Why does Warlords of Draenor have to be completely written off?

[Marmot]

Our last major content patch came in the form of 6.2, which was seven months into the expansion. We're now at 12 months of Warlords of Draenor with another 8-10 months to go.

I'd much rather get more content to support the current expansion and have Legion come out significantly later than to have an entire expansion we waited over a year for get ended so abruptly. We had a content drought from the release of Highmaul to the release of BRF, and then another while waiting for the release of patch 6.2, making the expansion feel like a waste of time.

Why can't we get more support for this expansion in the form of actual content? If it means waiting another 5-6 months for Legion, but actually getting something for our money in the meantime, would that not be better than waiting from June 2015 all the way to somewhere between June and late September 2016 with nothing new?

I don't get this mentality at Blizzard where they say every expansion that they want to get the new one out sooner. Why? Why bother if it means leaving the game in a terrible state in the meantime? Content droughts are stupid, and the excuses are even worse.

The wait for Cataclysm sucked, the wait for Mists of Pandaria sucked, the wait for Warlords of Draenor sucked. This one won't be any different, and the excuses aren't any different either. Why can't they just change the way they handle things and work on content for the current expansion as well?

I'm not saying it's easy to come up with content for the game, but dropping it every time they want to make another expansion isn't helping either.

[Tomana]

But we don't have the resources! Nvm, we have 250 people working on the game (according to devs).

[Marmot]

But we don't have the resources! Nvm, we have 250 people working on the game (according to devs).

I don't understand the mentality of having to rush out the next expansion while sacrificing the current one. Would an 18 month wait from the final raid tier to the new expansion really feel like an 18 month wait if it had content added throughout? Compared to a 12-15 month wait with no new content, I'd honestly prefer that.

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They finished telling the story, any other content would just be filler.

But does that mean it has to be ended for the sake of getting the next expansion out sooner?

[Adoxe]

I don't understand the mentality of having to rush out the next expansion while sacrificing the current one. Would an 18 month wait from the final raid tier to the new expansion really feel like an 18 month wait if it had content added throughout? Compared to a 12-15 month wait with no new content, I'd honestly prefer that.

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But does that mean it has to be ended for the sake of getting the next expansion out sooner?

Yes. No one cares about WoD, go play another game while waiting for Legion.

[Deleted]

Why can't we get more support for this expansion in the form of actual content? If it means waiting another 5-6 months for Legion, but actually getting something for our money in the meantime, would that not be better than waiting from June 2015 all the way to somewhere between June and late September 2016 with nothing new?

No. They've lost so many subs during this expansion already, that it makes more sense to divert all available resources to salvaging the franchise.

[Marmot]

No. They've lost so many subs during this expansion already, that it makes more sense to divert all available resources to salvaging the franchise.

Why can't they salvage the content they wasted over a year developing in the first place? They cut off Mists of Pandaria to get Warlords of Draenor out sooner and it turned out utter shit due to lack of consideration for actual repeatable content. Fix that problem and throw a few bones every couple of months. I'm not asking for raids, just things to do and reasons to visit places they would've otherwise wasted time developing.

[XorMalice]

Pretty sure all that content money went to buy candy crush.

WoD has already been written off by the players, so the devs following is no surprise. I do see your point, and of COURSE they should be putting in supporting content. For all that talk about faster expacs, they would need to launch WoD not 24 months (November of 2016), nor 22 months (September of 2016, this is actually the current working month), nor 20 months (July of 2016), but at WORST 18 months (May of 2016).

They don't seem to be discussing a May release, which would be the "shorter cycles" used to justify only having two tiers instead of three. Personally, I'm worried that it will be pushed further. "We want to make sure it's done right", but internally the marketing department will be like "gawrsh mickey, there's only eleventy zillion other games launching in November, we should add legion to that!".


I'm so very glad that I skipped WoD. I am absolutely looking forward to Legion.

[Marmot]

There are other things they could still add to Draenor to break up the wait a bit as well, such as actually adding Farahlon and putting a variety of content into the zone to make it worth doing. Other possibilities being finishing off any hostile splinters of the Iron Horde, or any significant demons that might've escaped Tanaan after the fall of Archimonde. Perhaps even some clarification on Gromm's story, explaining why the hell he is suddenly on our side at the end of Hellfire Citadel. There are so many things they could do to make the wait for Legion feel less of an actual wait, but they're opting to do the same thing that people have complained about every expansion instead.

[Tomana]

There are other things they could still add to Draenor to break up the wait a bit as well, such as actually adding Farahlon and putting a variety of content into the zone to make it worth doing. Other possibilities being finishing off any hostile splinters of the Iron Horde, or any significant demons that might've escaped Tanaan after the fall of Archimonde. Perhaps even some clarification on Gromm's story, explaining why the hell he is suddenly on our side at the end of Hellfire Citadel. There are so many things they could do to make the wait for Legion feel less of an actual wait, but they're opting to do the same thing that people have complained about every expansion instead.

If I was leading the pony circus called Blizzard WoW team, I'd release a pre-invasion patch several months in advance, with first small single scouts appearing at random all over Azeroth, then 2-3 demon gangs, then larger teams, then portals to nether with elites you can fight (instanced scenarios).
Oh, and put on another war effort to lead the expedition to Tomb of Sargeras by gathering materials, crafted stuff and what not.
All of this can be done mostly with recycled assets from BC (yeah, they are not up to the WOD number of polygons level but screw that) and some scripting. And if done properly, it can shove at least 2 months off the wait.

[XorMalice]

Well, the funniest part is the entire missing zones and last minute plot rewrites. The number of broken promises this expansion is easily a record, and is QQed about in other threads. It's funny because the mistreatment of the playerbase maps so directly to subs over the years. Maybe they could just try not lying like crazy about content, and cutting everything during the expac for a change.

[Pull My Finger]

I'd much rather get more content to support the current expansion and have Legion come out significantly later than to have an entire expansion we waited over a year for get ended so abruptly.

Disagree. WoD is through. It would be time and effort wasted. A new expansion simply has bigger impact psychologically. It's a complete restart. Not only for the game, but also for all the players that have written off the current expansion mentally/emotionally.

If you look at WoD ... the expansion actually isn't half as bad as all the whiners would have you believe. It got better halfway through, thanks to some additions, some adjustments, some changes in the reward scheme of the expansion etc. Some of the issues were sort of taken care of, but the thing is: at that point, it was too little, too late.

The expansion was not engaging enough, too unrewarding and too stale during a decisive first half of its lifespan, especially for the more moderate parts of the player base, and just couldn't keep the players around. As a player that decided to quit, you kind of wore the content out without ever really getting enough satisfaction out of it. And that's it. Forfeited chance. Once people have reached that point of either oversaturation or definite disappointment, it's very very hard to win them over again, even with improvements. It just comes too late, they're through with it emotionally. That's why a new expansion is always the better approach than life support measures that should have been part of the package from the start.

Anyways, I think speaking of "dropping it" is wrong anyway. They're not "dropping" anything. But at some point, an expansion has to come to an end. And in the case of WoW, we know that this also includes a lengthy idle state on live. They're not doing it because they think it's a cool idea. They do it like that because they can't develop patch content and expansion content at the same time. And if they could, I'm pretty sure they'd allocate those ressources into building an even bigger expansion instead of doing a content patch on the side. That's the answer to your question. Why can't we have some kind of content until Legion hits? Because they'd rather make that content for Legion. Reasons above.

[Marmot]

If I was leading the pony circus called Blizzard WoW team, I'd release a pre-invasion patch several months in advance, with first small single scouts appearing at random all over Azeroth, then 2-3 demon gangs, then larger teams, then portals to nether with elites you can fight (instanced scenarios).
Oh, and put on another war effort to lead the expedition to Tomb of Sargeras by gathering materials, crafted stuff and what not.
All of this can be done mostly with recycled assets from BC (yeah, they are not up to the WOD number of polygons level but screw that) and some scripting. And if done properly, it can shove at least 2 months off the wait.

There are so many possibilities, but they probably don't want to do anything cos they're afraid of breaking the work they've done for legion by adding something to WoD, which is something they really need to look at dealing with to be honest.

[guardian_titan]

WotLK was made with like 35 people. Team now is around 250 people. You'd think they could put 30-50 people working on current expansion content so we're not stuck with year long droughts and have the other 200 working on the next expansion. Begs the question how Blizzard divvies up the work. They made expansions with far less people in the past so how is it they can't split their 250 people into 5-10 teams to work on content simultaneously? The new people SHOULD be trained by now so you'd think theoretically they could have at least 3 or 4 teams with 1 of those dedicated to content for the current expansion.

And there is still WoD content missing. Yrel's still got a dark secret left untold. Farahlon is still MIA. The ogre continent could also be added. Maladaar's still on our side and hasn't been persuaded to the Legion (guy's a boss in Auchenei Crypts). You'd think the Knights of the Ebon Blade would be interested in Ner'zhul since the guy is technically the Lich King. Hell, Blizzard could even do a side event with an AU Stormwind as a mini tie-in the to movie. There's even a story line they could do with Grommash on how he redeems himself after the events of HFC. They can't just up and accept the guy changed with the snap of one's fingers. Would people have forgiven Hitler if he got captured by the Japanese and helped us take them down in WWII? Hell no. So why are we suddenly forgiving Grommash? There's potentially more story there with the player possibly even helping him to redeem himself by doing things with him around Draenor.

There's also an entire raid missing. Shattrath was to be a raid but got cut for no real reason beyond Blizzard trying (and failing) for faster expansions. Blizzard could easily bring that in with Kil'jaeden appearing for round 2. We had Archimonde in TBC followed by Kil'jaeden so stands to reason Kil'jaeden can make a comeback to do what Archimonde couldn't ... and fails, too. They could even delve into whatever Yrel's secret is in the raid as well as Maladaar's fall. Maybe they could even do a dungeon, too, that's effectively the Lower City area where we try to find a way into the upper level.

There's story to tell and Blizzard can certainly do it. Thing is, they won't. Such a disappointment.

[Marmot]

There's story to tell and Blizzard can certainly do it. Thing is, they won't. Such a disappointment.

Yeah and that is a problem to be honest. Hell, they could leave Draenor as it is and work on adding hype up content for Legion every 6 weeks or so until the release, just to give players something to mess around with while we wait. WoW has become a game all about waiting for the next big thing, and as people have said, it is reflected in the subscriber numbers as of late.

[Darsithis]

Who said it was being "written off"?

[Cæli]

You can't try doing yearly expansion and doing good work, players don't even have time to fully enjoy it, and the team doesn't need to be that huge, the more programmers the harder it is to get something consistent close to the creator visions on what World of Warcraft should be, can result in lower quality content.

[Marmot]

Who said it was being "written off"?

Who said it wasn't? We aren't having any more content between the tiny valor patch and the release of 7.0. That is writing off an expansion just as they've done with every one prior to WoD.

[Cæli]

You can't try doing yearly expansion and doing good work, players don't even have time to fully enjoy it, and the team doesn't need to be that huge, the more programmers the harder it is to get something consistent close to the creator visions on what World of Warcraft should be, can result in lower quality content, and multiple teams badly synchronised, WoW is about quality more than quantity.

They tried increasing the delivering speed of content, they got the logical effects. You need to take your time to create well thought stuff and never stop delivering, people WILL enjoy as before, not trying to increase teams and go ultra fast.

[Tomana]

There are so many possibilities, but they probably don't want to do anything cos they're afraid of breaking the work they've done for legion by adding something to WoD, which is something they really need to look at dealing with to be honest.

Au contraire, it would prepare the Legion entrance perfectly. I mean, it's a freaking invasion. But my guess is, they have orders from upstairs to not spend a dime more on WOD. Or on Legion, for that matter.

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WotLK was made with like 35 people. Team now is around 250 people. You'd think they could put 30-50 people working on current expansion content so we're not stuck with year long droughts and have the other 200 working on the next expansion. Begs the question how Blizzard divvies up the work.

I would really really like to see how they're working and why it takes them so goddamn long to release stuff smaller teams manage to release way faster.
They are either too perfectionist, spend too much time in meetings, or no longer give a damn about anything until some heads roll.

[Marmot]

Au contraire, it would prepare the Legion entrance perfectly. I mean, it's a freaking invasion. But my guess is, they have orders from upstairs to not spend a dime more on WOD. Or on Legion, for that matter.

I get your point, and I agree, but I mostly meant from a technical standpoint. I think adding more content before Legion is released would complicate development of Legion (I'm not 100% sure on that though, but the way wow is held together with virtual band aids at this point, this probably would be the case).