When does the next expansion come out?

[Deleted]

As the title says, when do you think the next expansion will come out?

[lockedout]

As the title says, when do you think the next expansion will come out?

After the current one ends.

[Adoxe]

Patch 5.0 - September 25 2012
Patch 5.1 - November 27th 2012
Patch 5.2 - March 5th 2013
Patch 5.3 - May 25th 2013
Patch 5.4 - September 27th 2013
Patch 5.5 - November 5th 2013 (Blizzcon 2013 time)
Patch 6.0 - June 2014

[Monteverdi]

Well let's consider the past for a moment -

• Vanilla (November 2004) - Burning Crusade (January 2007) [26 months]
• Burning Crusade (January 2007) - Wrath of the Lich King (November 2008) [23 months]
• Wrath of the Lich King (November 2008) - Cataclysm (December 2010) [26 months]
• Cataclysm (December 2010) - Mists of Pandaria (September 2012) [21 months]

Given this timeframe, the next expansion should come out sometime around September, 2014. But wait! Blizz has said that they want to release content far more quickly, specifically citing the complaint that players have had about the length of time between the final patch of one expansion and the beginning of the other. So let's look at that!

• Patch 1.11 (Shadow of the Necropolis) released on 6/20/06 - followed by The Burning Crusade in January of 2007 (6 months)
• Patch 2.4 (Fury of the Sunwell) released on 3/25/08 - followed by Wrath of the Lich King in November of that same year (8 months)
• Patch 3.3 (Fall of the Lich King) released on 12/08/09 - Followed by Cataclysm in December the following year (1 year)
• Finally, Patch 4.3 (Hour of Twilight) released in November of 2011 - Follow by Mists of Pandaria in September the following year. (10 months)

Again, Blizzard has specifically responded to complaints that the length of time between 3.3 and Cataclysm, and the length of time between 4.3 and MoP, were too long - and they have doubled the size of their development team to keep this from happening (as evidenced by the speed at which content has come out for this entire expansion), so it's doubtful that 5.4 will last 10+ months. I think it's safer to say that 5.4 will last for 6 months at the most.

Now, if 5.3 releases this May (which is likely, I think, given where it is on the PTR), I would expect 5.4 to release in August/September (being a non-raid patch, it will not have the longevity of other patches). 6 months past that point would put an expansion around Feb/March of 2014.

So that's my guess - Spring of next year (which would put MoP as the shortest lived expansion to date - not necessarily a bad thing). Either that or Blizzard releases a patch 5.5 - which could have the same problems the Sunwell patch had (people were incensed that they added another raid after Illidan, who was the 'focus' of that expansion), but if Blizzard marketed a patch 5.5 as a 'prelude' to the next expansion (almost an extended world event, if you would) I think it could be wildly succesful, and could push the next expansion's release to Summer of 2014.