2 Raids For A 2 Year Expansion?

[yjmark]

How do you know this expansion will only have two raid tiers, or that it will last 2 years?

Blizz did mention that they might only do 2 tiers this x-pac since they plan on having the next one released significantly earlier. I can't remember exactly when they said that.

As for the 2 year thing - that is totally made up by the OP to foster a discussion.

[Deleted]

I think it won't be a two year expansion, so there's that...

I don't see that happening, and there is nothing indicating that it would.

ofc not...blizzard stretches the opening of the FIRST! raid tier this xpac to FIVE! month and YOU do really belive this xpac only lasts one year? roflmao

Considering they increased the dev team size by 50% specifically to remedy this I'm hoping y'know...

Well fact is they DID NOT. or do you belive ow has created itself? ^^

There will be more raids than Highmaul and BRF.

SOURCE for that cause up to now there will be HM, BF and 6.x the last one the citadell....

Only WotLK lasted a bit over 2 years, other x-pacs were shorter than that. They all had more than 2 raid tiers. What makes you think that WoD will last 2 years and that it will only have 2 raid tiers, when we know that Blizzard doubled their WoW staff?

Blizzard did NOT double the WoW staff...and excuse me? only wotlk lasted over two years? where have you been when soo lasted alone 14 month??? ^^

If it lasts more than 18 months we will get another tier.

No we wont this will be the first (but not the last 2 tier expansion) just because actiblizz is getting away with it.

If the new interview is true, they will announce 7.0 before Blizcon, and it will be out by March 2016 at the latest.

ROFLMAO. This joke made my day. even if they announce xpac 6 at blizzcon it will NEVER be out before summer 2016....

[Chickat]

They've increased their staff fairly big amounts before in the past, and it never really amounted to anything.

Still, just take this as cynicism. I totally hope I'm wrong. I just expect the worst.

They increased staff in late Cata which led to the breadth of content MoP had until 5.4. They increased staff around 5.4 leading to the glut in content. Hopefully that wont happen again. With nearly 100% more people on the team over Cata, we should be able to have a MoP every 1.5 years which would be brilliant.

[Zoldor]

I have faith in a spring release of 2016 for the next expansion but we'll see. I hope we get that.

[Deleted]

I have faith in a spring release of 2016 for the next expansion but we'll see. I hope we get that.

Well, then we should get a announcement in summer and a beta in the 4th quarter.

[yjmark]

ofc not...blizzard stretches the opening of the FIRST! raid tier this xpac to FIVE! month and YOU do really belive this xpac only lasts one year?

Yup. They can release the second tier 8-9 months into it, and the next x-pac at 12 months.

[Polarthief]

What if Warlords is a 2 raid expansion but we dont get the next expansion for roughly the same ammount of time as we did this one? Personally, doing this and skipping out on a middle tier would be really bad. imagine 16 months or more for thr Iron Citidel. Sounds crazy. What do you think? Would you quit within that time? Would you lose faith in the dev team if this happens? Whats your opinion?

I'm already bored out of my mind and the first patch didn't come through. This ENTIRE expansion has been nothing but rushed (ironically) and oversights, so yeah, I'd have quit loooooooong before if I knew that's what we'd be given.

[shoooter]

If the expansion really isn't ready after The Iron Citadel, they'll release an in between raid. Simple as that.

Seriously though, if the next content isn't ready there is no way they are going to waste resources on a stopgap raid unless it's some throwaway like Ruby Sanctum. This is Blizzard. You are going to be waiting.

[Szazi]

I think they'd see bigger losses than they saw during that content gap in mop. Really what else would happen?

Considering they increased the dev team size by 50% specifically to remedy this I'm hoping y'know... it remedies it to some degree.

The fact that playerbase runs throught content so fast, 50% more staff means nothing, in order to please the players (or) make good amount on content before next expansion, they need to hire 100%-300% more staff. Players burn the content really fast. 50% more staff is hardly any difference at all..

[Tziva]

^^SOURCE for that cause up to now there will be HM, BF and 6.x the last one the citadell....

I guess my source is whatever source you're using to also say there will be more raids than Highmaul and BFR.

(not sure why you are asking for a citation when you are making the same claim as me?)

[ComputerNerd]

They SAID they were increasing the dev team size by 50%. So far we have seen no evidence that it actually happened.

Because you have in your head certain ideas that are based on the flawed premise of throwing people and money solves any problem.
There are a lot of interconnected systems in the game, where changing something apparently insignificant can have unexpected repercussions elsewhere.
The more people there are with different opinions, the longer it takes to reach a decision.
More voices disagreeing will only slow things down.
Hence simply throwing people in the wrong places is only going to be detrimental.

Have you seen evidence that it hasn't yielded benefits ?
No, you simply decided based on arbitrary and cherry-picked measures that it hasn't.

[Gyrotex]

I don't think expansion will go for 2 years, but neither do I think that it will be 1 year only.

1.5 is my bet.

And however many orc raids they are going to do in this orc-based expansion, that's okay(ish), I just never want to see an orc raid again once WoD is over, that's all.

[Chickat]

Its possible they will hold Blizzcon again in August, beta in September, with release in January or February 2016. Still only 14-15 months with likely an 8 month tier 18 which isnt that bad at all. Ive said before that 7-8 months is ideal for the final patch. Gives me some breathing room.

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The fact that playerbase runs throught content so fast, 50% more staff means nothing, in order to please the players (or) make good amount on content before next expansion, they need to hire 100%-300% more staff. Players burn the content really fast. 50% more staff is hardly any difference at all..

Eh, its probably 25% more content overall, or 25% faster content. 25% off a year wait is 9 months which isnt too bad.

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A 2 tier 3-4 patch expansion is possible if they need to buy time. If it goes like this it wouldn't be that bad.

November 2014- WoD launches
December 2014- Highmaul launches
February 2015- Blackrock Foundry launches
March 2015- 6.1 launches
Late June 2015- 6.2 raid tier launches.
October 2015- 6.3 minor content patch releases.
February 2016- 6.4 Minor patch releases possibly.
April-June next expansion. We could lose the February patch and only have 6 months in between new content with 10 months of 6.2 which is an improvement over ICC and SoO. Getting a minor patch or two with some new scenarios or minor content would help tide people over.

[Deleted]

It is pretty possible.
But then again they split the first 2 raids into two parts to prevent this discussion.

6.0 - Highmaul
6.1 - Blackrock Foundry (March - 2015)
6.2 - filler (July - 2015)
6.3 - Hellscream raid (November - 2015)
6.4 - filler (March -2016)
7.0 Next exp. pack - (November - 2016)

So i think it is very possible they will do it with 2 raids but since they split the launch raids they can always keep telling us we got 3 raids not two.

[Alvito]

If the expansion really isn't ready after The Iron Citadel, they'll release an in between raid. Simple as that.

Like they did while we were in our 14 months of SoO? I think we all saw how forgettable and worthless Ruby Sanctum was when they tried to slap something together to break up the year of ICC.

[bmjclark]

Only WotLK lasted a bit over 2 years, other x-pacs were shorter than that. They all had more than 2 raid tiers. What makes you think that WoD will last 2 years and that it will only have 2 raid tiers, when we know that Blizzard doubled their WoW staff?

MoP lasted over 2 years as well i believe. Released 2012 in september (right?) and warlords released november 2014.

[Deleted]

You don't get to say because people didn't see it, that it now equates to what's been happening recently.

That is not what I said, learn to read and quote.

That's just plainly dishonest.

The reason people didn't see Sunwell or Naxx, is because they were still stuck in other raids of a lower tier.

What that means is that for almost all the filthy casuals (the vast majority) that content didn't end at the stated date; it ended afterwards. So the TTL of that content is arguably longer. We don't see this phenomenon nowadays because we have 4 difficulties of the same content instead of 1 like in Vanilla/TBC. This allows Blizzard more longevity in the content patches because they will clear LFR and then Normal, or Normal and then Heroic.

PS: stop stalking, creep.

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MoP lasted over 2 years as well i believe. Released 2012 in september (right?) and warlords released november 2014.

MoP was released 25 september 2012 and WoD was released 13 november 2014.

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It is pretty possible.
But then again they split the first 2 raids into two parts to prevent this discussion.

6.0 - Highmaul
6.1 - Blackrock Foundry (March - 2015)
6.2 - filler (July - 2015)
6.3 - Hellscream raid (November - 2015)
6.4 - filler (March -2016)
7.0 Next exp. pack - (November - 2016)

So i think it is very possible they will do it with 2 raids but since they split the launch raids they can always keep telling us we got 3 raids not two.

BRF is released 4 february 2015. They've already announced that. BRF isn't tied to release of 6.1, but I would expect the patch to be released as soon as Mythic progression is live because a lot of the announced changes are related to BRF. A 6.4 filler raid hasn't been yet announced; on the contrary, it was announced this expansion would have 2 tiers.

[Civfanata]

I still like the throwing in some 10 mans in the middle of tiers. Makes it fun times!