Ok dude if you want to imagine that he meant anything other then the immediate aftermath then by all means pretend away.
P.S. Blizzard just released a hot fix.
I don’t think you’re aware of all the very serious things that recently happened at Blizzard.
A woman lost her life. If you want to imagine that isn’t a big deal along with everything else that’s going on and they can move on working as usual pretend away.
P.s “ALMOST no work is being done”
I’m sure one of the things they can still do are easy hotfixes.
I see people bring that up but that happened a while back and no details, reason etc were given, just speculation [apart from where/when and some small points of interest]. I do agree though that it’s evident that their usual work that was done at the given pace has slowed down.
Even Taliesin, who has contacts with blizz devs confirmed it’s kinda stalled.
Amongst other things, and as you said, the person did say ‘almost’, so there are still some people on that team still doing their job.
there busy cleaning house and will disband and regroup… I’m saying about q1
I’m not looking to get into every detail of all the terrible things that have been happening at Blizzard recently. Because there’s a lot. People can do their own research if they want to know. I was just making a point to Hamstar there have been very serious things going on at Blizzard recently in case he didn’t know.
I wanted to inform people of what has been said about the state of the game development because of the terrible things that have went down at Blizzard. All we know at the moment is almost no work is being done and now thanks to you we know even Taliesin, who has contacts with blizz devs confirmed it’s kinda stalled.
So that’s where we stand folks.
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Sorry, I get it. Didn’t mean to come @ you.
Not my intention.
And yeah, I’m no surprised things have kinda slowed down, stalled, or what have you, whatever the truth may be. Hope the new hiring they are doing and they can get things back on track and the ABK group is happy with it to continue.
I think you’re right on the money that 9.2 or a 9.2.5 will be the last major patches with a quicker wrap-up than originally anticipated in order to get the next expac working and out. Mid second quarter '22 for 9.2 (or whatever the last major patch number is; won’t be 9.3) is a good bet because it gives the devs time to finalize a rushed closing for the expac and players 6-7 months thereafter to complete the content before pre-patch drops.
I disagree with no 10.0 in 2022. It isn’t a matter of the wants of the WoW team. It is a matter of the fact Activision DEMANDS product and WoW’s release cadence of 2 years is already slower than other divisions by a year and pisses them off. They are not going to allow the WoW team to not release something even if it releases December 30th. I could see them allowing it to be delayed to January/February 2023 (with a prepatch at the end of December) if it’s a real disaster and cannot be released but they would be furious if that happened and it could mean real doom in that they might gut the amount of content in all future expacs in order to prevent it ever happening again. Certainly a late next expac release could mean they force the team to cut the content for it short to get the next expac (11.0) after this next one out within say 18-20 months instead of 24-27 that we’re used to in order to prevent any chance of a re-occurrence.
One has to understand expacs are a cash stream for Activision. They provide a massive influx of cash not only from people buying the expacs but also from people returning and subbing, from people returning and buying pets, mounts, character services. They will have something WoW related in 2022 and it’s too early for them to go with Wrath Classic (they want to save that for off years so 2023 when subs for whatever expac is next potentially dip so they can lock people in to a 6-month sub in the lull). And I also don’t think they dare risk cannibalizing their next expac sales and MAU’s in that content by releasing Wrath classic say 6-8 months before 10.0 drops in earnest.
Another thing is don’t buy the COVID excuse. They have other issues and used COVID as a cover-up for them.
Other studios had a brief dip in productivity then got right back on track. Blizzard flubbed it and has been behind not on the order of weeks but on the order of many months. This is the only major company whose MAU’s declined during COVID while every other company’s userbase grew due to new blood being brought in from people cooped up and bored thanks to lockdowns. They had other issues like bad management and organization, lack of harmony because of the abuse stuff bubbling out, getting bogged down in balancing covenants and not having enough time because of the amount that and other systems took out of their schedules and that ham-stringed them. It was bad design, bad decisions, bad management of the WoW teams and their resources and that stops at Ion’s desk.
If we had another expac other than SL without these systems that had been a real return to form during COVID WoW could have been experiencing a renaissance but instead we’re in a likely terminal decline.
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slands is a hairs breadth away from being abandoned
guarantee the bosses are debating what to release and what to just hold onto for 10.0 like they did with WoD
I feel you’ve many solid insights, Ero.
As to whether the WoW team can deliver 10.0 by end of 2022…
I believe you’re right: Activision will want their next expansion, on schedule, for all the reasons you list.
But can the WoW team realistically deliver that? And what happens if they can’t?
I honestly don’t know. Even a 9.2 seems “up in the air” to me, though I see talk of a 9.1.5 on the forums today (Wed Aug 18 as I write this).
Thanks for the generous response! A great read, I hope others reading give it their time.
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If there is a 9.2 between all the lawsuits, layoffs, people quitting, covid still being a thing, and wild fires it will most certainly be delayed, likely as long or longer than 9.1 was.
The up shot is that as a result I don’t see there being a 9.3, so 9.2 will probably end the expansion and set up whatever is going to come next. As such I think 9.2 will be late first quarter or early second quarter next year - around February or March.
Having said that, If they can get a new expansion out in 2022 depends entirely on how much work they have already put into it internally. Putting out a patch and putting out an entire expansion are two very different animals. We may not see a new expansion until 2023 - and it may be vastly trimmed down from any that came before it.
We will wait until the get everyone thru the woke training they need. Gotta clean up the PR nightmare with the alleged scandal accusations
I think this WAS the plan.
However, given the crushing loss of casual players to FFXIV they will try and build new/more content, of a type they had no plans in making, in a vain attempt to lure casual/rpg payers back.
This will delay the timeline I fear.
Currently - No sooner than 14 more weeks. We’ll have to reknown cap prior to them releasing another patch. That puts us minimum of Nov. 24.
Realistically - Probably around 20 weeks or more. So I wouldn’t expect it until Jan of '22 or later.
The PTR just went online today after being down for over a month with a framework patch so my guesstimates of 9.1.5 hitting the PTR soon ™ may be coming into fruition.
My desire for 9.2 depends on what 9.1.5 comes with.
Some of the x.x.5 patches have come with small raids as of late, with possibly interesting additions to the world of the expansion, and things like new timewalking, brawlers guild, allied races, and heritage armor.
I have very low expectations for a shadowlands patch right now, but that might be to the benefit of the patch if it’s actually any good. Korthia was pretty good, I just wish it wasn’t all that I felt like I could work on casually in this game.
If you’re where I am and caught up on all the old content you want (like xmogs and mounts from older expansions) and don’t want to level characters through Shadowlands again, might I suggest dabbling with other games for a bit and let the content build up over here?
That’s kinda what I’m doing. I’m in no rush to binge what little they release, but I hope that if I come back at a later point, it’ll feel like a few good play sessions.
I received a forum ban for calling him out. Careful these mods sole job is to protect the devs I think.
I’m not really calling anyone out though just referencing articles about these things that were made to the public. This was reported on several news media.
What’s wrong with re-using old zones for new content? We have all this dead space in the game and nobody is doing anything about it.
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You already had your serving of content for this year.
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Try reading the tweet. It says “No work is being done right now.” I bolded the important words. Work has already resumed.