At the rhythm things are going we probably won’t get a 9.3. This is because this year should (this is a big should) be expansion announcement year (10.0).
They probably won’t delay the next expansion because that would be interfering with WotLK Classic release, which is not a good business from an “earnings” perspective.
So the logical path is to not have a 9.3.
This could be one scenario, the other scenario is that we get 9.3 and we don’t get a new expansion in a LOT of time.
What do you think?
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They should make a 9.3
I dont want them to rush this expansion to the end.
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I suspect there won’t be a 9.3. If I had to venture a guess, 9.2 will be the Jailer raid, and we’ll get introduced to the storyline that will take us into 10.0.
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You’re forgetting a 3rd scenario. A repeat of Cata’s .1 patch which only added 2 5-man dungeons, or a repeat of WoD’s infamous selfie patch. Basically, a “filler” patch with the sole purpose of letting them end the expansion on a .3 patch when they release the “real” patch.
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I don’t want them to do it either but the time running out.
Shadowlands needs to end. Idc how Blizz does it, but just put it down already.
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Storywise, this has all been dragged out long enough.
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But like… how do you know what follows Shadowlands won’t be even worse? 
We can only hope that the next expansion is an absolute and revolutionary win in terms of gameplay and Lore. Otherwise, we are doomed, and Blizzard too.
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I may very well be, but I hope someone over at Blizz sees what’s going on and has the brains to fix it
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i did not think shadowlands would be worse then bfa but man i was proven wrong. i even change my stance i still think bfa sucked but i would rather be in bfa still then SL rofl
i am sure the trend will continue and next expansion might even be worse.
even bfa was not as dead as SL is atm
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10.0.
Shadowlands part ii. Just a really long horrific vision. Now, we go to hell properly.
I would feel like I was ripped off if they end it. On the other hand, I would like for it to end. The only problem, is it’s the same team that will be making the new expansion, so is it even likely that it will be better? Will it just be another reskin of Legion again?
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It probably will. I mean, they truly need to innovate and create a gameplay that doesn’t feel like a job. But they will think that we want Legion back so, they will give us artifact power back and then ask why we are all angry.
Finally, Ion will come out and tell us how we should be playing to have fun.
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Nah , we will have systems and you will like it
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Depending on where they take the story, they may be able to save a ton of time in the art department (AFAIK thats one of their major bottlenecks) by reusing existing assets / areas.
Say we finish the Jailer plot in 9.2 instead of dragging it on unnecessarily, what comes next? IMO, probably something Scourge-related. Might even drag Anduin into a pseudo-Lich King role given what’s going on with him now.
Remember that this whole time we’re in the Shadowlands, the Scourge are still running rampant. Lakeshire is more or less confirmed to be razed. It’s unlikely that’s the only place that ran into trouble.
I could see 9.3 being a sort of “recovery” patch leading into WotLK 2: Electric Boogaloo. Or, even if it doesn’t lead into anything, that wrap-up still needs to happen. We can’t just hand-wave what’s going on with the Scourge away by fixing the Shadowlands IMO.
Hell, maybe that’s what 9.2 ends up being and 9.3 we finish up the Jailer, idk.
Either way, if we get a “Scourge/Anduin” patch, I could see it taking the Cata route of re-used environments. You know, an instanced version of a couple Azeroth zones, re-use part of ICC as a dungeon or something with different bosses. Idc. Something along those lines would save a ton of time and might be enough to put things back on track.
If we get 2 full-fledged patches with new instances/potentially zones, releasing 10.0 on-schedule will definitely be in question. Slice a couple months of development off by using existing areas and it’s more normal.
I like to point this out when people talk about this:
WoW releases, so far, have come in sets of 3. IMO at least.
Vanilla → WotLK all followed basically the same design philosophy, if you fudge it a bit and ignore that LFD was added at the tail end of WotLK. The biggest real change was probably just badge gear, but the fundamental design was the same throughout.
Cata → WoD all followed basically the same design philosophy as well. WoD was just a really crappy barebones implementation of it. The biggest change within this set was probably talent trees between Cata and MoP, but realistically, Cata already locked you into specifically your spec’s tree, so that choice was already being gutted. MoP was the natural progression from there.
Legion → Shadowlands all very blatantly follow the same design philosophy. The whole borrowed power shtick is like the defining feature of this era. There have been almost no major differences between releases in this set. The biggest would be the AP grind becoming a cosmetic grind, but realistically it was just replaced with the Renown grind, so it’s a wash.
If you don’t find fault with any of that, then if the pattern holds, 10.0 will be something different again. Maybe it’ll be good, maybe it won’t, but it’ll be different.
I feel like it probably has something to do with their development cycle. They’ve told us before that they are working on the xpack 2 releases out already. To what degree, who knows, but that means they already have a base created by the time they’re getting any feedback from the previous release.
So… it might go something like this:
Set A Release 1: New concepts, people are more excited for the different direction than they are mad about the nitty gritty details that they don’t love.
Set A Release 2: Okay, it’s not new anymore. Feedback is now becoming more focused and people are more critical in general.
Set A Release 3: It’s too late to change course from Release 2’s Feedback. This was already in development. They can only make minor changes. Feedback is taken into consideration for Set B.
Set B: New Concepts based on Feedback from Set A Release 2/3. Repeat process.
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They said that about BFA and we got SL lol
This is what was said verbatim throughout all of BFA. If you don’t like what WoW is in 2021, banking on the next expansion being “better” is only going to disappoint you.
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