Do you want a 1 year expansion?

[DeadmanWalking]

Blizzard is pretty hot on the ideal of having a 1 year expansion, to the point that we may only see 2 raid tiers this expansion and in my opinion have carved out the middle content (Questing to max -> Middle content->Gearing up to raid content) in the pursuit of pushing more development into getting the next expansion out within a year.

But do you actually want a 1 year expansion? Do you want a new expansion within a year of Wod's release?

In my opinion the reason why WoD is missing so much middle content is because they think that questing to max and gearing to raid are the essential wow experiences and anything else can be axed to get that one year expansion out. I personally don't really care how long an expansion lasts so long as there is new content every 6-7 months. It seems to me that we are in the middle of another of Blizzards famous over corrections, where they spent 15 months in SoO they think they can fix the problem by having a year long expansion at the expense of the middle content (scenarios, dungeons, questing daily reps, new 'islands' and lore quests and cut scenes.).

I am curious if the player base even really wants a yearly expansion of if this is just something Blizzard really wants.

[Wrathonia]

I honestly don't care too much about the length of the expansion. But they need to have constant content throughout it's lifecycle. THAT is really what people complain about. Vanilla was great in that respect. Constant patches (for better or worse) and new content semi regularly. BC wasn't too bad in how it spaced the content out. WotLK is when things started getting bad after they took too long with the old world remake for Cata. They haven't recovered since. The drought at the end of the expansion is mainly what people dread, though WoD is just bad for content regardless. WoD needs to be canned and move on to the next expansion, but this one needs to have actual content and have some forethought and life put into it's design and longevity.

[Kazgrel]

Aside from raid content, there's been jack all added to the game with WoD. Would rather them add stuff to what they have now to warrant the price hike.

Encouraging yearly expansions, given what WoD has been thus far, is akin to gleefully bending over and taking it in the rear from Acti-Blizzard.

Now if, say, we had all the content from previous xpacs condensed into a year timeframe...things could be different. I would say it would feel overwhelming if BC/WOTLK/Cata/MoP were all condensed into a year. The absolute cutting edge guilds would clear the content, but general masses would be SOL. But I'm not accounting for all the various difficulty settings that are available now.

[mysticx]

I don't think i want expansions more frequently (Not for WoD's price, at least), but i do know for sure that i just want OrcFest 2015 to be done, to quote Nielas Aran (Ghost wizard boss in Karazhan): I just want this nightmare to be over!

[SL1200]

No I do not. I don't think it's enough time to let an expasnion develop properly.

[Varabently]

Blizzard is pretty hot on the ideal of having a 1 year expansion, to the point that we may only see 2 raid tiers this expansion and in my opinion have carved out the middle content (Questing to max -> Middle content->Gearing up to raid content) in the pursuit of pushing more development into getting the next expansion out within a year.

But do you actually want a 1 year expansion? Do you want a new expansion within a year of Wod's release?

In my opinion the reason why WoD is missing so much middle content is because they think that questing to max and gearing to raid are the essential wow experiences and anything else can be axed to get that one year expansion out. I personally don't really care how long an expansion lasts so long as there is new content every 6-7 months. It seems to me that we are in the middle of another of Blizzards famous over corrections, where they spent 15 months in SoO they think they can fix the problem by having a year long expansion at the expense of the middle content (scenarios, dungeons, questing daily reps, new 'islands' and lore quests and cut scenes.).

I am curious if the player base even really wants a yearly expansion of if this is just something Blizzard really wants.

If it means no more 14 month raid tiers, I'm all for it. It feels like a cash grab to me, but I'd rather that than go months and months with nothing new. Hell I'd settle for incentives to run current content. Give me a reason to run LFR or heroics or anything. I have no real reason to log in outside of raid times these days. Everything is just too damn easy now, from getting gold (garrisons lol) to leveling up, to gearing up. It's all trivial and it will drive people out of the game.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Absolutely not.

They should take their time with them, have lengthy Beta testing with multiple re-iterations after feedback, and release a finished product.

Not to mention the speed with which everything has been released in WoD has made the Warlords seem like a joke. Sure lore-wise the time table is longer but to conquer our toughest foes yet in a year? No thanks.

[Deleted]

No, i would like a 3 tier expansion with 4 patches.

x.0 -> initial patch with a raid with 8 bosses and dungeons and outdoor content
x.1 -> outdoor content, dungeons, epic scenarios for large groups
x.2 -> a raid with 8 bosses and new dungeons and a lot of new outdoor content
x.3 -> daily quest hubs, dungeons, new epic scenarios for large groups
x.4 -> the final raid with another 7-8 bosses, new dungeons and a lot of outdoor content again. With a quest chain that allows to see the final plot. And not in raids.

After that, not more than 6 months should be over for the release of the next expac. There would be a time frame not bigger than 6 months between each raid patch.

If blizzard needs more money for developing that, they should make expacs a little bit more expensive.

[threads]

i just want well-paced quality content. i don't want an xpac with half the time spent in 1 raid. i also don't want a WoD xpac where patches add jukeboxes and selfie cams.

[Deleted]

18-20 months for me personally.

[Jotaux]

Ideally, I would like 4-5 months per raid tier and expansions every 3 tiers.

[Gourmandise]

I don't want more frequent expansions. Why should I pay more to have them give more attempts at fixing their own game(that 50/50 fail) and create less fleshed-out expansions?

[Ihnasir]

Only if I have to pay $20 for a year of content.

[Aurora]

Of course Blizzard are hot on the idea, it's less content for more money when you consider the number of players who only WoW for a new expansion and take out a sub for a month or two.
I don't like the idea for reasons you mentioned. WoW has always been at its best for me in the mid to late part of expansions when the game climate is starting to settle and Blizzard are starting to roll out the non-essential to the expnasions theme content and QoL adjustments that really adds variety and fun to the game. In WoD there seems to be a general vibe of "we'll fix it next expansion" when it comes to major issues since they have so little development time for anything outside of the core expansion tickboxes.
In general the expansion to me right now feels like it's in its early stages and it's weird to think that it's already being wound up, it seems like really poor value and far less memorable than other expansions.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Every year, no. Because we'd probably stop getting patches. Just x.0 updates.

Right now things seem set up for an expansion every year and a half, and honestly I miss that third tier.

I"d rather have two years.

[opeth150]

With how unpolished WoD has been I think blizzard is unable to put out a xpac each year and have it feel like an xpac. You can tell that WoD has been rushed to market with nothing to show for it. I have found I do more old content outside of raiding then new stuff because there just isn't something for me to do. I don't really do reps , and WOD rep grind is awful, and I have done all the dungeons to many times to count to help guildies lvl their alts. My professions are maxed, my cooking is maxed, my fishing is maxed, all the zones are finished with quests (except for nagrand). So give me steady polished content (content like it shows you been working with this game for 10+ years now) and I will be happy.

[Gourmandise]

"we'll fix it next expansion"

And as we've seen, they tried to fix stuff this expansion but ended up running out of time and giving us half-finished classes and jazz, only to get stuff started on the right track by taking up resource time from the patches they already don't push out fast enough/give enough content to

[Kazgrel]

Food for thought; if they were already on the 18-20 month cycle starting with WOTLK, we would already be about done with WoD now and would be about to start whatever xpac was to follow. The end of the past 3 xpacs featured raids that were 12 months in duration (minimum). Lop off 6 months from each one, that's 18 months that could've been a whole other xpac instead of faceroll farm content.

[Nutri]

For what WoD was thus far, I'm not going to buy another xpac every year if this is what they mean with annual xpacs, certainly not for this pricetag.

[Deleted]

2 years, no less!