Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel is the Final Planned Raid of Warlords of Draenor

[Prokne]

Maybe it's time to start waiting until the last patch and buying the game, finish everything up in a month or two and unsub. If they are going to charge me $60 more per year to play the game, I will just pay less subscription fees. Its not like you can't do everything in a few months anyway.

[Deleted]

This is such bullshit... Less quality content for more money... Blizzard is geting way too greedy. Dunno if it's Activision or not, but the end result is the same.
I'll probably unsub after defeating Archimonde Mythic and say my final goodbye to this game after 10 years.

They've done it, they've cured me of my WoW addiction, finaly !

[Deleted]

Uncle if i goo remember Siege of ogrimar have two arena seasons, btw this is a nice joke Some expansions had four big patches, some had three, Warlords had two big patches with Patch 6.1 and 6.2. " Selfie camera was so big patch"

[Yakshamash]

The thing is, they are so proud of themselves that they made "BOOM" with this expansion, no matter if another 5 million quits, or bouboulie posts graphs that 0.0001% completed shityard legendary, it will be success for them. They're completely out of touch, brain damaged. With this team moving onto next expansion, I expect even worst shit.

[Kumqatninja]

I think thats the most disappointing part.

I think releasing content more frequently is a great idea. Nobody wants to raid the same instance for 12 months. The problem is that they are more interested in cranking out new expansions than they are in releasing content for a current expansion, and they can't execute.

They can't make a new expansion every 18 months, and they don't have any back up plan when it inevitably gets delayed.

Make expansion packs last longer, give your players an expectation of 3 tiers each time and people will be happy to pay your increased price for an expansion. Charging $50 for an expansion and then giving the players only one major content patch is bullshit.

This right here, exactly! 1 year expac is bs.

[bmjclark]

It's a lie. Hellfire Citadel is not the final raid of the expansion; or else, why would they make THREE arena season? 6.2 is the second arena season, so were is the third? Maybe the main line of the Wod story is over, but there will be a 6.3, maybe some kinda big big event they don't want to spoil now for the next expansion; but in terms of delay and marketing, doing an expansion with only two patches is like shooting on your foot.

They made items and achievements for a 3rd pvp season for the same reason they put 2 pvp seasons in 5.4. Because we're in for a long patch. A year + patch. I firmly believe that the extra season of gear/achievements wouldn't be there if they werent very confident that we're looking at a long patch.

[SL1200]

content patches with new stuff were the best thing about wow. I Won't like new expansions, leveling and relearning my class every year.

[Orkwuzhere]

Dream on ... blizzard is never lying to hits customers!? They have other cash cows now - overlord, heros,...

That shitty moba is nowhere near a cash cow because only fanboys are defending it and spending money on ugly, incomplete heroes and skins* (Enjoy your long queue times). If you thought they're out of touch with their WoW playerbase, you never read their recent HoTS interviews where they think people want a gender-swap Illidan instead of a decent UI and less input delays (Not even SJWs are asking for gender-swap characters. It's such a terrible idea).

*Blizzard didn't even put any effort into the skins. They just use 4-6 colors, and throw them on unfinished models with prices that would make Riot employees laugh.

[Captain British]

Well, I'm a man of my word. If they think this is an acceptable amount of content for an expansion then I'm cancelling my sub. It's such a shame, Warlords of Draenor had so much potential and they've squandered it less than a year after it's release.

[GammaRex]

I stopped reading after about 10 words. This post coming from a BOTTER. It makes your entire post irrelevant.

- - - Updated - - -



4 million people and growing say HI.

FF14 will have more subs than WOW in a year from now.

Free to Play Incoming....no doubt. Two updates? Final Fantasy XIV plans to have 5-10 updates per expansion....and their community grows...now at 4mil...LOL

It's 4 million registered accounts, not subscribers. Despite Square Enix being open about the numbers they publicly give not being subs, people continue to pass them off as subs. Please stop with this misinformation.

[Deleted]

"The WoW Token has worked out well. It lets players with extra gold safely buy game time for gold and players with extra money but no time safely purchase gold from other players."

What about players without extra money and no time? They get left behind I suppose. Greed undermining the game further confirming a two tier system.

[Kethryveris]

I'm sorry but what? This is not acceptable for there to be 2 patches, especially when there has been only 1 major content patch. 6.1 really did not count as all it did was open a raid that was already in game and had some class hot fixes and new toys.

So we paid more than any other expansion to date to get 1/4 the content and Blizzard thinks this is ok?

WoD $ 49.99 - we have 2 raids in at launch, but one is not open until a future patch, garrisons, the singular apexis daily, and 8 dungeons. 6.1 comes out they put in some class changes, some new toys, and let you into the second raid, this hardly counts as a "major" content patch. 6.2 comes with lots of changes to the garrisons, a new area with lots of quest hubs, reps to farm, a raid, and weekend events.

I mean look at MoP $39.99 we had a new race and a new class, 3 raids at launch, which opened as players progressed through the first ones, a 9 dungeons, scenarios, lots of daily hubs, and other new features. 6.1 gave us a new quest daily hub and factions, 6.2 gave us 2 new islands to explore, new factions, a new raid, 6.3 gave us a world event (Battlefield barrens) and bread crumbs to the big 6.4 last patch where we went to SoO, got another new island to explore with quest hubs and rep grinds.

Cata $39.99 we had 2 new races, 3 raids at launch, 8 dungeons, many daily quest hubs, the tol barad pvp / weekly raid enoucnter in BH ... 4.1 (minor patch) had 2 new re-vamped dungeons with the Zandalari storyline and a quest line with it as well. 4.2 you had Firelands. New quest zone, new reps, huge raid. Lots of shiny content to explore, including the special hunter challenge pets. 4.3 Huge patch - new, end expac raid, 3 new dungeons, raid finder was added, and we got the first taste of the new darkmoon faire zone as well.

LK - 19.99 Hero class added, in total there were 16 dungeons, 8 raids, Achievements were added to the game, as well as a new profession. As well as nuerous factions to do dailes and rep grind with, including the Argent Toruney. As patches went on more raids and dungeons were added.

BC - (not sure of price) Same with BC. It had 2 new races, 16 dungeons, 10 raids, multiple daily quest areas, rep factions with rewards you wanted. They introduced flying. Added new professions. Added sockets onto gear, added arenas. And again as the patches went forward new content and raids were added.

The Base game (called "vanilla" now) $20 had all the base races and classes, 18 dungeons, 8 raids, and well being a new game as patches came out content was added.

Why not, instead of making a new expansion, put idk ... new content into the current one? Expand on ideas that are in place and have not been fleshed out? You give us ONE MAJOR content patch, call it a day, and are content to make us pay more than any other xpac? If that's the case then any one who paid full price for WoD should get the next xpac free, as we've basically already paid for it, and it should be half the price of what other xpacs have been if you are going to keep the model of "short" expansions.

(I started in Wrath, so going by patch info for BC and Vanilla content, and tried to find at launch prices but can't find a list for BC)

[Coffeexbean]

those games were only 20 dollars if you bought them late as fuck they were all $40

[EyelessCrow]

"The WoW Token has worked out well. It lets players with extra gold safely buy game time for gold and players with extra money but no time safely purchase gold from other players."

What about players without extra money and no time? They get left behind I suppose. Greed undermining the game further confirming a two tier system.

If you don't have the time, nor the money to play a video game...maybe you shouldn't be playing a video game?

[Deleted]

Imagine the next blizzcon:

"Announcement of Feature #1" --> All youtubers go "Uh, look, here is Feature #1, it might be in it might be not!" --> Questions to devs "Will feature #1 will be really implemented? We mean, really really implemented, like adding it to the game?"

And after the blizzcon it will all be "look at the new features we might not ever get!"

[darkest4]

I'm disappointed. means we pay more for less overall. WoD was more expensive than previous expansions yet offered the fewest large patches.

Bullshit.

I'd rather have more large patches and longer between expansions than one and a half big patches.

I'm amazed more fanboys didn't realize this is the ONLY reason Blizzard wants to do "faster expansions". They know they are losing subs so their solution is to milk their current subs for even more. First they raise the price $10 for no good reason, now they are pushing out shitty 1-2 patch (really 1 patch in this case, 6.1 is a joke as a "major content patch") expansions so they can charge you $50 more often on top of still charging $15 a month. So you're paying $50 more often, for WAY less, with less quality, hurray.... It's actually gross how much shit Blizzard gets away with nowadays.

I can't believe they have the gall to say "you're getting less patches per expansions from now on, that's our goal" as if it's a fucking good thing... It's clear they give 0 shits about WoW anymore, and are just treating it like a cash machine to milk the current customers as much as they can before this ship sinks at this point, yet their fanboys will still bend over and take it. They're apparently the only company that can get away with charging more and more, instead of less, as their product gets shittier and more outdated..

[Deleted]

If you don't have the time, nor the money to play a video game...maybe you shouldn't be playing a video game?

So you admit that the amount you pay in real money should be a deciding factor? Yeah nice.

[Captiosus]

They've promised faster expansions for years now but have never been able to deliver. That said, I never expected the "faster expansions" to come at a cost of quality content between them. What has been delivered since the launch of WOD has been abysmal, at best. Base WOD was enough to almost drive me away after 10 years - 6.1 sealed the deal. This announcement ensures I have no desire to return.

As I'm reading the transcript from the interview, I couldn't help but think of a different Activision published property that is using the same model Blizzard apparently aspires to. Yearly boxed updates with two mediocre "content expansions" between the retail boxes. That game also has a lot of people up in arms about shitty content, poor value, and money grubbing.. what was the game of that again..? Oh yeah: DESTINY. It sure feels like Warcraft is migrating to the same model, only Warcraft also wants to maintain the subscription fee model rather than the DLC model which ends up earning more when updates are delayed.

Edit: Today alone I've seen two Hearthstone TV ads and a Heroes of the Storm ad. It's clear where Blizzard's priorities are these days and Overwatch isn't even here yet.