Warlords of Draenor: Is there already an internal alpha?

Here at WoW Insider, we're really excited about Warlords of Draenor beta. And when I say we're really excited, I mean we're really excited. So we're always looking for clues that it might be coming. If you weren't aware, the things that will generally happen before a press beta are an internal alpha, followed by a very small friends and family alpha. So when Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka tweeted the following, we had to share:

Now, Holinka is definitely not saying that there categorically is an internal alpha. He is the PvP designer, after all, so it makes sense that he would have the ability to test his designs. But the big differences are things like the removal of abilities, the stat squish, CC removal, the rework of how health and damage scale -- all core systems. So while we can't take this as a confirmation of an internal alpha we can hold out hope that, if there isn't one yet, it won't be long. And that means that we could be well on the way to Beta.

It seems that, if the Warlords of Draenor pre-orders appear with the launch of patch 5.4.7, beta can't be too far behind. Given Blizzard's history, asking players to shell out for an expansion that isn't even in beta yet might be a tall order.