How far ahead is Blizzard?

[styil]

If we take a moment and look at the current pace of the beta, it feels like we've been going at 5% for quite some time. That is, it feels like 5% of the team is "finishing off" Legion in the last few months while the other 95% are off doing other things. So really thinking about it, just how far ahead is Blizzard? Consider the following:

1. Released the least number of major content patches in the history of WoW in WoD - and the 1 less raid tier would have given them many months of advantage to develop future content

2. Another 14 month wait for the next expansion - they have once again been given much more time than is "acceptable" as Ion (Watcher) Hazzikostas describes. So just how much extra is complete?

3. 50% larger development team for 3-4 years - this team has now had many years to adjust and "learn the ropes", but we have yet to see the fruits of their labor. What are they doing, exactly?

Despite the above...

4. Legion has the least number of new zones in the history of WoW - if this 50% larger development team hasn't been working on new zones for the last 14 months, what have they been working on? Surely this means that they have a few other zones complete ahead of schedule.

5. No new battlegrounds, arena maps, world pvp maps, races, recycled dalaran - same as 4.

When considering the above, I find it hard to reconcile the low amount of Legion launch content vs. the sheer volume of development resources that were available in this time period. My only explanation is that Blizzard is VERY far ahead in development of future content (much more than usual) and that all of Legion's post-launch content is already complete.

Considering the above, how far ahead do you think Blizzard is at the moment? I feel like they are much more ahead in the development of future content than ever before. I would even go as far to say that Legion post-launch content is just about complete and that 90% of the team is already working on 8.0 and 9.0.

[Nezia]

People will probably try to rape me for saying this but I will say it anyway.

Blizzard pretty much just noticed that wow is going down the hill and it would require too much effort to bring it back up, and yet there is no guarantee that it would be worth it, so they are just trying to profit as much as possible from the game before the playerbase runs below 1M. They are doing this through marketing and fanservice.

So yeah, I don't think blizzard has much more done than what they are currently giving the players.

[Relapses]

After using my patented hyperbolic forum time machine, I've found out that Blizzard has actually already completed the next six expansions and the only reason they haven't released them is because Mike Morhaime has a bizarre fetish for making people angry about a lack of content in video games his company produces.

[Caliph]

I agree actually. wow is not e sports centric enough for them. they're interested moreso in that than creating raids, bad pvp, and more zones. they'll just keep throwing mounts, pets, cosmetic items up for sale. legion is their last shot I think and if the player base falls really low they'll just cater to the majority that are left. so if the majority are raiders they'll do more of that, if it's pet battlers and collectors they'll do that.

doesn't look promising imo. and I really don't care.

[Decisive The Hallowed]

Blizzard have stated that they have plans for at least another 10 years of WoW. (whether or not that actually is going to happen, time will tell)
And in interviews about Expansions, Blizzard have said they usually have a team planning/working on another expansion while working on the current one.
So at the moment, they seem to be focused on making more content.
Although I really think they should make sure the content is actually good and worth-while before moving on to the next one... *cough 6.1 cough*

[Strakha]

I think there is a new arena map? thought i saw a loading screen the other week for one.

but yeah they are definitely going to go after the micro transaction style games in the future, they are not stupid. MMOs are a fairly dated concept. Most games i know now just play mobas, smart phone games where you have to spend money to win, not many people i know even have played a MMO besides WoW and most of them dont play wow anymore either.

the time investment to get to max level, then raid or pvp is more than a lot of people are willing to invest into a game it seems. but i would not be surprised if their entire development team was working on overwatch for the last year with a minimal skeleton crew for WoW to just do maintenance. id imagine the artists were working a lot more than the other devs.

[Soulwind]

After using my patented hyperbolic forum time machine, I've found out that Blizzard has actually already completed the next six expansions and the only reason they haven't released them is because Mike Morhaime has a bizarre fetish for making people angry about a lack of content in video games his company produces.

Sounds about right.

[styil]

People will probably try to rape me for saying this but I will say it anyway.

Blizzard pretty much just noticed that wow is going down the hill and it would require too much effort to bring it back up, and yet there is no guarantee that it would be worth it, so they are just trying to profit as much as possible from the game before the playerbase runs below 1M. They are doing this through marketing and fanservice.

So yeah, I don't think blizzard has much more done than what they are currently giving the players.

It does seem like some systems are being streamlined to become more "dev-friendly", indicating that Blizzard plans to enter maintenance mode with WoW. Get it all done, then just release it slowly.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Some will probably work on the next patch to get to the point where they can actually call it a content update (the one the expansion will get :P) and the others will probably abandon the current game and start working on the next expansion so they have something to show in 2018-2019.

[Deleted]

5% of the team is "finishing off" Legion in the last few months while the other 95% are off doing other things.

Wait. What? How do you know that?

What is the 95% doing?

Got any sources?

[schwarzkopf]

Two facts:
1. WoW has been steadily declining at around 1 million a year since LK days, with peaks and troughs in content in between.
2. Blizzard is entirely on track to deliver another expansion on time (aka August 30th) which will give another temporary burst in numbers - soon to be followed by another drop in numbers (just like WoD).

The game is old, it has lots of life in it but will never be at the peak again. Nor does it need to.

[Deleted]

There are less zones than usual but they're much better detailed than those we had in each expansion up until now
There are 2 new arena maps

[Shelly]

The biggest part of any expansion is actually the writing. That takes the most time to really get down, lore, feel, polish.

As for the amount of zones, once you include artifact specific class quests that's like adding another zone, probably two in terms of assets, writing and art.

Also Blizz is probably already working on laying out the overall layout of the expansion after Legion too.

I'm not really happy with Blizzard taking so long either but neither do I think they are slacking off. In general the ways and speed at which we consume content are much faster now and they've removed tons of gating that kept players from consuming the content quickly. Things like attunements or how in BC you needed flying before you could even enter 3 of the dungeons and one of the raids unless you had a warlock friend in the guild.

We aren't getting any less content come Legion from everything I've seen. In general we are just much more efficient at getting the content that we have done.

Though I kind of throw up in my mouth a little to even refer to Tanaan as "content."

[Deleted]

People will probably try to rape me for saying this but I will say it anyway.

Blizzard pretty much just noticed that wow is going down the hill and it would require too much effort to bring it back up, and yet there is no guarantee that it would be worth it, so they are just trying to profit as much as possible from the game before the playerbase runs below 1M. They are doing this through marketing and fanservice.

So yeah, I don't think blizzard has much more done than what they are currently giving the players.

spot on.
they rely heavily on marketing because that is more reliable. it also feels like blizz can't stand wow anymore.

[Deleted]

Counting the number of zones As if that has anything to do with anything. Old expansions had many zones but they were mostly empty.

[Darknessvamp]

Course they have all the future content for Legion already planned and done.
7.1: More Class Hall missions for your followers who were feeling left out, that one raid we have delayed releasing and a couple new coats of paint for your special sword. Should keep you busy for 5 months.
7.2: We reopened the broken shore, along with the new final raid set there! A couple of repeatable daily quests hubs and a few unique story quests. Did we also mention the new forward camp system which requires you to hire new followers and use rations as a new resource for their missions present there? Please enjoy this diring the next two years of development on the following expansion which we will hype the fuck out of.

But no, Blizzard are probably behind on everything as usual. /sarcasm

[Deleted]

the time investment to get to max level, then raid or pvp is more than a lot of people are willing to invest into a MULTIPLAYER game it seems.

And by that i am refering to the multiplayer gameplay of it.
A game with multiplayer capabilities, but being esentially single player in it´s gameplay would not have this problem.

[Cæli]

Pure assumption but I suppose they have one small team finishing Legion, one middle sized team working on the end content patch right now and most of the wow team working on the next expansion, I'm pretty sure they already build the base/set up and are doing zones right now.

[Deleted]

Blizzard has done jack shit for the future. They probably are working on 8.0 already... and judging by how complete the alpha started despite them having ~2 years time since WoD launch, i would say they play ping-pong all day and DMCA Overwatch Porn ^^

- - - Updated - - -

The biggest part of any expansion is actually the writing. That takes the most time to really get down, lore, feel, polish.

As for the amount of zones, once you include artifact specific class quests that's like adding another zone, probably two in terms of assets, writing and art.

Also Blizz is probably already working on laying out the overall layout of the expansion after Legion too.

I'm not really happy with Blizzard taking so long either but neither do I think they are slacking off. In general the ways and speed at which we consume content are much faster now and they've removed tons of gating that kept players from consuming the content quickly. Things like attunements or how in BC you needed flying before you could even enter 3 of the dungeons and one of the raids unless you had a warlock friend in the guild.

We aren't getting any less content come Legion from everything I've seen. In general we are just much more efficient at getting the content that we have done.

Though I kind of throw up in my mouth a little to even refer to Tanaan as "content."

Judging from the lore they butchered since WoD... they don't write anything that works with past lore, they do something they deem cool and retcon everthing that doesn't fit. If they had quality lore I would probably say you are correct, but the quality has declined much like the playerbase.

[Kokolums]

When WoD was released, Blizzard FULLY committed themselves to garrisons as THE future of World of Warcraft. They thought that was a big winner. They were going to build everything around that. They were totally caught off-guard by the wholesale hatred of garrisons. That likely meant that Legion had to undergo an emergency LATE rebuild to de-emphasize garrisons and then they probably had to QUICKLY come up with some other system to replace it. The entire legendary system might not have existed until late.

The garrison crisis might also have forced them to demolish most/all work on expansion 7 if that also had been whiteboarded as garrison-centric.

So they have 2 WoW teams and a massive staff and that all may have been negated to fix a horrifically bad mechanic, resulting in a 14 month content drought and only one patch for WoD.