Patch 8.0: WoD 2.0?

[Deleted]

If we are to believe that Blizzard is putting everything they have into Legion, and that they are focusing on content like ever before, then I am concerned that they are setting themselves up for a WoD 2.0 in the expansion following Legion.

Going from two 14 month final raid tiers in a row, to pushing out raid tiers every 4-5 months, many content patches and then a timely and content-filled 8.0 expansion on top of that just doesn't sound very realistic or sustainable. I fear that Legion's (anticipated) success will come at the cost of 8.0. Going all out now to secure goodwill and get people to buy 8.0 without question (Legion was good, i guess 8.0 will be too). Then they can afford to release less content once again.

So in summary, I think that there is a zero sum game here when it comes to content release. Even if we 'win' in 7.0, we will 'lose' in 8.0.

Yeah, I've heard that sometimes it does, but on the other hand, people have done otherwise. However, when you think this is true, then you must consider that designers may have done it in the past. That being said, we all agree that it might happen. Now, knowing WoW is an MMO, you can't really take this into account. FFS, can't you just, first wait for the expansion to actually come out in 13 days, enjoy it, and may be, i mean may be, talk about the futur in several month...

[Thelin]

If we are to believe that Blizzard is putting everything they have into Legion, and that they are focusing on content like ever before, then I am concerned that they are setting themselves up for a WoD 2.0 in the expansion following Legion.

Going from two 14 month final raid tiers in a row, to pushing out raid tiers every 4-5 months, many content patches and then a timely and content-filled 8.0 expansion on top of that just doesn't sound very realistic or sustainable. I fear that Legion's (anticipated) success will come at the cost of 8.0. Going all out now to secure goodwill and get people to buy 8.0 without question (Legion was good, i guess 8.0 will be too). Then they can afford to release less content once again.

So in summary, I think that there is a zero sum game here when it comes to content release. Even if we 'win' in 7.0, we will 'lose' in 8.0.

another BS topic as usual. Typical shitpost that offers nothing substantive what so ever. Hey lets speculate about a game that's not even out yet and make assumptions as to what will be in x patches from now.

[Flurryfang]

We know enough to start putting some pieces together. There will be many, many more resources devoted to Legion post launch (or so they say), with 3 raid tiers and many patches. The more support for Legion, the less support for 8.0. If they go too far with trying to keep people happy in Legion, 8.0 will suffer.

But we don't know how much of Blizzards capacity is put into the resourses devoted to Legion. They might have done so much prework on Legion during WoD, that they only need 60% of their crew to make the 3 raid patches in Legion. Just because they "promise" to make a better product then WoD, does not mean that everything is put into the expansion.

And if they can keep making content for Legion undtil 7.4 or more, they will have ages to make a good 8.0. Remember, they went away with the short expansions, so we are proberly gonna see many content patches onto Legion undtil 8.0 is fully ready.

You are seriously thinking these things way to far man. We don't even know if Legion is good yet. We don't know if they are gonna keep their promises and espeically don't know how far they are with 8.0.

All we know is that WoW has a huge team of devs, which does work on more then 1 expansion at a time.

[Dsc]

As Acti-Blizz allocates more resources generated from the workhorse WoW, into other failed +shitty sideprojects which they scrap after years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_...nment_project), or give us lovely "shitty" $$$ generating pieces of crap like Hearthstone, which they can't resist marketing in-game with garbage like "Hearthstone deck" Oo

Kill the golden goose they are.

[Shadochi]

As Acti-Blizz allocates more resources generated from the workhorse WoW, into other failed +shitty sideprojects which they scrap after years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_...nment_project), or give us lovely "shitty" $$$ generating pieces of crap like Hearthstone, which they can't resist marketing in-game with garbage like "Hearthstone deck" Oo

Kill the golden goose they are.

Project titan wasn't a failure, it was re purposed into the biggest game that came out his year, Overwatch, becuase it wasn't going in the direction they wanted.

[Reclaimer]

How long have HFC been there? isnt it "only" 7-8 months?

Back in the day kiddo most of us vet gamer would play MMO's going years without updates, I dont see the problem here.

[Dsc]

As Acti-Blizz allocates more resources generated from the workhorse WoW, into other failed +shitty sideprojects which they scrap after years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_...nment_project), or give us lovely "shitty" $$$ generating pieces of crap like Hearthstone, which they can't resist marketing in-game with garbage like "Hearthstone deck" Oo

Kill the golden goose they are.

Project titan wasn't a failure, it was re purposed into the biggest game that came out his year, Overwatch, becuase it wasn't going in the direction they wanted.

Re purposed is a generous way to put it.

Chris Metzen stated that Overwatch incorporates elements, such as maps, that were originally intended for Titan, but that the games were otherwise unrelated.

Shitcanned and garbage picked is more appropriate.

[Deleted]

So in summary, I think that there is a zero sum game here when it comes to content release. Even if we 'win' in 7.0, we will 'lose' in 8.0.

Oh my - can we just enjoy the upcoming release of Legion for a tiny moment? Maybe play it a bit. Do some fun videogame stuff? Kill some Internet dragons before we start feverishly complaining about the expac after this (still unreleased) expac?

It's a damn videogame. Have some fun. Leave worrying to the real-world. Escape for a moment.

[Deleted]

We know enough to start putting some pieces together. There will be many, many more resources devoted to Legion post launch (or so they say), with 3 raid tiers and many patches. The more support for Legion, the less support for 8.0. If they go too far with trying to keep people happy in Legion, 8.0 will suffer.

they have a way bigger team for a while now, but it seems they only recently all learned how to make content. Maybe they do have enough people to make both legion and 8.0 really good? we shall see

[Deleted]

Dude... Lets worry about Legion first, and if we are all here at the end of Legion, then we can worry about what comes next. But right now, there is no need to look that far ahead.

Totally agree

[Deleted]

Complete speculation about events 2 years or more in the future presented as facts. Good to see things are going strong around here.

[lolwhatadumbthread]

No reason to look 2 years ahead( at least ), legion hasnt even laucnched yet, wait for that at least, and then wait another year or so until we can determine how legion will play out with or without a content drought.

[bergmann620]

Blizzard really has two options if they want to 'speed up' content. One is to put together several teams, that each work on their own expansion- much like how CoD has three teams, so they can release a new game every year, but each game has three years of development time.

Second, and I think this is what they're doing, is they're going to launch this expansion, and a core team begins work on the next one. While that team builds out the look, feel, plot, etc of the next expansion, a raids/content team will continue to pump out raid/dungeon content set in the Legion theme. When the 'expansion team' is ready, the raid/dungeon team will simply flip to building content for the new expansion- they will have 4-6 months to build and test the first wave of new content for the new theme, and so on into the future.

The real key is to start building more and more evergreen content, so that each expansion doesn't simply throw away the bulk of the existing content. They have done that to a small degree in the past, re-doing dungeons and raids, but with the new leveling mechanics, I think we'll see them expand this idea into all of Azeroth before too long, which will make the world feel 'big' again for the first time in ages. It will also greatly enhance the new-player experience, as there will be people all over the game world, rather than only in the capital cities and the newest zones.

[Igi]

Legion isn't here yet but we already expect the expansion AFTER legion to be complete shit? This is new low even for blizzard haters.

[Relapses]

I'm sure you'll figure out a way to reason that patch 8.0 was rushed and we should have stayed on the Legion patch for another six months.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

You are right to think this. Cata was shit, mop was the best expansion to date, WoD was even worse, and legion Los like it will be even better than mop. I really hope this isn't the case, but that seems to be the trend.

[Deleted]

I think threads from Styil / JustRob / Jaylock / LairneyX should trigger an automatic warning that what you are about to read might be painful before you actually enter the thread.

[adondriel]

I believe they have a smaller team on the next xpack, and a larger team on current xpack, and eventually the teams need to (in my opinion) become even, with the amount of devs they allocate to each xpack. Keep enough devs to keep content rolling, and enough devs to make actual leeway on the next xpack. I would not want to be the Project Manager for this game... lol.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Regardless they don't choose to release less content. They don't it maliciously. Get a fucking clue if you seriously think that. Lost all interest in this discussion when I read you thinking it gives them an opportunity with underdelivering.

[adondriel]

Blizzard really has two options if they want to 'speed up' content. One is to put together several teams, that each work on their own expansion- much like how CoD has three teams, so they can release a new game every year, but each game has three years of development time.

Second, and I think this is what they're doing, is they're going to launch this expansion, and a core team begins work on the next one. While that team builds out the look, feel, plot, etc of the next expansion, a raids/content team will continue to pump out raid/dungeon content set in the Legion theme. When the 'expansion team' is ready, the raid/dungeon team will simply flip to building content for the new expansion- they will have 4-6 months to build and test the first wave of new content for the new theme, and so on into the future.

The real key is to start building more and more evergreen content, so that each expansion doesn't simply throw away the bulk of the existing content. They have done that to a small degree in the past, re-doing dungeons and raids, but with the new leveling mechanics, I think we'll see them expand this idea into all of Azeroth before too long, which will make the world feel 'big' again for the first time in ages. It will also greatly enhance the new-player experience, as there will be people all over the game world, rather than only in the capital cities and the newest zones.

Exactly, this is what I have been thinking. and the evidence they have given us up to this point, is that WoD did not have this kind of structure setup, at all. Hopefully they realized this, and changed they way to manage their projects.