With Shadowlands projected to drop before the end of the year, do you think Blizzard (Activision) will do a pre-patch to set us all to level 50 while upgrading everyone’s new character modifications OR do you think they’re just going to “wing it” and do everything at once, crash the servers, and piss everyone off?
I’m thinking option 2.
There’s always been a prepatch long before a new expansion drops. You’d have to be delusional to think there won’t be one this time.
This.
Always has been this, except the level 50 part with regards to past pre patches. Don’t know when the customizations will come into affect.
This pre-patch event is looking to be most likely like Cataclysm.
When the new (current) Talent system was announced, basically the entire game changed. Classes gained the new (current) resource system, on top of the entire world of Azeroth Map changed.
Due to the amount of impact it had, the pre-patch events leading to the launch included all these changes (except the map change), and the pre-patch lasted little over 2 months before the release of the expansion. This was longer than normal pre-patches which normally last 1 month before launch.
I can see this being another occasion where it might make sense to have a longer pre-patch event. People need a lot of time to get acclimated to the level change, as well as developers need a lot of time to sort the -no doubt- enormous amount of bugs that might crop up. Scaling being one of them, specific abilities, trinkets, items that might be missed and work weird with the new numbers, etc. etc. etc.
IF they want to release before the year ends… I expect we are getting Beta as soon as these 5 weeks of time-walking are over, and at the latest we’ll jump into pre-patch some time in mid-October.
We shall see.
Considering there is ALWAYS a pre-patch which adds everything needed to get Shadowlands going? Yes, there will be an update of sorts.
There will be one but it’s as close to expansion as possible. As it signals the end of aotc, mythic plus, pvp seasons, and all the systems from bfa. Cant have people waiting very long with nothing to do.
There will be a pre-patch, there’s a whole event planned for it that we know about. They always happen a month or so before release.
The pre-patch contains every base system change. The level squish will happen then along with the new customizations, class changes, everything except the actual Shadowlands zones.
That didn’t stop them from releasing WoD though, did it? 
We mightaswell have had nothing to do for 6 months after release.
I most cases, the pre-patch work is a very minor part of the overall content. Even if it was 6 weeks of pre-patch, that gives Blizzard 6 weeks to polish the new content.
Coding takes some time, but artwork is what will really delay your scheduling.
Side note: Art teams have been great, as has the sound engineers, and level designers. WoW has looked pretty great, despite some rough system design.