed in multiple press conferences that they have engineers working with Netease "round the clock" assisting in this unforseen issue. (I believe they are still down)
- Mid June 2009: Some sites start getting battle.net Logos while others don't. This was decided to be based on the region.
- Late June 2009: SC2 press release happens, where they admit that the original reason for the release is postponed and they setup a new schedule surrounding Multiplayer as they couldn't cancel it. The way it was arranged it was almost as if the sites believed it would be about Singleplayer and battle.net up until the last days. A least 5 days beforehand hinted as such.
- Early July 2009: Rumors came about that a new press release is setup for early July. Within the early days a final Logo is finally setup on Europe.

My theory:

With the way that the recent interviews explain how teams who specialize can work on multiple projects (Such as a team who is responsible for setting up new servers...) I believe that this happened. This is ONLY my opinion.

I believe that when they asked for the Press conference, the deadline for the software preparation was near it's end and the server needs were met. I also believe that they had a multiple phase project involving getting this information setup on each of the servers.

Now we look at a small piece of the puzzle, the SC2 beta icon on battle.net. It showed up about a week before the press conference on KR only. A lot of people just thought of it as a small icon to prepare hype. I thought about it and have another thought. I believe that a major portion of the battle.net software was made available in Korean first and feel they could be able to get onto "battle.net" now as an internal test in pre-beta testing.

I think there are blizzard individuals who have been using that as a way to get it up and running there before they roll out the software to the other servers. I think the icon is merely one of the small changes in the code of a more major infrastructure change. When it was completed and tested correctly on the REAL battle.net 2.0 software with the Korean server.. they could approve a push to get it up and running in US and then EU... but why the delay?

China, Netease's inability to get their own servers up and running for WoW in China happened when the attempted switchover was scheduled in first week of June. This was after the invites were sent out to the press and before the conference. This also explains why the Korean site went up and it took a while for it to get to other sites. 3

As noted above, the team involved with this project had to be pulled off somewhere. And Blizzard has assured the Chinese public that they have "their own technicians assisting Netease every step of the way, round the clock". The individuals who would be put onto this project would be the same individuals from the same team for B.net's infrastructure.

This isn't bad, they have to be able to put out a fire, and despite all that's happening, it's obvious that part of the team is still working on the battle.net project (Europe just got their icon today which means they could be testing the final setup there) but this may explain why it was DELAYED.

Did Blizzard do anything wrong? Not at all, they had a theoretical fire break out and they had to utilize their resources to allow both projects to proceed. But at the same time, as things are easing up at Netease over the last week... it's obvious that things are changing more.

I bet now that there is word of a second press conference right around the corner... I wonder if the bigger fire has become "getting beta ready in time for it" and thus maybe a larger shift to this project again. Maybe nothing's changed, I can only speculate...

All I can say is the timeline between the two events, and the fact that the same resources would be required for both projects would explain why both are getting taken care of in a time longer than Blizzard originally expected.

That's my thoughts.. here's some sources:

- http://www.wow.com/2009/04/15/rumor-...na-to-netease/
- http://www.wow.com/2009/05/27/the9-sues-blizzard/
- Various www.battle.net websites and their icon
- http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/28/in...-chris-sigaty/
- A Rob Pardo Interview I can't find the source on.

Points that's interesting to find out:

- When did each SC2 beta icon show up exactly? What dates?
- What day did the The9 -> Netease shift actually take place on/failed?
- What is the current status of Netease, are they up and running or have they announced a day it'd be complete?

I welcome other thoughts, again, this is a theory, one that may be incorrect.

[Gifted]

Just fyi, I edited a few parts to clean up the wall of text. I'm sorry if any quotes happen to be odd. It was merely rearranging words to make sure points weren't so convoluted. I'm not happy with this post as a literary art *laughs* but it gets my thoughts on text at least

[Mercatosis]

Pretty interesting theory. It seems like those that work on the server farms for WoW would be separate from those who work on battle.net (however, they definitely have the knowledge to work on an emergency such as the9's downtime).

[Hav0x]

I thought blizzard confirmed that a nasty battle.net bug popped up so they had to delay the press conference and just allowed people to try out multiplayer some more.

[ArcherofAiur]

My current threory is that it is taking a long time because they are working on it to make it good.

[Gifted]

I thought blizzard confirmed that a nasty battle.net bug popped up so they had to delay the press conference and just allowed people to try out multiplayer some more.

That could be true but at the same time if this theory is correct.. (No way to confirm) .. then the bug may have been handled otherwise.

I think battle.net would have been stable enough to show features to the press. They just could have delayed the beta release. An interesting point is that the b.net icon was not on US until AFTER the press conference...

I wonder if this bug mentioned could have been found in the initial tests in Korea... which would explain why US wasn't up and running in time. This would also confirm part of my theory that a successful test in Korea would be required to bring the software to the other servers (Such as US/EU)

This is on PURE speculation that I'm correct on at least the server upgrades are related to the icons. Interesting.. *thinks*

[Alex06]

Didn't they (Blizz) say it was because they thought BNet 2.0 wasn't ready for a press release, since it was missing so many features?

[Gifted]

Pretty interesting theory. It seems like those that work on the server farms for WoW would be separate from those who work on battle.net (however, they definitely have the knowledge to work on an emergency such as the9's downtime).

That's a good point. But in terms of networking, dues maintaining 100-200 servers over 4-6 locations involve the same team?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a team involved with the actual implementation of server technology and installation of new servers. It would involve a more extensive knowledge than simple maintenance. Such as a tier 3 versus a tier 1.

If this speculation is also correct, that means the team in question would be one that would involve the "teir 3" or network developers.

[Gifted]

Didn't they (Blizz) say it was because they thought BNet 2.0 wasn't ready for a press release, since it was missing so many features?

I don't believe it was related to features. I know there was talk by Dustin about things they wanted to implement and features that weren't complete yet. But the official reason I read in two places was related to a bug. Other sites simply announced "It wasn't ready"

[Hav0x]

The little logo has nothing to do with the battle.net infrastructure. Blizzard always updates certain localized websites before other ones.

Edit: And I'm pretty sure that they would get the US infrastructure up and running first so the actual developers (the guys in california) could do some testing on it.