I had this question on a older thread, bad idea to just tag on to someone elses post. so i did my own.
Do they beta test before mass producing games? Sure we're not even half way through the year yet but with a 08 release and no sign of beta testing starting, it seems like they're cutting it close. Starting the Beta testing, then actually doing it, then evaluating or possibly making further ajustments based on results, then producing enough copies of the expansion for WoW's 10m subscribers I would assume takes awhile to do...or maybe im just getting anxious.
Great comment. It's amazing how quickly they product the copies and work out the bugs. They did a great job with The Burning Crusade, two years ago. I was in the 'closed beta' in October and there was a January release. Similar to the recent patch 2.4 which introduced a new raid dungeon, TBC was predicated by Patch 1.11 in June which introduced a 40-man raid Naxxramas. You can see how they gave guilds about 6-8 months to play with the new content and I'm seeing the same pattern this time around.
I would expect a closed beta sometime in August-September, possibly an open beta in October-November, and a release in December-January. Keep in mind they just recently opened a closed alpha for 'friends and family.'