Stop asking for 8.2 release, it's crystal clear it's releasing same date as FFXIV expansion

Just like they have done soo many times in the pasts. 8.2 will release July 2nd, same time as Shadowbringers for FFXIV. This has been pretty obvious for awhile now.

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good thing shb is gonna win out for me. :slight_smile:

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I’m beginning to believe this.

At first I thought they would release 8.2 in June and then the Raid would release with FFXIV’s expansion. But now…definitely not this week or next. That would only leave June 25th as a June release. And Blizzard usually gives more time between patch release and raid release than 1 week.

(But this does mean 8.2 will not be able to affect their 2nd quarter earns (that period ends June 30)

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Good, let the shareholders realise the ship is sinking.

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Based on just wow stuff id lean toward it releasing next Tuesday as that week the Midsummer Festival begins, but…im inclined to believe FF will delay it as well.

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Yep, every time. I don’t know why they do this.

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They could still hit that date if they announce it today.

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If Blizz is betting on players choosing WoW over FFXIV at this point, they are in for a very sad patch day, assuming you’re right.

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So Glad WoW is down. i just bought the New FF Expansion. Found my new game!!! A MMO WITH REAL FANTASY OMFG!! Heard raids kinda suck, but whom cares. It’s tons more fun than the toxic WoW community.

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No shot they release a major patch 2 days before a holiday.

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Yes, that’s exactly the reason.

They release it the same day as FF14 so people are in many ways forced to decide what to do experience that day: New FF14 expansion or 8.2

In the past, they could probably be confident that they would win that preference batttle. This time, it’s more like they are so stubborn that they’ve convinced themselves that they remain the number 1 go-to MMO and people are salivating for 8.2. The amount of WOW refugees in FF!4 is staggering, and they don’t exactly spend their time talking about how much they love BFA . . .

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Exactly the same for ESO

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Most likely a quarterly coincidence, or something.

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That would only be week 24 of the 25 week pvp schedule. Guess we’ll see.

I totally believe it.

ESO and FF14 should both write Blizzard a thank-you note for BFA because their active player bases has swelled in no small part from people leaving WoW.

and many of these refugees - lol, they’re so mad. They’ll talk about WoW like some ex who has scorn them. Blizzard will have a better chance getting these people back via classic, or a new expansion, than anything BFA related.

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This late in the day (1:36pm Pacific time) I think we would have heard that 8.2 was releasing in a week. Just my 2c.

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Actually, what IS crystal clear is that you know nothing Jon Snow. No way in heck they would release a patch 2 days before a National Holiday.

Me in a nutshell

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I’m more excited about Shadowbringers than 8.2.

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The problem here is really simple. The problem is visible to the players, and even to folks who work in low-end positions at Blizzard. It’s been for a very, very long time. But they can’t effect the meaningful changes needed.

The game needs to stop being about seeing how many design “improvements” that the developer team can add that consciously screw the players while keeping their subs active from quarter to quarter.

To name a few: CRZ, Legacy ‘loot rules’, the intentionally slanted and outmoded RNG system that dictates a Caster will see Paladin Drops in legacy raids, and a moronic slot machine that rewards mostly Azerite in current raids. There is also the inability to unlock transmogs from Vanilla because your “armor type” was wrong (even if you could equip it), week long locks on ancient raids, etc.

Sometimes you just need to release cool stuff for the sake of it being cool, and more mounts is not really something that players consider cool given how many are now in the game. But customization for spell effects? Maybe the ability to dual-class?

That would make players more interested I reckon. Regular Scourge Invasions, More Incursions in old-world locations where the battle would actually be relevant. Heck, a Caverns of Time portal to Classic WoW so people can experience it on retail (which would not affect Classic Servers as they are akin to Ladder Servers).

There’s a billion small things Blizzard could do that would take simple code changes. The problem is that the guys who are the most passionate and would love to do a restoration of the game? These are the guys who usually see their jobs slashed, their work-load tremendous, and their ability for upward advancement inhibited severely.

The issue here is not that the people at the top don’t want to hear what is being said. They hear it loud and clear. However they also figure they can just give players a variant spun by what they think the players want and it’ll work out. Case and point, Void Elves instead of High Elves.

Sometimes the old adage of “The customer is always right” does apply. Not always, but sometimes the best solution to angry players is to just do exactly what they demand. Not always, but when it’s clear as day and has been ongoing for 12+ years… you need to fold up, admit your wrong and submit.

Maybe you work in some lore where the High Elves are called “Void Elves” now, but above all else you make damned sure that if your using a iconic character like Alleria, that the players can emulate them in the game.

A game Developer should never become so certain of themselves that to quote a rather decent Bar Exam Review teacher named Jeff Fleming, they start to resemble this remark. “These guys… their all legends in their own minds.”

To be sure, this viewpoint won’t harm a product to a certain extent, but only when a couple criteria exist. First, the Player must have a reason beyond the development malpractice that drives them to stay. I submit that most people stayed to see the big show-down with Sargeras.

It’s done, and so these very angry players, are now more than content to give a long overdue middle-finger to Blizzard and go to FFXIV and ESO. These people also are not angry with older visionaries like Metzen, Samwise, or Morhaime. No their furious at the people who stepped in, can’t fill their shoes.

This rage could be misguided, because anyone who works in a Game Design setting knows that it is never a single person who makes all of the decisions. It’s a lot of little things, that add up into a big problem. It also does no favors to the company when you have Developers like Ghostcrawler making Dev Watercoolers that proudly state “Wow… Dungeons are hard!”

Well no kidding their hard. But it was not because of challenge. Rather it was because Healers were crippled in the mana department and the dungeons overtuned. Now your players have gone from having fun, to feeling like they are not being given a fair shake. They feel like the game is rigged against them.

That’s just one incident out of at least 50-100 that could be listed, and at some point all those complaints, feelings of being screwed, cheated, or otherwise intentionally hobbled; turn into real resentment and hostility.

Thus these players will not be back unless Blizzard changes at a fundamental level. As these people leave, so to will their friends until you have what is very, very common in WoW now. You can log into a guild of 120+ players and no one has been on in DAYS.

Alas, because of the nature of business in America, the people at the top will not change, so such a course correction is unlikely. It is far easier for the guys at the top to put a slew of QA Testers on call, fire CMs who are beloved by the community and then drop more money in their pockets. But they pay a cost in reputation, which is what Game Studios have to have to thrive.

Blizzard has lost it’s reputation and unless incidents like the Zandalari / Kul’Tiran delay, CRZ, Cata-Mana revamps, High Elves, and countless other errors of judgment get corrected with a honest and unabashed apology more players will leave. Or Blizzard can keep designing the game they want to play, and be the only ones on it. That’s where it’s all headed.

But despite a iceberg looming, the ship is hellbent on sailing right into it; it looks like.

If the Developers think anyone playing FFXIV or Elder Scrolls is going to miss those titles launches for WoW 8.2, then they are not paying attention or being honest with themselves. To quote Luke Skywalker’s line to Emperor Palpatine in RoTJ; those Developers are “Gravely Mistaken.”

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