Another Year Long End Raid Tier... Rip Steady Stream of Content.

[primalmatter]

I dare say that...

In six months or so when things start to get stale the vanilla servers will suddenly be figured out and will come online

At least that is what I would aim for if I was blizzard.

[Ningjinq]

I’d say it’s far more likely that’s the goal for the NEXT xpac’s content drought.

[Yassy]

No mention of a 7.4 or anything like that has me worried. Especially if they cant even gaurentee it'll be out next year.

They wont do a 7.4. Theyll do an 8.0.

Many of the BFA changes theyll give to players early. We will get Allied Races before BFA release and theyll bank on people wanting to gear them out. You will see Battle for Lordaeron come out, maybe some quests involving the burning of Teldrasil. Yeah, Antorus is the last raid tier. But i wouldnt be surprised if they gave us a Ruby Sanctum style thing along side a few of the BFA changes.

[Nize]

There’s definitely a miscommunication because the slide says 110 but they definitely said 120. (To get the heritage armor)

I do think there’s a good chance we get 4 allied races in 7.3.5 but I wouldn’t go off the slide. Either they misspoke or that slide is Old. Sort of like how they messed up the Thal’dranath map in Legion’s announcement.

I’d personally be shocked if at minimum you couldn’t get those 4 in the prepatch.

He actually said and I quote "from 20 all the way to max". 110 is max in 7.3.5. No miscommunication there. Good choice in wording from Ion.

It's likely to be both though. The Legion races to 110. The 2 BfA races to 120.

[Ningjinq]

Speaking of, why is 7.3.5 not called 7.4? We are getting story content and the leveling fixes which is a huge amount of content. (As they probably will also fix the other issue of leveling which is 1 shotting quest mobs)

[Stardrift]

It's been like this for a long time. How aren't you used to it? You don't HAVE to play the game until the new expansion launches.. lol. What's the big deal? Just unsub until something new hits, that's all. Easy as that. Yea the wait sucks a lot, but at least you aren't paying $15 a month for nothing.

[Nize]

Speaking of, why is 7.3.5 not called 7.4? We are getting story content and the leveling fixes which is a huge amount of content. (As they probably will also fix the other issue of leveling which is 1 shotting quest mobs)

I don't think Blizzard cares about patch numbering as much as the public does, so I feel this is more to make players feel like they aren't being robbed of 7.3.5 content by skipping that half patch. It's an illusion moreso to lessen the impact of something inevitable. Perception is unfortunately all that matters as the fanbase turns it up to the nth degree when something doesn't go the way they want it to.

[Kathranis]

Antorus unlocks in late November, 7.3.5 is likely to be on PTR very soon, probably goes live in February or March.

We know there will be at least two more content patches between Antorus and the launch of BfA: 7.3.5 and 8.0.

We still don't know the full extent of content that will be available in 7.3.5, and I wouldn't rule out a 7.3.7 or 7.4.

We're for sure getting a new BG and revamped leveling, plus Ulduar Timewalking. Silithus could be a campaign with multi-week storytelling. AQ is right there, so they could do a Return to AQ style dungeon or ToV-sized raid if they really need to put out some new raid content without commiting a ton of resources, especially since they don't really need much of the raid content in BfA ready for launch.

I fully expect that at least two of the Allied Races will unlock via prepurchase before the expansion drops, probably four (the Broken Isles races). And of course the pre-expansion events should start a month or two before the expansion launches.

I'm personally of the opinion that they're going to try and aim for a late Summer / early Fall release. Maybe that's optimistic, but with their content release cadence for Legion and knowing that BfA has been in development since late last year, I feel like they can pull that off. Especially since with Blizzcon you can pretty clearly see that their team has grown and their workflow has become more streamlined.

[StationaryHawk]

However likely or unlikely it may be, it's too early to say that Antorus will last a year. Stop being so eager to be upset when we haven't even started the last tier yet.

[TheRightWay]

Errr link?

[Byleth]

Standard business talk, you don't really commit to a date until you have some certainty of when it's going to launch. We all know if they would say, it's coming out in the summer, and then it doesn't, the backlash will be hard. So saying before the end of 2018 is fine, it doesn't mean it's going to be at the end of the year. If they are booting up the beta in January-February, that means the expansion will land somewhere in either August/September (September being most likely).

They also did mention a few times, there might be a content filler if the tier drags on too long (not the pre-event).

This is pretty much the answer!

Also, didn't we have like 4 threads on this exact topic yesterday. Yes, we get it, waiting sucks.

[huth]

But you soon will run out of customers with such approach.

Not if you actually want to run a business. Caving to every customer demand will ruin you at least as fast as completely ignoring them.

[Infinitiz]

I still see no reason that they won't stick to the 77 day plan or at least very close to it. Antorus will be 84 days.

That means 7.3.5 will be 77 days after Antorus. 28-Nov-2017 + 77 days is 13-Feb-2018.

It sounds like 7.3.5 will have at least some outdoor content in Silithus, perhaps even a dungeon or mini-raid.

77 days or maybe 84 days after 7.3.5 will be 8.0. That will be 1-May-2018 or maybe 8-May-2018.

1 to 2 months later is the expac. Most prob after June 12 since that is the prequel book date. So probably early July release.

The Beta will be in January or February. Nothing Blizzard has said or done in this expansion cycle indicates they will break this cycle.

[Ningjinq]

Btw, the same way there is an official general alpha/beta thread, here should be an official release date speculation thread. There’s 3 probably right now with multiple pages And it’s hard to keep up with them all

- - - Updated - - -

I still see no reason that they won't stick to the 77 day plan or at least very close to it. Antorus will be 84 days.

That means 7.3.5 will be 77 days after Antorus. 28-Nov-2017 + 77 days is 13-Feb-2018.

It sounds like 7.3.5 will have at least some outdoor content in Silithus, perhaps even a dungeon or mini-raid.

77 days or maybe 84 days after 7.3.5 will be 8.0. That will be 1-May-2018 or maybe 8-May-2018.

1 to 2 months later is the expac. Most prob after June 12 since that is the prequel book date. So probably early July release.

The Beta will be in January or February. Nothing Blizzard has said or done in this expansion cycle indicates they will break this cycle.

As much as I think this xpac is in a good place development wise, i don’t see how it’s released prior to late July and more likely later than that. The shortest final raid tier was 9 months (and dragon soul was pretty small). Even an August release would be a huge improvement.

They may not even want a short raid tier so are releasing it “early” so it goes longer. (Eg, ToS will be 6 months and Antorus 8+ instead of delaying Antorus release until next year so it’s more “even”)

[Infinitiz]

As much as I think this xpac is in a good place development wise, i don’t see how it’s released prior to late July and more likely later than that. The shortest final raid tier was 9 months (and dragon soul was pretty small). Even an August release would be a huge improvement.

They may not even want a short raid tier so are releasing it “early” so it goes longer. (Eg, ToS will be 6 months and Antorus 8+ instead of delaying Antorus release until next year so it’s more “even”)

Yeah I think July makes the most sense. After August will make it more than 2 years between expansions. Wrath and Mists both lasted longer than 2 years but only by one and two months respectively.

I'd say October at the absolute latest. It was during Mists Blizzcon I think that they stated they would do 1 year expacs. They totally stuffed that up, that's how we got the end of Mists and the whole of Warlords.

I think it was during Blizzcon 2015 they said that 1 year expacs won't work. I think they said 18 months to 2 years. Hence we're in different territory now and it's obvious with the almost perfect content release schedule that Blizz are committed to no content droughts.

All we can do is wait and see if they pull it off. I'm staying optimistic this time. It's also fun to speculate!

[tru]

I could go 2 years or more and never run out of things to do.

Good for you.... for the rest of us who are already ready for something fresh we do not share your opinion.
This last raid tier is going to last way too long.

[huth]

Good for you.... for the rest of us who are already ready for something fresh we do not share your opinion.
This last raid tier is going to last way too long.

Eh, right now i'd actually be happy to get some air to work through my Steam backlog.

[DesMephisto]

A year of never ending content doesn't mean new raids.

[Costa]

Is a "raid" the only term of content now for people? Antorus is the last raid probably, 90% sure on that unless they throw a filler raid in which is unlikely

However, the other patches are still coming.
Old World Level Scaling
New PvP Battleground
"Silithius" scenario/quest line

Potentially;
Sub Class Content
Early Pre Expansion Patch
Plus much more im sure.

But because 12 months of T21 the game is flawed and nothing to do? xD

[Cosmic Janitor]

Is a "raid" the only term of content now for people? Antorus is the last raid probably, 90% sure on that unless they throw a filler raid in which is unlikely

However, the other patches are still coming.
Old World Level Scaling
New PvP Battleground
"Silithius" scenario/quest line

Potentially;
Sub Class Content
Early Pre Expansion Patch
Plus much more im sure.

But because 12 months of T21 the game is flawed and nothing to do? xD

You probably thought a quest once a week to kill 100 demons was content, didn't you?