I don’t think it’s a bad expac, it’s actually pretty decent considering I bet a majority of the man hours working on it was done from home due to the COVID quarantine.
It just doesn’t feel like WoW, but I also understand why.
Ehh, I don’t know. This isn’t an anomaly for Blizzard, this is actually quite common just earlier in the expansion. Other companies in countries that had stricter and earlier lockdowns managed to get back on pace. Blizzard is the only company still dragging their feet. Especially since if you think about it, they probably began working on 9.1 right after Nathria dropped. By this time a lot of the lockdowns had been dialed back as the pandemic was going on an entire year at this point.
1 Like
8 months to get a patch doesn’t fill one with hope.
3 Likes
Blizzards business model is built on two year box sales.
They can’t do that.
2 Likes
They can. They have. They will. We will have a 9.3. Covid changed the rules on the timeframe for expansions
1 Like
I care about the story 
1 Like
This is only a rumor, barely one at that with no confirmable source. While Blizz hasn’t stated an expansion road map in a while in terms of patch numbers, it has stated that they could be doing a 9.3 and beyond if they see the need nor are they limited to the expansion every 2 years.
Due to Covid, and yes this is a valid reason, SL can be extended out to 3 years. This would give us a 9.3 patch and give them more time to work on 10.0.
They built the entire expansion around covenants, knowing that doing so meant they would be impossible to change, and also knowing that a lot of players weren’t going to like being essentially locked into one type of content and one role.
This is something they decided to do to the playerbase. I think that Shadowlands is a giant social engineering experiment intended to convert the playerbase into mythic raiders and MDI and AWC competitors by giving people no choice, by removing all other options. Basically the hill they’ve decided to die on is one where they think they can prove that every other game in the genre is wrong. Rewarding players for time they spend participating in order to encourage them to continue participate amounts to coddling people who shouldn’t have the right to exist. Designing the game around what the majority of players want to pay for would be morally wrong.
It appears that they think they can change human nature and end up with the playerbase they think they deserve, with no loss of subscribers. Because nobody ever leaves the game, right?
In the end they will get the playerbase they deserve.
http://www.memorableplaces.com/mudwimping.html
We don’t know for sure either way but at this point I will be very surprised if there is 9.3. And I really hope there isn’t.
Honestly, I’m at the point where I think the best long-term decision is to put EVERYTHING into 9.2 and then shift all gears to the next expansion to try and get a Legion-type save.
I don’t think SL can be salvaged. The foundation of the entire expansion has to be weaker than even WoD. WoD had a strong foundation, just no follow-through. SL doesn’t even have that.
5 Likes
I agree and hope that’s what they do.
I think they know they need a good 9.2 patch to lessen the bleeding to FF14.
The problem with people going to FF14 isn’t necessarily that they won’t play WoW ever again. It’s that they won’t habitually sub to WoW for extended periods anymore since they have other options.
WoW more and more is seeing people sub for 1 month at a time and then just stop playing. The troughs between content updates are getting bigger and bigger as people would increasingly rather play some other game after playing WoW for just 2 weeks.
So yeah, I do think it would be yet another disaster for WoW to have a lousy 9.2 especially if Endwalker is good.
Really they should try to do both. In 2020, they gained 200 developers by absorbing the studio the produced both Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk games. They should put them to work. The new developers should be up to speed by now.
2 full patches would be more than WoD had.
WoD had 6.1, but it added no content to the game. Only 6.2 added anything.
9.1 is an actual content patch with new zone/dungeon/raid.
If 9.2 is similar that would be way more than WoD ever got.
If the development schedule doesn’t drastically speed up, 9.3 seems very unlikely.
3 Likes
Their entire expansion model since vanilla has included a x.3 patch.
I’m still holding out hope 
3 year xpacs, make it happen Blizz
I’m talking current content. Not sure why we don’t have a patch at this point.
The only thing I can come up with is since they were in quarantine also, maybe it was harder to collaborate on the first patch.
Though honestly they should have just added pathfinder during this patch.
Hey Bliz, can we please go back to the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor again for an expac after this and just leave flight alone since we already paid for it? There’s lots that can be done there and I’m fairly certain that we need to do something about that sword (this is coming from a Goblin).
Yeah I can’t see SLs lasting until 2023, esp with FF releasing new classes and a new expansion in Nov.
They’re all working on the D2 remaster as the classic games team.
1 Like
Seems excessive for a remaster but okay.