Road to Beta: Expectations & Feedback

The purpose of this post is simple; define what we consider beta, what content will be reachable during our second beta as well as how you can give your feedback to us.

What is Beta?

The term "Beta" over the years has been co-opted to mean "Demo" for many people in part caused by other projects within the scene but undeniably also by AAA companies. It is important for us at Project Epoch to make it clear that our second beta is very much so a test of large system changes we have made alongside the infrastructure we have in place.

You will find bugs here and there, you may dislike aspects of the game, you may struggle to find quest locations or to defeat bosses you've never experienced before.

The main purpose of this second beta is to gain insight into the following:

Account Management: Registration, Password Reset, Email Verification.
Launcher Stability: Download Speeds, Update Installs, Ease of Installation.
Client Stability: A number of our features requires a custom DLL to function to attach extra functionality to the WoW client. There is a small chance this causes instability on certain systems, if this occurs to you please report this.
Server Core Stability: Crashes, Lag Spikes, systemic issues.
Quests: Writing, difficulty, pacing, style and more. We have over 600 quests available in this beta to enjoy.
Itemisation: More than 15,000 items have been edited in the process of creating our Classic+ itemisation alongside our custom items. If you feel an item has been missed, isn't working as intended or (in the case of custom content) don't feel appropriate / poorly itemised then please report it.
World Edits: We have a variety of new locations in the world and adjustments to existing zones. Issues with pathing, terrain glitches or struggling to find new locations are all of interest to us.
Classic Creatures: To restore to a 1.2 patch like world state thousands of NPC's were removed, moved, levels adjusted, names changed, damage tweaked etc. If you spot issues with these we would value feedback on the matter.
PvP: Warsong Gulch is available for testing as is our Warmode and outdoor Hillsbrad PvP objective.
Soul of Iron: A Blizzlike interpretation of the hardcore mode from Blizzards Season of Mastery.
Explorers Contracts: An optional mode where you can limit your experience gains to 50% of their original value available in all secondary towns at or below level 6.
Professions: Profession bonuses and new recipes have been added for all professions. We would greatly value your feedback on pacing, the bonuses themselves, how they're acquired, and the recipes themselves.
Classes: Despite being limited to level 45 our additional talent points grant players access to more abilities earlier. If you find an ability not working as expected please report this. Alongside this the new race class combos of Undead Paladins, Dwarf Mage, Human Hunter, Gnome Priest, Tauren Priest, Troll Warlock, Undead Hunter and Dwarf Shamans are available in this test with new class quests. We have done massive reworks to the fundamentals of how classes work under the hood to revert much of the Wrath of the Lich King behaviour such as spell pushback, buff stacking, class stat scaling and much more. We feel this should be much closer to TBC now, if it isn't let us know!
Racials: New Racials have been added for Undead and Night Elves alongside cosmetic racials for every other race. We value your feedback on if you enjoy them. Alongside this the new additions of Tauren and Gnome Priest required new class specific racials.
Dungeons: Both the Deadmines and Wailing Caverns have been completely overhauled by the Project Epoch team to be a whole new experience while retaining the feeling you love. Does trash feel well structured, are you struggling to clear the dungeon, was it confusing to get around etc are very important to us. However, please remember you are going into dungeons that no one has seen in detail and are at the forefront of custom content. Alongside these all of the available Blizzard dungeons have been given mechanical changes and new loot drops for you to enjoy. While on your journey keep your eyes peeled for new Dungeon entrances that may be available for you to enter or tease at content yet to come!

Testing Level Boost

While many of you did not join us within our first open beta we know that lots are also returning players who may not wish to redo level 1-30 questing or what to have easier access to experiment with other classes. With that in mind we have integrated a series of beta test helper NPC's that reside in all starting areas and faction capitals.

These are:

Ay Talor

Providing you a one way trip to level 30 this will be your first port of call in most cases if you are intending to begin your journey at level 30. He will teach you all your spells, weapon skills, give you a starting pot of 2g and then send you on your way. You will also be granted a full set of level appropriate flight paths unlocked at this point.

Stefan Gawking

Stefan provides individual sets of armor for each class with a mixture of green and blue level 30 appropriate items. Simply grab a crate and choose from within it the items that you want.

Rachael Ray

Rachael Ray will provide the option to learn and boost any primary and secondary profession including learning both Blizzard and Custom recipes. This reaches skill of 150 with expert already unlocked so you can begin working towards skill 225. The exceptions to this include First Aid and Fishing which require a player to go out and complete their appropriate ways to learn expert.

Lana Wellway

Lana Wellway provides essentially everything a player might need to get started with their professions and questing including crates of level 30 appropriate consumables, class reagants, trade goods, bags and so on.

Mags Grimefinger

While the level boost itself provides all your neccesary abilities some of your chosen talents may have multiple ranks. To allow you to quickly learn those ranks Mags serves as a single NPC who can train all classes.

Verner Weisenberg

Once you are ready to head out in to the world Verner can get you where you need to be providing access to teleports to faction capitals as well as level 30 appropriate zones.

We encourage players that did not participate in our first beta to begin their journey from level 1 so that we can continue to receive feedback on bug fixes, along with ensuring you are able to experience as much new content as possible.

What Content Can I Not Do?

Level Cap: 45

We have not marked any zones as forbidden. You are free to go where you please, however the following dungeons are not available for testing:

Sunken Temple.
Blackrock Depths.
Lower Blackrock Spire.
Upper Blackrock Spire.
Scholomance.
Stratholme.

All in game holidays (Hallows End etc) have been disabled as they have not yet had a development pass.

Beyond the above nothing else has been intentionally disabled. We want players to have free reign.

Will I Keep My Characters?

The account that you use to register for any of our betas will be the account you use when Project Epoch goes live, however after each beta phase we will first export character data for detailed analysis and then wipe them in time for the next beta. Characters will in no way carry over to live.

What Support Can I Expect?

During the beta the primary focus of the dev team will be actively monitoring feedback, fixing issues and analysing performance / crash logs. Due to this expect a large ticket response time and try to keep tickets to truly game breaking issues.

We will not be involved in things like:

Item Restoration.
Loot Disputes.
Bugged Quests (Report, abandon and redo when fixed instead).

We will be involved in things like:

Character Stuck.
Character Unplayable.

In-Game Feedback

Going in to our open betas it is key for us at Project Epoch that you the players can report bugs, issues and critique that you find in a quick and easy manner to ensure that anyone can contribute. To enable that we have developed feedback and bug reporting tools directly into the game with just a button press to get going no matter the context.

What Can I Report?

This has been intentionally broken down into key categories targetting the information that we hope to receive from you our dilligent testers. These are:

Confused - Feeling completely lost and unsure how to proceed with something or where to find some of our functionality? Choose this option and provide us information so we can better improve our tutorials and in game helpers.
Bug - An all encompassing "Hey something has gone wrong" to be used as a fallback for if a specific category isn't available.
Quest (In Progress) - Visiting a quest giver when you have an incomplete quest from them will allow you to report issues with the quest that may have prevented you from completing it. Can't find the creature you need to kill? Convinced the item isn't dropping? Use this to inform us.
Quest (Complete) - The purpose of this feedback is to get general information about how you felt about a quest beyond "Can I complete it". This will be presented when handing in a quest that is completed.
Creature - Have you found something strange with one of the many denizens of the world? Creature has the wrong health? Stuck in a wall? Weird pathing? Wrong Name? etc. Report this to us so we can isolate these issues.
Item - More than 15,000 items have been edited by the Project Epoch team alongside new custom items. If you find something wrong with these please report them or any other feedback around items you may have.
Spell - With our TBC class changes we have edited thousands of spells. Due to this we may need your help narrowing down issues. If you spot any issues please feel free to report these problems.
Achievements - We have removed and adjusted hundreds of achievements alongside adding new ones. Due to this we felt it was important that issues with these can be reported in our beta. Can't unlock one? Did one trigger in a weird place? Please let us know.

How Can I Report?

The Project Epoch feedback tools are contextual and simply rely on you to hover over the item that you wish to report feedback for and press F6 when prompted. This will bring up our various feedback forms that you may fill in depending on the context.

The keybind used for this can be rebound at your choice within the Key Bindings options.