#1 - June 17, 2013, 6:48 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Raid testing is not quite beginning yet, but we're getting closer. We need another PTR patch or two to iron out some stability issues and get more of our internal updates to the raid zone onto the PTR, but once that happens, we'll begin with our usual schedule of focused boss testing, one boss at a time, one difficulty at a time.

In general, when we have a day of testing, we'll try to conduct two testing sessions: one at around 10:30 PDT/13:30 EDT/19:30 CEST that is designed to be more convenient for EU testers, and one at 16:00 PDT/19:00 EDT/01:00 CEST that works better for NA testers, though all regions' servers will be open for testing during both windows. We'll make every effort to announce testing at least one day in advance, and to only schedule testing when we're relatively confident the realms will be available and accessible, but as always, this is a testing environment that is subject to bugs, schedule changes, and unforeseen service disruption. There will inevitably be some inconveniences, and I apologize in advance for them.

We'll begin by testing 10-player Normal and then Heroic mode, before moving on to targeted 25-player tests. We begin with 10-player because we tend to see a wider range of skill levels and group types participating in those tests (whereas it tends to mostly just be the very best Heroic guilds that can muster a 25-player PTR raid), which help us to better establish a broad tuning baseline for the encounters, but we'll be testing everything (except Heroic Garrosh!) in both raid sizes in due course. Once an entire "wing" of the raid has been tested in Normal, we'll unlock that section for LFR and/or Flexible mode queuing with a more open-ended testing window, measured in days rather than hours.

See you in (and beneath) Orgrimmar!