What are the PTR notes in WoW?
The PTR notes are essentially notes that blizzard updates periodically that can usually be found on the WoW website. These are just notes to let the public and those testing the PTR know what the current changes are like on the PTR so that players can give feedback on the forums as to what feels balanced. The majority of the WoW player base does not venture onto the PTR unless a major change is going to hit their class and they just cant wait to see how much they heal, hit, or threat they generate.
What is the PTR in WoW?
In WoW the PTR refers to the patch test realm. The name pretty much gives away what is done on these two realms that blizzard has set aside. These realms are used for testing the potential changes that could go into the game, or make it into live as many would say. This is much like a sandbox where blizzard can freely change numbers and algorithms around to see if changes coincide with the direction that they want to take the game. In other words, how terrible would it be if blizzard thought warriors did not do enough damage (this rarely happens) so they buffed warriors damaging abilities by 60% across the board. This may or may not be fine with the current tier of content but what happens when new gear is available in the future? If you do not already know warriors scale really well with gear, pretty much the opposite of a feral druid. The patch test realm is also a place where blizzard releases new bosses in the upcoming patch before they are played on live. What blizzard is doing is having the community test their boss fights for bugs instead of hiring others (probably with more training) to do it for them. This has been controversial amongst some of the players that have witnessed blizzard hotfixing bosses once they had hit live left and right, sometimes at the same time that people are trying to down it on live. Others do not care as long as they can take their guild and practice the boss fight on the PTR and repeat it on live to officially down it faster. However, these are the top guilds that are doing this and most players do not take advantage of the PTR in this manner. All qqing aside, if blizzard did not have the patch test realm, then screw ups lasting a day at the minimum would cause a lot of rage on the forums and probably less subscribers in the long run.
