Is there supposed to be a new expansion this November?

[Deleted]

I think the first appearance of tier 2 will be a bit later than 90-130 days after tier 1 is released completely. The reasoning will be: it took players 6 months after they saw the last boss on every difficulty to do the tier before (in WotLK / Cata / MoP), so 3-4 months is too little, let's stretch this a month or two more.

That's first.

Second, this means tier 2 appears not in June, but more like in August. And ends like in April, 2016.

Third, they might totally do a mini-SoO again and leave 3-4 months of nothing after the last tier of the expansion. We'll be told that they are "training the team" or whatever. That makes the expansion following WoD release somewhere like September, 2016.

Done, two tiers per expansion, yet the expansion took almost exactly two years.

I believe that's much closer to what will really happen than January, 2016 or even 2015 (wow). Want to bet?

I was already being generous with my estimates. I believe it'll be a lot quicker than that. They've specifically gone out and said that 4-6 months is a good lifespan for any raid tier, allowing it to breathe.

Delays can and likely will occur, but there's not a chance they'll any of the tiers last as long as you suggest. It'd have to take something drastic to cause that kind of delay.

[rda]

I was already being generous with my estimates. I believe it'll be a lot quicker than that. They've specifically gone out and said that 4-6 months is a good lifespan for any raid tier, allowing it to breathe.

Delays can and likely will occur, but there's not a chance they'll any of the tiers last as long as you suggest. It'd have to take something drastic to cause that kind of delay.

They kept failing hard for the last five years or so (a year-long last tier for three expansions straight despite assurances every time that this won't happen again - and that's just one thing, there are many others), so I think it is exactly the reverse - it will take a miracle for them to stop failing.

What they said about 4-6 months could be applied to whatever they feel like - they could just say, for example, that they meant the period after the tier is released completely, done. Or they could say nothing or that things change, etc, won't be the first time.

We'll see, anyway.

[Tharkkun]

Really the only thing that has to happen now is that...it has to happen. I'm happy with a 16-18 month expansion as long as the final raid, whatever it is, comes out four-to-six months before the expansion drops. If they mess up with another year-long drought then it's on them and they deserve whatever they get.

Supporting the idea of it not taking quite so long is the thought that all of the systems work they did for WoD won't need to be redone. There's much less to do there. They might add a race instead of a class. That's less work too since there's no need to create 3 specs, all the spells and balancing. So there's something to be said for the idea.

I do wish I knew the truthfulness of that reddit/blog article about outsourcing art that has been talked about today. That's always been the big hangup and if they have that going they could shorten the time considerably. Since the rest of that article smells highly of BS that piece of it is very suspect as well. I've been hearing random chit-chat here and there about some of the artwork being farmed out so who knows apart from Blizzard.

As controlling as Blizzard is I find that hard to believe as well. Their art style has stayed the same since the Warcraft days so I can't seem them drastically changing things by allowing a 3rd party to do the work.

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They said they might do just two raid tiers, yes. Given that they now space the raids even inside the same tier, it seems likely that a single tier will now take something like 8-9 months instead of the previous 6 months, and this does make two tiers per expansion increasingly likely.

6 months is fine but it will should be 6 months from Feb 3rd. They released ToT 4 months after Toes came out. If they would have bumped it 2 months and SOO 2 months it would have spaced things better. Hopefully we don't see a new raid until August.

[Chickat]

The way they described the development of WoD (during early Mists) in interviews was "talking about ideas and concepts" which is far removed from the kind of development required to push out a wow expansion within the same 365 days.


You were here for the entirety of the WoD fiasco from announcement to its release data announcement. If you still have faith that they can put out content as fast as you were hoping for that entire time you'd make one hell of a good motivational speaker.

Im giving them the benefit of the doubt one last time. MoP was pretty impressive up until the final 6 months of SoO. I can stomach a weak expansion in WoD if it means that they get their pipeline fixed up and can start pumping out great expansions.

[cubby]

I think the biggest question is whether they will take off from the current lvl cap, or branch out into other areas while keeping the lvl cap at 100.

[Makabreska]

I think the biggest question is whether they will take off from the current lvl cap, or branch out into other areas while keeping the lvl cap at 100.

Why should they? 100 is only a number, but for some reason many people still think that it should be max lvl cap for eva.

[Chickat]

[Citation required.]




This guy is passing off rumor and speculation as facts. It's not worth your time.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...en-MoP-shipped Not going through it to find it, but I remember seeing it too. It is you who doesn't know what they are talking about.

[OpposedByMyThumbs]

I highly doubt that WoD began pre-production prior to the release of MoP. As for the next expansion, they've suggested that they have started doing something for it but the likelihood of having it ready to release for winter isn't high what with the amount of problems WoD continues to produce for the dev team.

Run Team != Build Team

[Amnaught]

The plan is for this to be a 2 raid tier expac. Also they have been saying they wanted yearly expansions for a while now, will it happen only time will tell. My guess is Jan 2016 for an expac at the earliest

I'm saving this quote for when the expac releases December '16

[Ktperry]

If this is the case, we have to get New Expansion Beta when they realise the 2nd raid tier.

[Chickat]

I was already being generous with my estimates. I believe it'll be a lot quicker than that. They've specifically gone out and said that 4-6 months is a good lifespan for any raid tier, allowing it to breathe.

Delays can and likely will occur, but there's not a chance they'll any of the tiers last as long as you suggest. It'd have to take something drastic to cause that kind of delay.

Yeah, and Im sure they were working on 7.0 at the same time they were working on WoD. At this point im sure that the zones for 7.0 are pretty much done, and content is being developed for it. They said before WoD launched that 7.0 zones were nearly done or something like that. I may be remembering wrong.

[Zoldor]

Late spring early summer 2016 is my stab in the dark. WoD is already slightly behind schedule with 6.1. If they can't get 6.1 out before March, we could see 6.2 in the late may early June time frame. I think WoD has had a few more technical stutters than they anticipated and isn't going as smooth on the technical side as they would have liked. As players can attest to this expansion has been a little rough compared to the launches of MoP, Cata, and Wrath. I remember BC being shaky.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the expansion dropped at an event like WoD trailer was or at a con that isn't Blizzcon, but giving very little info (Pax Prime maybe, E3 has become too much of an industry show less of a for the fans show). I'm willing to speculate we won't know anything about the next expansions theme or content until after 6.2 has been out around a month. I think the story of 6.2 and Hellscreams raid ties to the next expansion, but that is mere speculation on my part.

Hell the end of 6.2's raid could very well be our next expansion is this moment.

Oh and the Titan team didn't all come to WoW a decent chunk of them and some of the big heads on WoW went to Overwatch as well.

[Deleted]

Yeah, and Im sure they were working on 7.0 at the same time they were working on WoD. At this point im sure that the zones for 7.0 are pretty much done, and content is being developed for it. They said before WoD launched that 7.0 zones were nearly done or something like that. I may be remembering wrong.

To be precise, they said zones were in production back in August 2014. By now, they should have a pre-alpha build going on internally.

[Squeezus]

And WoD took 1 year in development after its announcement, and still was unfinished.

Imagine the disaster that would be if Blizzard decided to rush an expansion even more than that.

I fear the quality of the game would drop drastically.

I'm interested to know what your idea of unfinished is. Yes, there was content originally planned for launch that didn't make it in time but that happens with every single expansion before it. There were a few bugs, but once again the same thing happens every expansion. Then there were the huge lag and server issues which had nothing to do with how polished, or finished the expansion was. That was just bad planning and numbers estimation. I'm not sure what you are comparing WoD to in thinking it was rushed but it wasn't released any quicker than other expansions after it was announced and it looked to be further along at announcement than any other expansion. Not to mention you can't judge how long they have been working on it by when it is announced/released. Only they know the entire life cycle. But basec simply on how far it looked to be during announcement and how long it took to release it afterwords they took their time.

[Zka]

No way in hell there will be a expansion out this year.

This. The next expansion should arrive when the warcraft movie debuts. That's 2016 march afaik.

[Zoldor]

This. The next expansion should arrive when the warcraft movie debuts. That's 2016 march afaik.

I would go with after the movie. That way the hype is in place to the max.

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I'm interested to know what your idea of unfinished is. Yes, there was content originally planned for launch that didn't make it in time but that happens with every single expansion before it. There were a few bugs, but once again the same thing happens every expansion. Then there were the huge lag and server issues which had nothing to do with how polished, or finished the expansion was. That was just bad planning and numbers estimation. I'm not sure what you are comparing WoD to in thinking it was rushed but it wasn't released any quicker than other expansions after it was announced and it looked to be further along at announcement than any other expansion. Not to mention you can't judge how long they have been working on it by when it is announced/released. Only they know the entire life cycle. But basec simply on how far it looked to be during announcement and how long it took to release it afterwords they took their time.

That bad server stuff shows they hadn't done enough testing in beta with the garrisons the game also launched with plenty of known bugs. Unfinished isn't always a direct reference to content you can see ie a zone. It is sometimes the technical back end stuff that goes unfinished or not properly tested. This was the worst launch since TBC easily. The expansion didn't get done on the tech side hence all the day 1 issues and some that persisted for a couple weeks. If we have a garrison like thing again I could see it being two locations for each faction. So much of the issue was people being in the exact same spot across all servers at the same time activating the same things. The garrisons are still the laggest part of the game, as bad as Shattrath in BC if not worse.

[Zka]

I would go with after the movie. That way the hype is in place to the max.

A bit before or after, doesn't matter. Point is that these should be aligned.

[AbalDarkwind]

I would go with after the movie. That way the hype is in place to the max.

This makes sense. April-May 2016 seems like a good place to launch 7.0 if they keep to their desire for a faster expansion without the development cycle being absurdly shorter. They'll definitely need something to fill the gap between the next raid tier and the launch of 7.0, especially if that raid tier launches in June or July, if this is the case.

[Servasus]

I highly doubt that WoD began pre-production prior to the release of MoP. As for the next expansion, they've suggested that they have started doing something for it but the likelihood of having it ready to release for winter isn't high what with the amount of problems WoD continues to produce for the dev team.

Pre-production just means that the ideas and storyboard for what they wanted WoD to be was being worked on before Mists launched. Which is very much the case and has even been said in a multitude of WoD interviews.

[Chickat]

To be precise, they said zones were in production back in August 2014. By now, they should have a pre-alpha build going on internally.

Yeah, I imagine they are about at January-Feb 2014 WoD readiness. Another 4-6 months until beta. Internal Alpha is probably starting soon if it hasn't already, and f&F may start early Quarter 2.

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This. The next expansion should arrive when the warcraft movie debuts. That's 2016 march afaik.

Which sounds good if we have 3 tiers. May with 7.0 in March or early April 2016 sounds good if it goes like this.

November- WoD
December- Highmaul
Feb- Blackrock Foundry
March- 6.1
June- 6.2 raid tier
September- 6.3
November- 6.4 raid tier.
7.0- April
7.0.3- May-June

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This makes sense. April-May 2016 seems like a good place to launch 7.0 if they keep to their desire for a faster expansion without the development cycle being absurdly shorter. They'll definitely need something to fill the gap between the next raid tier and the launch of 7.0, especially if that raid tier launches in June or July, if this is the case.

Farahlon world content with some scenarios or something in November or December would stop the gap.