8.0 announce and release speculation (with data)

[Seramore]

If 7.3 comes out in November (which would make sense) then we would still be in for a 5-7 month content drought if they plan on releasing 8.0 around the 2 year mark.

Granted 5 months isn't 14, but it's still too much for no new content.

5-7 months for the final raid tier would be a perfect time frame. This would allow weaker guilds to have extra time to clear the raid tier, as well as giving people who have cleared the raid more content to do in the form of a new dungeon and/or quest line.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Hi all,

Due to a combination of having some free time on hand and me really hoping to see the next WoW expansion announcement at Blizzcon 17 (will be my first Blizzcon), I did some quick data digging and put together the table below with some quick analysis:

On next expansion announce and release date:

• Theoretically, 8.0 could be announced as soon as in 3 weeks
• However, this is unlikely as we don’t even know anything about Patch 7.3 yet
• If it was to be revealed at Blizzcon 17 (Nov. 2) and then released a year later, it would make 8.0 the longest it took to announce and Legion the longest WOW expansion
• Combine the above 2, this makes a Aug. 22 Gamescom announcement more plausible in theory
• Assuming a 8.0 announcement between now and Blizzcon 17, this won’t be the first time an expansion is announced before the release of the final tier of its predecessor: Wrath, Cata and MoP were all announced before their previous expansion’s final tier; Legion was announced ~2 weeks after 6.2 (HFC); WoD being the only exception announced ~2 months after 5.4 (SOO)

On content of Legion:

• Interestingly Legion patches have largely followed a release schedule of every 11 weeks
• By this logic, we can expect 7.3 on Aug 29th and 7.3.5 on Nov 14th
• Legion will be the first expansion with 3 raid patches (NH, ToS, Argus raid) in its lifespan since Wrath; although one can argue its raid content upon release is the weakest in history (EN with 7 bosses)

On expansion history:

• WoD is the shortest-lived expansion, but only beating Cata by 2 days
• The time between final tier and next expansion release has unfortunately been increasing: MoP and WoD both had 13 months+ of their respective final tier (SoO and HFC); Before that, final tiers generally lasted 9 to 10 months; Wrath pre-patch came a mere half year after the Sunwell patch (Wrath was also announced before Patch 2.2)

Regarding the chart:
Black are factual data collected from the Internet
Red are calculated speculations

You have too much time on your hands.

[Thetruth1400]

For me its 99% sure that the next exp pack announcement is at blizzcon.

Agreed. They're not pushing their old model of "faster expansions" (ever though they never got it to actually happen) anymore. There's no reason for them to announce it at Gamescom especially since 7.3, which we know is going to happen, isn't even close to being out. If anything Gamescom might be their big reveal for 7.3, but not the next expansion. Legion still has life in it and they're not going to rush to the next expansion. They've said themselves that they moved on from that business model.

Even if the next expansion is on the horizon, they'll most likely wait until the November Blizzcon and then go "Surprise, next expansion is less than 6 months away! Beta starts as soon as Blizzcon finishes!"

[bearlolzx]

8.0: more M+ more legionfall type rep

o/

[Alvito]

Part of the reason we end up with these super long final raids is they don't announce the next expansion until the raid is in place or about to launch. Announcing the next step after the final part of the current expansion ends up being a huge spoiler on events. With how long they have been alpha and beta testing the last 5 expansions it draw out how long a raid is around. It is also hard to get people to test when they are still working on progression in pve. For the people saying it will be announced at Blizzcon that immediately shoots down the chance of a summer release.

[Tiberria]

The thing is - they have never had less than about a year between the announcement of the next expansion and the release. That probably means that if they announce at Gamescon, they are targeting an August/September 2018 release. If they leave it until Blizzcon, it's a clear sign they plan for Legion to push past the 24 month mark and are looking at Thanksgiving/Christmas season release.

WoD was a relatively short expansion. There were past expansions that lasted 24-25 months, so Legion lasting into like November 2018 wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. Given the amount of remaining content they have to release, I think late Q4 2018 is more likely than June/July.

[GMZohar1]

They will announce it in August as they did before. Then at Blizzcon the will re-show everything they did at gamescon but add a couple color variations to things at Blizzcon so it seems like brand new stuff. As they did last time

[Fahrad Wagner]

[...]

On next expansion announce and release date:

• Theoretically, 8.0 could be announced as soon as in 3 weeks
• However, this is unlikely as we don’t even know anything about Patch 7.3 yet
• If it was to be revealed at Blizzcon 17 (Nov. 2) and then released a year later, it would make 8.0 the longest it took to announce and Legion the longest WOW expansion
• Combine the above 2, this makes a Aug. 22 Gamescom announcement more plausible in theory
• Assuming a 8.0 announcement between now and Blizzcon 17, this won’t be the first time an expansion is announced before the release of the final tier of its predecessor: Wrath, Cata and MoP were all announced before their previous expansion’s final tier; Legion was announced ~2 weeks after 6.2 (HFC); WoD being the only exception announced ~2 months after 5.4 (SOO)

[...]

Thanks OP for this post, as an economist it's really appreciable to see people who expose their argumentary in such an organised and data-orientated way. I quite agree with you, Gamescon is a very likely announcement for 8.0, however as someone mentioned before, WoD was maybe announced very early to get the players hyped for something. I really hope we'll know what 8.0 is about by Gamescon, but I think it's safer to expect it to be announced at Blizzcon. Again, I could be wrong, we could all be wrong haha! Who knows?

[Yelmurc]

Thanks OP for this post, as an economist it's really appreciable to see people who expose their argumentary in such an organised and data-orientated way. I quite agree with you, Gamescon is a very likely announcement for 8.0, however as someone mentioned before, WoD was maybe announced very early to get the players hyped for something. I really hope we'll know what 8.0 is about by Gamescon, but I think it's safer to expect it to be announced at Blizzcon. Again, I could be wrong, we could all be wrong haha! Who knows?

I hope its Gamescon as well, do we know for a FACT that 7.3 is the last major patch? Could they do a 7.4 or 7.5 exploring Argus?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

You have some things fundamentally twisted here. 7.3 will likely contain the next raid tier, so your estimation of its arrival is WAYYYYY off, likely causing the rest of the estimations to be off. This seems derivative of a misunderstanding linked to 7.2.5's release alongside Tomb. The raid was contained in patch 7.2 and tested as such. In order for 7.3 to come out in 2 months it would have to be another 7.1, which is totally possible, but once again messes up your estimations.
If we DO get another filler raid or dungeon patch, then that means we have an even further wait for the third raid tier of Legion.

Regardless, I would expect 8.0's associated expansion to be out next fall or late summer.
2 years for Legion makes the most sense given how much there has been in it.
I would expect Argus info at Blizzcon and then expansion the following spring convention cycle.

- - - Updated - - -

I hope its Gamescon as well, do we know for a FACT that 7.3 is the last major patch? Could they do a 7.4 or 7.5 exploring Argus?

We know nothing about 7.3, or anything before or after it.

[Natureseer]

I would expect Argus info at Blizzcon and then expansion the following spring convention cycle.

speaking of being way off...

[TriHard]

Yeh, blizzcon is where they'll announce 8.0 I'm almost sure. I don't think we'll see it at gamescom even though tom chilton at the time said they might keep doing it going forward. But he is working on some secret project atm so he is no longer with the WoW team

[Chickat]

5-7 months for the final raid tier would be a perfect time frame. This would allow weaker guilds to have extra time to clear the raid tier, as well as giving people who have cleared the raid more content to do in the form of a new dungeon and/or quest line.

I think even 8 or 9 isn't bad honestly. 10 or more is too much. Honestly Id rather the final tier last 7-8 months rather than 5-6.

[re1gn1te]

I think you're pretty on point. Im just curious tho. If the Argus raid does open in November there has to be another raid between may-november 2018, unless they fail again like with SoO, HFC.

If argus drops in nov they can launch next expansion in late aug / early sept easily. That's not too long for an end tier raid.

[Titebiere83]

7.3 is not coming out next month. A major raid released last week, and just started yesterday on mythic. It will be at least 4-5 months, maybe right around Blizzcon time. Which also happens to be a good time to announce an expansion. If that makes Legion a particularly long expansion then so be it, the quantity and pacing of content has been pretty good so far.

7.3 doesn't mean raid tier.
7.3.5 will be the next tier.

My guess :

Gamescon : 7.3 reveal and details
Blizzcon : 8.0

[Dnusha]

They will not announce 8.0 before blizzcon.
They only announced legion at gamescom because wod was running out fast and they wanted to hype something up ASAP.

this /ten chars

[Deleted]

Ok, given that blizzcon is in the 3/4th of november... unless they rush that final .5 patch/raid, story wouldnt be an impedement for the announcement.

From a business and content schedualing pov, it makes sense to announce it at gamescom.

As someone else in a different thread pointed out, in gamescom they can have an 1 hour+ event on the stage wich they can't at blizzcon. It makes sense to do the annoucement there and the panels at Blizzcon. I think it worked well for legion.

[Zelk]

I can see an announcement of an announcement at Gamescom I guess

[Utigarde]

I very much like the situation they did with Legion announcement. Announce it at Gamescom and give us an hour of basic explanations, release the website and some stuff afterwards, and at Blizzcon, they can give more in depth previews of the expansion, and get more thoughtful questions at panels. I would not be disappointed if they repeated this for expansion 7. Plus, I go on a cabin trip during Gamescom every year, so getting to watch an expansion reveal on a nice warm lakeside will be nice again.

[Kuja]

It's gonna be Old Gods. <3 So many hints everywhere.

I wonder what happens to artifacts? Replace with a level 119 green weapon? Maybe they are ineffective against old gods and we need new kinds of weapons. But I wouldn't mind if we continue to use them and scale their power further up with new perks and cool things.