Por que*, NDA?

*For those who don't know, "¿por que?" is Spanish for "why?" and is pronounced "poor kay?" Get it? "Por que" and "NDA" rhyme... and now for your usual blog entry.

With the news that the Friends and Family alpha test will soon begin, it's hard not to be excited, but my excitement is tempered by a little thing called the non-disclosure agreement (abbreviated as NDA). For those who don't know, the NDA states that those involved in the F&F alpha may not release information about the content they play to the public, so if we are to glean anything from the F&F alpha, it will have to be through shady wikis or websites that people covertly send screenshots to (it happened for Wrath, and I'm sure it will happen again). However, the beta test usually follows on the heels of the alpha test, and those who participate in the beta are not bound by the NDA. So why bind those on the F&F alpha by an NDA when that information will be coming out once the beta is released?

There could be a very practical reason that Blizzard doesn't enforce an NDA on the beta. On the F&F alpha, considering that everyone there is a friend or relative of a Blizzard employee, they have some personal stake in following the NDA. If they don't follow it, they risk being shunned by whichever employee brought them in to test the expansion. Beta testers, however, usually have no such personal stake. Since most beta testers are just random WoW players, their stake in the game goes only as deep as the game itself, so they would likely feel no qualms about ignoring an NDA. Blizzard could go so far as to kick people who break a hypothetical NDA off of the beta or even suspect their accounts for a while, but that's where the practical considerations come in. Considering how many people are involved in the beta, to try to police all of them and make sure they never release information to the public would be a nightmare.

However, I remember that when I was on the Wrath of the Lich King beta, I was still able to take screenshots with the F13 key. If Blizzard preferred that beta information not leek out, they could have taken the basic precaution of disabling screenshoting, yet they didn't. This says to me that they don't at all mind information on the beta leaking out, but they do mind information from the alpha leaking out. One must ask, what's the difference?

Perhaps Blizzard sees the alpha as a safe place to perform their preliminary balancing without the players flipping out over extreme changes. Suppose Blizzard adds a new spell to the game. The testers on the alpha try out the spell and show that it is extremely overpowered. Blizzard nerfs the spell to bring it more into balance with the other spells. If anyone had grown attached to the spell and expresses disappointment with it being nerfed, a Blizzard employee can personally reassure them that it was for the greater good, and because there are so few testers, sentiments such as attachment to a particular spell won't be too widespread to be handled by Blizzard.

Now, imagine if Blizzard had no NDA on the alpha. Testers would have released info on that new overpowered spell, and the community would be in a frenzy. Those who play the class receiving the spell would celebrate, while those who don't would freak out over what they perceived as that class getting an unfair advantage. Those who play the class would say "tough" and claim it was their time to shine. Then Blizzard nerfs the spell. While the rest of the playerbase is relieved, the players who were going to receive the spell now freak out because they had grown so excited over the spell, and now they won't be getting it. Now they start complaining about it, while everyone else tells them to deal with it. By handling their major balancing away from the public eye, Blizzard can avoid these kinds of scenarios. Sure, they still see more minor versions of those scenarios on the beta, but at least they can reduce the frequency and severity with which they happen by doing their preliminary balancing on the alpha, away from the public eye. But if Blizzard really does have an NDA with their alpha testers for that reason, I hate to think about what that says about us as a community...