Legion Lasting 3 Years

[Deleted]

9 months for a raid tier, not even drunk trolls would wish this on their biggest hater.

Hi, my name is SoO.
Nice to meet you.

[Tinykong]

It doesn't matter how long an expansion lasts, it could be 18 months or 36 months. What matters is how much content is delivered during the expansion, and how frequently.

No one would care if Legion lasted 3 years if a new raid tier was released every ~4 months and a new content patch and/or dungeon was released every ~2 months.

[Zig Zug]

Three years seems pretty long for any expansion.

However, since there seems to be a lot of mini-milestones in this expac, it would give players an opportunity to achieve them while content is "relevant."

[Aleax]

Would you be okay with Legion lasting 3 years?

Not really. WoW get content finally, the next xpac should not be delayed because of it. I am sure it will attract and keep players sub, let's not cater to the people who don't bother with no content.

Also I am pretty sure Blizz want to release a new xpac pretty soon (or as soon as they can), and want to release them every year if they can.

[Raetary]

Hi, my name is SoO.
Nice to meet you.

SoO wasnt a mid expansion Tier.

[Deleted]

As long as there is a reasonable raid every 6 month at most I am fine any way. If a raid lasts 9 or 12 month or whatever I will cancel my subscription and resubscribe at the next raid launch or expansion.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Not really. WoW get content finally, the next xpac should not be delayed because of it. I am sure it will attract and keep players sub, let's not cater to the people who don't bother with no content.

Also I am pretty sure Blizz want to release a new xpac pretty soon (or as soon as they can), and want to release them every year if they can.

They said they aren't going to worry about yearly expansions and since ToS isn't the last raid tier. Well we'll be in Legion until maybe sometime in 2018.

[Vorecien]

Would you be okay with Legion lasting 3 years? With the sheer amount of content in this expansion, I wouldn't mind this at all.

If the Tomb of Sargeras lasts for 9 months, that means we wouldn't get the Argus raid until April 2018, and then the Argus patch could last 10-12 months, which would put the life of the expansion just under 3 years.

Also, with Blizzard releasing mini patches with even more content, I would be okay with this.

Thoughts?

I can see it lasting that long. I don't see Argus dropping in April of next year. If we get ToS in mid to late June, then we'll have that for a few months, at least. We'll probably see Patch 7.3 a week or so after BlizzCon, possibly before. No way they will hold out for almost a year - I don't want 10 months of ToS. They wouldn't drop us on a new planet without buildup, so we would have 10 months, plus whatever amount of time it would take for story to build on Argus, so like a year of ToS... no.

I see 7.3 dropping two weeks after BlizzCon, and then the first Argus raid dropping in late January or early February.

[xanzul]

Hell no, and please stop fanboying every expansion It's the same wishful thinking of "Oh I hope this lasts years" It will last 2 years, max If not less so people forget about Legion much quicker.

And you seem to not understand mini patches, as In... mini, no content of any significance, micro holidays and timewalking? Nobody cares but completionists and fanboys and perhaps the nostalgic person who'll run through It and realize how much dungeons have changed (That's me running TBC Timewalking) for the worst.

Not sure where you're getting those numbers from but I predict 7.3 around Christmas cause why not, and remember to think as a company. They have to satisfie a board of corporate people & shareholders, so every Quarter has to have something significant. Why'd you think 7.2 was released now? To fit Into Q1 of 2017 with the content being spoon fed, that's the only reason because corporate thinking and not pro-consumer thinking.

Because the only product of the two companies under Activision-Blizzard is totally wow.

- - - Updated - - -

I wouldn't be okay with that. They kept promising shorter but faster expansions, that is totally opposite of it. It's only okay if they add more patches than just raid patches. Even twitter and selfie camera patches types would be okay.

Can we please stop with the faster expansions thing? Even Blizzard has said they are no longer looking to attempt to do this. Drop it already.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, I said same thing months ago. 7.3 will be around Blizzcon, because it's free advertisement - all gaming media will talk about WoW with 8.0 reveal, so they will hype people for 7.3 at the same time. They said that perfect duration for typical raid tier is 5 months, but they won't release raid November/December - to close to 7.3 launch and later we have Christmas, so 7.3.5 will be in January. Then alpha around February, beta in summer and new expansion October/November.

So last raid would last 9 months in this scenario (vs 4 months for Emerald Nightmare, 5 months for Nighthold and 7 months for Tomb of Sargeras). To avoid content drought, they should release 7.4 (similar to 7.1) with dungeon and questline leading to Black Emp.. I mean next expansion.

Blizzard's budget for advertising and marketing is more than the total operating budget for most small companies. Blizzard doesn't give a fuck about the cost of it. I'm not sure why people think Blizzard is at all concerned about this.

[Soeroah]

If they keep up decent content patches I'd be fine with it, especially given how many things are slated to be Legion-only earnables. If they do decide you have to earn artifact appearances on every alt you're interested in at 100% of the effort for each character, I'm all for a nice long expansion. If that's not the case, I'd be fine with the usual two years, but there's certainly been more content so far than MoP and WoD had. Hell, I only finished "all" the launch storylines the literal day before 7.2 went live.

They said there would be more patches this expansion, akin to Classic WoW, but I think they are including main patches and subpatches in that total. I'd honestly be okay with a 7.4, maybe even a 7.5 if it set up the next expansion nicely and closed off Legion well. But given they are going big-small-big-small, by the time we get a 7.4 we'd already have got 7.2.5, 7.3 ad 7.3.5, and who knows that those last two will even entail other than "Argus and a new raid".

[Aleax]

They said they aren't going to worry about yearly expansions and since ToS isn't the last raid tier. Well we'll be in Legion until maybe sometime in 2018.

So they are going to lose money and know it? To secure WoW sub then? I dunno what are your source, but if they keep addying content at the current rate for the next years, being in patches or xpacs, we are good.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

So they are going to lose money and know it? To secure WoW sub then? I dunno what are your source, but if they keep addying content at the current rate for the next years, being in patches or xpacs, we are good.

It was at the time when they talked about Legion(Gamescon or Blizzcon of last year) can't remember which. Yearly expansions aren't going to be a thing.

[Normie]

No way ToS doesn't open before July

What's the point of opening a raid in the summer?

[Deleted]

We're not even a year in and I am bored

[Queen of Hamsters]

As long as they keep up the pace of content release, why not?

[Thage]

No way ToS doesn't open before July

Late June-early July is around the time Blizz seems to be shooting for, which makes sense as they like to coincide raid tiers with major events in other MMORPGs (like launching 4.3 alongside SWTOR launch, 6.2 alongside FFXIV: Heavensward launch, among others).

FFXIV is releasing Stormblood in early June, which means Blizzard will, seeing as they like to keep to that pattern, release Tomb of Sargeras close to Stormblood release in the hope of stealing its thunder among the players who play both WoW and FFXIV. That'd also be why 7.2.5 has a lot of for-fun 'busywork' additions like new micro-holidays, the Blight Boar content, and the Trial of Style in addition to the Tomb releasing.

I'd go so far as to argue early July is pushing it; late June is the best bet, as it times around where Blizzard's been trying to time raid releases this expansion, and it's around the time where more hardcore FFXIV players will start hitting level cap and getting ready for the 3.0 raids (Omega and Return to Ivalice).

[Thage]

Also I am pretty sure Blizz want to release a new xpac pretty soon (or as soon as they can), and want to release them every year if they can.

While promoting Legion, the Blizzard devs admitted that a one-year expansion cycle simply isn't feasible. They tried it in MoP and they tried it in WoD, and in both cases they had a year-long content drought at the end of the expansion because they couldn't get the following expansion done fast enough--and that's including heaps of cut content in WoD and abandoning WoD one raid tier in. Right now, their focus is on a) accepting two-or-more-year expansion cycles like with TBC, WotLK, and Cataclysm and developing around that, and b) ensuring a steady stream of content by using the ex-Titan devs to leapfrog between expansions so there's one team working on the next expansion and on team working on the current, live game.

At least in terms of quantity of content (the quality is a whole other argument unrelated to this point/post), it's paying off with new dungeons releasing with every major patch so far, new world content and questlines with every patch and off-patch, and a new raid every few months just as the previous raid starts to hit farm status. Because they acknowledged that trying to rush out an expansion a year wasn't paying off, instead they can focus on maintaining a high rate of player activity (which is the metric they've been measuring success by since Legion launched) to buy themselves the time they need to work on the following expansion without feeling pressed for time.

[Aleax]

While promoting Legion, the Blizzard devs admitted that a one-year expansion cycle simply isn't feasible. They tried it in MoP and they tried it in WoD, and in both cases they had a year-long content drought at the end of the expansion because they couldn't get the following expansion done fast enough--and that's including heaps of cut content in WoD and abandoning WoD one raid tier in. Right now, their focus is on a) accepting two-or-more-year expansion cycles like with TBC, WotLK, and Cataclysm and developing around that, and b) ensuring a steady stream of content by using the ex-Titan devs to leapfrog between expansions so there's one team working on the next expansion and on team working on the current, live game.

At least in terms of quantity of content (the quality is a whole other argument unrelated to this point/post), it's paying off with new dungeons releasing with every major patch so far, new world content and questlines with every patch and off-patch, and a new raid every few months just as the previous raid starts to hit farm status. Because they acknowledged that trying to rush out an expansion a year wasn't paying off, instead they can focus on maintaining a high rate of player activity (which is the metric they've been measuring success by since Legion launched) to buy themselves the time they need to work on the following expansion without feeling pressed for time.

Got it. That's pretty much good news that, because the player activity is not sacrified, alas there should always be something to do now. Great.

[TheRightWay]

I certainy hope ToS does not last for 9 months, I don't like it much TBH

[xanzul]

What's the point of opening a raid in the summer?

Wow's business model is built around subscriptions which means yes they need people to stay subscribed even during summer when everyone is apparantly supposed to be arbitrarily outside 24/7 despite not everyone being a college kid on a break from school.