WoD didn’t and everything in Shadowlands has been so delayed I think it will be the same unless they think people will tolerate Shadowlands lasting 3 years.
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I doubt that they could do that even if they wanted to.
Without the every other year box sales, WoW would start to look a lot less appealing from a corporate/investor viewpoint.
They need those 3 million+ digital/box sales to show WoW is worth the resources.
If they could do it every year, they would and with Deluxe Classic editions that seems to be the direction they are heading.
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Legion and BfA were August.
MoP was September.
TBC was January.
Hardly “always released end of Q4”.
The sooner they end this expansion with it’s systems the better of you ask me, but then again even if they do another expansion if it’s the same team we have now then we are pretty much screwed.
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Actually it isn’t there’s already a different team working on the next expansion. They probably started near the end of BfA.
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Who knows how the Corona quarantine affected what’s going on right now, that’s the only reason I am being patient to be honest (and I am pretty patient).
A lot of things are weird right now.
7.0 was glorious, just now we have had it three times, waiting for something fresh
With how the pacing is, it’s KIND of like a normal distribution of resources. They’ve shoved a lot of 9.2 things into 9.1 etc so it’s not like there is a ‘dump of effort’ into any version.
Yeah it’s confirmed.
Do you wanna know how I know that’s bs?
9.0 launched without testing of The Maw, PvP testing and tuning phase, covenant and conduit balance passes (opting to nerf conduits into the ground 3 weeks before launch instead), and without testing the launch version of torghast (revamped a few weeks before launch).
If there was a time to delay a launch a year, Shadowlands was it.
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It is not confirmed yet. 9.2 was confirmed by Ion though.
We’ll see what happens!
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Whatever happens, they need to change this mentality of “our way or get out”.
SWG implemented that wonderful feature. They don’t exist anymore.
WoW is on the right track if it wants to run it’s own game into the ground. Might not be tomorrow. Might not be another year from now, but they’re on the right track.
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9.3, 9.2.5…all I care is that either of these give the gimme gear that lets us run legion raid for mog hunts.
While 9.3 wasn’t promised, legion raid fixes were. I’d take them fixing the buff to damage output but they opted to “fixing” by expac version level gear.
9.3 or 9.2.5 ripcord gives that…all good.
9.2 by late October or early November along with a bunch of QoL fixes like pulling the ripcord,
I think they’ll try to do their best to compete with Endwalker release
Blizzard could absolutely add new content to the current expansion rather than launch a new one from scrath. The Shadowlands are ideal for adding entire zones and Covenants, if only Blizzard felt comfortable with supporting current xpacs with content patches and horizontal progression rather than keeping an ever-resetting expansion model on life support on a 2 years tik-tok cycle.
A zone of gears, clockworks, worshops and works of arts turned into animated setpieces, where inventors, artisans and artists go? That can be a zone. It’s even already name dropped on a sinstone in Revendreth.
A zone of deep valleys filled with jungles and swamps and lost temples, surrounded by rocky crags and jagged primal mountains and volcanos, where Dragons, Giants, Dinosaurs and Shamans are sent? That can be a zone.
An endless dungeon-library-maze hiding vaults of arcane or eldritch lore and creatures or artifacts too dangerous to keep on the mortal world, littered with traps, secreted away from hundreds of mortal worlds by reality-warding Liches? That can be a zone.
Blizzard can open any D&D / Pathfinder book about the planes, and there’s a dozen dozen zone ideas just in these. They just need to tie these zones to the story somehow to give us a reason to go there.
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They also said in at least one external interview that they would release more customization for characters throughout the expac. They walked that back at Blizzcon without so much as a sorry or a definitive future release for more of that (“we’re happy with what we’ve released and we hear the players are happy” they said, ignoring the allied races with only three face choices and numerous other issues). They’re liars and not even good ones. Because if they were to let this expac run long and waste more dev time on it, it guarantees a rushed, unfinished next expac which spells doom for the game, doom for the playerbase, doom for any of the wants anyone has.
At this point they have a choice:
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No 9.3: 10.0 arrives about on time within about 2 years of SL launch as is tradition for expacs. They use the extra time and resources to pour into 10.0 and make it a stellar patch and launch experience and revitalize the playerbase and the game, get the hype going again and get people to think Blizzard is back. WoW will live to see another expac or two as a result, the servers on retail will not be empty, the teams will not get gutted and downsized because no one is buying expacs or subbing.
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They deliver 9.3. SL stretches on for 3 years, the drought and boredom with a boring place drives off much of the playerbase who is ready, nay demanding to move on and see something new, new raid or dungeon be darned (and even more will leave among those who stayed for the new raid and dungeon after a few months pass and they get bored of them). 10.0 comes out but it’s been so long many question whether Blizzard has completely lost the touch and whether such content droughts are the norm from now on. Many players refuse to return after being burned. The game and playerbase suffers. Corporate is breathing down their neck for not getting game launch money and forces new monetization of the shop and downsizes dev teams to avoid anything nearing a loss.
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They deliver 9.3. However they conclude the game around on time and launch 10.0 only three months or so later than average for expac length. However it’s an unfinished product, pushed to launch in desperation and it’s either so filled with bugs or so quickly runs out of content that players grow angry and leave as it stretches on and on without a major content patch much like 9.0 has. Blizz burns the last good will and commentators declare this appears to be the new norm for WoW. The game spirals into decline.
Thing is they lose tons of subs as a routine fact of life after expac launches (who return after major patches for some months then leave again), they count on expac sales money for bumps to subs and a big infusion of income. If they let the game drag out for 3 years they’ve gone a year without that infusion. Corporate is going to be furious with them and that kind of performance.
I only pray that they are smart enough that by shortly after 9.1’s launch they realize they cannot do a full 9.3 and abort it, move to wrap things up in 9.2 and 9.2.5 and to really put some effort into 10.0.
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Except this likely won’t happen. Not if they can return to a regular patch delivery schedule. One of the biggest issues with 9.1 isn’t that the content is bad (although there are a few morons making that argument who haven’t actually tested it) but that it’s taken too long for Blizzard to deliver it. This doesn’t mean that 9.2 and 9.3 will face similar delays, and IF Blizzard can keep the patches rolling, then people will be entertained, provided that those patches are meaty (in respect to available content) and not empty like 6.1 was back in the day.
So it is more than possible for them to deliver 9.3 and keep the playerbase happy. Well… at least the playerbase outside of the forums. These forums are a toxic mess where hardly anyone is happy, and the vast majority of said toxic posters should have quit ages ago but for some reason haven’t and continue to waste their time and everyone elses.
they have no choice now. BFA hurt… and SL is shaping up to be the same. 8 months to release a patch isnt helping
There’s been 3 different points of view from this thread…
First, that we’re getting a 9.3, second, that we’re getting another Xpac for holidays 2022, and third, a combination of those 2 …
Problem… none of the people who have those 3 points of view have any idea, what they’re talking about.
We have no clue whether the remainder of this xpac will follow anything near a similar schedule to others. We DO know that the reasons for the current schedule of release has been unprecedented and have caused a pretty high level of turnover within their design team. It seems overwhelmingly unlikely any content release; patch or Xpac will follow any reasonable schedule, holidays or not. You can’t simply will content into existence, and blizzard currently don’t have the coding staff or design team staffed at a level that could make a ridiculous target for holidays 2022 happen.
Seriously… if you think either of those … give your head a shake because (not you specifically) that’s absolutely ridiculous.
If you think you’re getting an Xpac before next Christmas, than you clearly haven’t been paying attention.
Seriously… that’s idiotic