August 30 release date is...

[Huehuecoyotl]

You serious? Most people don't pre-purchase the expansion. I've been a subscriber since day 1 yet I purchased my digital copy of WOD the day before release. All the content was pushed to me so there was no advantage to buy in early.

If they had the metrics in advance do you think they would've waited until release week? No, they would've been beefing up the servers while doing the connections.

You might want to look at something like http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wow.../1100-6419464/

May 2014, and they already had over 1m pre-orders at that point. Over 6 months before the expansion actually released.

But sure, you keep telling yourself that they couldn't possibly have known how many players they were going to get. Despite knowing how many pre-orders they had, how many physical copies they had sent out, and having total control over the digital sales.

You will have to ask Blizzard why they didn't sort the hardware out. Anything I could suggest would merely be amusing conjecture.

[judgementofantonidas]

I love the "HFC for another 4 months"... arguments. As if most of the active playerbase does HFC :P

It releases one day before my birthday, and one week before I go to NY on holiday. So. I guess it's fine.

most of the ACTIVE player base still is.

[markos82]

So another 4 months of HFC, well enough time to level 6-7 more to lvl100

[Relapses]

You might want to look at something like http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wow.../1100-6419464/

May 2014, and they already had over 1m pre-orders at that point. Over 6 months before the expansion actually released.

But sure, you keep telling yourself that they couldn't possibly have known how many players they were going to get. Despite knowing how many pre-orders they had, how many physical copies they had sent out, and having total control over the digital sales.

You will have to ask Blizzard why they didn't sort the hardware out. Anything I could suggest would merely be amusing conjecture.

Further than that, has everybody completely forgotten about the 3 days of free game time Blizzard gave us because they felt WoD's launch missed the mark on so many levels?

[Stormspellz]

Probably going to be the crutch of a disappointing Q1 report for WoW.

doubt it at least due to wow, overwatch, hearthstone alone will keep things on track

[Stellan]

This is what the folks over at Blizzard Watch said about the Legion Alpha yesterday:

"My perspective as someone in the alpha (who is admittedly not a developer) is they’re going to be hard pressed to hit 100% completion by the end of August. I’m sure they can do it, but with the state things are in now, it’s going to be tough. I think the leveling experience is almost there, although the quest flow in each zone changes slightly in every build. Suramar isn’t open yet, world quests are only in their first testable iteration (and extremely buggy), most classes don’t have their class questline playable yet, class balance is wonky, some dungeons are still wonky, I don’t know where they are with raid testing, and on and on.

It’s getting there. It isn’t done. It likely won’t be done until August, and once it finally launches, we’re going to see the same deluge of hotfixes we experience with every expansion/patch."

Blizzard Watch is always Blizzard friendly so I expect this is a pretty accurate estimate of where the development of Legion is.

[FobManX]

Yeah I was surprised to see that they are still just now introducing some specs into the alpha. Didn't Destro Warlock just get put in like a week or two ago?

With that said I'd rather wait and have a quality game. I'm not playing WOD at the moment anyway so it's not like I'm subbed and losing money.

[Saiona]

So another 4 months of HFC, well enough time to level 6-7 more to lvl100

Well I got 14 100s and two of them above 730ilv so what am I supposed to do.

- - - Updated - - -

This is what the folks over at Blizzard Watch said about the Legion Alpha yesterday:

"My perspective as someone in the alpha (who is admittedly not a developer) is they’re going to be hard pressed to hit 100% completion by the end of August. I’m sure they can do it, but with the state things are in now, it’s going to be tough. I think the leveling experience is almost there, although the quest flow in each zone changes slightly in every build. Suramar isn’t open yet, world quests are only in their first testable iteration (and extremely buggy), most classes don’t have their class questline playable yet, class balance is wonky, some dungeons are still wonky, I don’t know where they are with raid testing, and on and on.

It’s getting there. It isn’t done. It likely won’t be done until August, and once it finally launches, we’re going to see the same deluge of hotfixes we experience with every expansion/patch."

Blizzard Watch is always Blizzard friendly so I expect this is a pretty accurate estimate of where the development of Legion is.

Yeah well with the BIGGEST WOW TEAM EVER they should be much further along. Aug 30th (14 months of 6.2) is entirely too far away. I want to know what they have been actually doing. Legion should have come out no later than June with nothing cut. We had to deal with 14 months of SoO and got an expansion with 1 fucking content patch now we have to wait another 14 months lol. Remember "biggest wow team ever"

[Deleted]

As a student, not happy. I'd rather have it release 2 weeks before that, the semester starts then

[BurningBurns]

I'm actually very happy with it. My guild is taking a break after we all get Arch mounts, which ends up being the end of may. SO I get about 2 months off of raiding before the Pre Patch!

[Faenavi]

this is the longest break I have taken from wow since I first started playing. Every so often I buy a game token and then it gets wasted because I only log in 1 night out of the 30 days :/ *sigh*

[War30]

Blizzard/Activision is not going to release Legion until they make back the profits they lost from the people who left Warlords.

How are they doing this you ask?

By using the current players who are stupid enough to continue to be subscribed to them. Ion said that they didn't want to make us wait 14 months from a final raid to the next expansion, more like 6-7 months. So since more than half of the 10 million subscribers left they are penalizing the current players an extra 7 months to pay for the half that left.

THAT'S WHY LEGION IS BEING RELEASED AUGUST 30TH....

Here is a breakdown on Blizzards 2 tier game releases.

The first tier is what I call, "The Blizzard Years". It began Nov. 23,2004 and ended Nov.13, 2008. In these 4 years they have managed to release 52 dungeons and 22 raids.

Then came the Blizzard/Activision years in 2008. The revamped the old world and called it Cataclysm. So beginning on Dec.7, 2010 - Nov.13,2014 they managed to release 31 dungeons and 14 raids. On top of that they began selling pets and mounts on the blizzard store.

Right now with Legion there are 4 zones. Thal'Dranath has been removed from the current map and we are not sure if Suramar is locked content at launch. What is accepted from Blizzard as a paying customer is at least 7 zones per expansion and within those zones at least 2 dungeons and a raid with a total of 14 dungeons and 7 raids. On top of that a battleground for each of those zones. This is what the players deserve for all the money we put into this game. This is acceptable customer service.

[Jtbrig7390]

Blizzard/Activision is not going to release Legion until they make back the profits they lost from the people who left Warlords.

How are they doing this you ask?

By using the current players who are stupid enough to continue to be subscribed to them. Ion said that they didn't want to make us wait 14 months from a final raid to the next expansion, more like 6-7 months. So since more than half of the 10 million subscribers left they are penalizing the current players an extra 7 months to pay for the half that left.

THAT'S WHY LEGION IS BEING RELEASED AUGUST 30TH....

Here is a breakdown on Blizzards 2 tier game releases.

The first tier is what I call, "The Blizzard Years". It began Nov. 23,2004 and ended Nov.13, 2008. In these 4 years they have managed to release 52 dungeons and 22 raids.

Then came the Blizzard/Activision years in 2008. The revamped the old world and called it Cataclysm. So beginning on Dec.7, 2010 - Nov.13,2014 they managed to release 31 dungeons and 14 raids. On top of that they began selling pets and mounts on the blizzard store.

Right now with Legion there are 4 zones. Thal'Dranath has been removed from the current map and we are not sure if Suramar is locked content at launch. What is accepted from Blizzard as a paying customer is at least 7 zones per expansion and within those zones at least 2 dungeons and a raid with a total of 14 dungeons and 7 raids. On top of that a battleground for each of those zones. This is what the players deserve for all the money we put into this game. This is acceptable customer service.

You do realise in ur "Blizzard Years" they was owned by another company.

Blizzard has been owned by a company nearly there whole life. There was only two years they wasn't owned by someone. I love how people like you blame Activision for everything. News flash blizzard runs there ship and believe it or not they can cause said ship to sink.

None of ur post is backed up by facts. Its all opinion and uninformed opinion at that.

Also good chance between original sells of WOD,Store Sells and Token sells along with the sub they have made there money back on WOD.

[War30]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/act.../1100-6193580/

Now tell me...What was the expansion that was released after the merger?

Stop defending them...

[Deleted]

Wasn't content drought in TBC, WLK and Cata the same?

Well, many people were still advancing through the various raid tiers (gear wise) and as such the drought wasnt that bad.

Now that the previous tiers are all but forgotten whenever the Timeless Isle/Tanaan jungle of an x-pac is introduced the drought(in this case gear progression) is experienced faster for more players.

Not that I think the zones are a terrible idea as a whole.

[Saiona]

See above for a good answer but the last 2 droughts have also been the worst by sheer number of days without content updates as well

[markos82]

Well I got 14 100s and two of them above 730ilv so what am I supposed to do.

I have 15 or 16. I wanna get to 22 since my realm is merged. I just need them as a gold "printing" machine....

[risingforce]

What kind of question is that? The people who still enjoy the game are happy there will be new content and the people who hate the game are unhappy that both Blizzard and Wow didn't crash and burn like they had hoped.

Made me chuckle, your observation is spot on !

[PenguinChan]

It's expected but unfortunate. Just like MoP they will severely hurt with sub numbers (And also why they stopped reporting them). How much will never be known very easily now but it's easy to tell that they won't be gaining any until near release. Maybe with the pre-patch and an earlier than anticipated Demon Hunter early access, we'll see a lot of people come back on board? But otherwise, a really long time without any relevant content. Worse than MoP, IIRC.

[Deleted]

I can play for one month until our baby is born! Hurray!!