So we are down to a content patch every 2 years now?

[Deleted]

So a new expansion, dungeons, raids, world bosses etc aren't considered content by you? Cause they are, in actuality

Out of curiosity, what do you think a subscription traditionally pays for in an MMO?

A $50 expansion obviously includes all that you just mentioned, but the whole fundamental point of paying a subscription is to receive updated content. This game was always expensive, but now it is even more expensive for considerably less content. That is what is annoying people.

But yeah, the knee jerk response "well don't pay the subscription then" has actually started taking very noticeable effect, and Azeroth is deader than ever because of it.

I'm pretty sure they actually expect you to unsub and then come back when there's content again.

This is EXACTLY what Blizzard are doing now. The profit gained from minimal developer effort and full price expansion prices obviously now outweighs maintaining a happy subscriber community. It certainly seems that the sub fee only exists to squeeze the final drips of cash from the remaining fan base that are willing to pay for it.

[Gaebryel Quintyne]

exactly my thoughts
worked in pandaria and dreanor, will definitely work in legion

What... Are you implying that Mists didn't have content or something?

[Pua]

Sadly, Gehco, you're starting to live down to my expectations.

Well, as I said, it wasn't the method people wanted, with unlocking content already in the game. Or adding features some might not like - still addition of content, not much, but some.

Unlocking content is NOT addition of content. No. As for the "features" you describe, they were features - not content. You can cry wolf all you like about this, but every retort makes you look sillier and sillier.

First of all, I never stated that the expansion patches was equivalent of normal content patches. I stated it was content, no matter how you turn it, that is the truth.

Nice try. Your intention was to mislead the topic of the conversation by talking about the addition of content through expansions, which is NOT what the topic is about, nor what I was talking about when you responded to me. This is little more than weasel-wording to avoid admitting that you're talking absolute bollocks.

And you know it.

Eh, not only content patches. Your subscription is going for a ton more, and some of your box money too - even development of patches.

Did I say otherwise? No? I thought not. What I said was that subscriptions are the driving factor for financing additional content, as expansion boxes pay for (whisper it) expansion content. Other things subscriptions, boxes and microtransactions pay for include server upkeep and access, staff wages and technical costs.

Source? (It was an unneeded request, for there is not direct source for this). For else, I would've said it would go for development of what ever, and payroll. I don't see stocks rising once a new pet is released.

Read the financial reports, or do some basic arithmetic. Do you honestly think billions from subscriptions alone (deliberately NOT counting boxes and microtransactions) are being invested back into the game? Of course not.

As I said, it is still possible if released in the summer. September 21st is what is called a critical release date, the day it HAS to be out. December is still a possibility, even at that, depends of the next expansion and the schedule which we don't know shit about.

You're not reading what I'm telling you, which explains why you're talking what can only be loosely described as gibberish.

Ah, let me explain then, 'you don't enjoy all the content?' Simple made of writing. I know waiting can be heard and all, but as I said a little up, we don't know the schedule for the future.

Whether I enjoy all the content or not makes no difference. THERE'S LESS THAN IN ANY PREVIOUS EXPANSION. And this, funnily enough, is despite the longest expansion development cycle in history, soon to be bettered by Legion which, according to some sources, was being developed simultaneously!

In any event, your explanation is awful.

What's a "simple made of writing"? Anyone? I know grammar can be heard(!) and all, but only by the tapping of feet and sighs of frustration as Blizzard effectively give up on providing a decent service when, in reality, bargain-basement support is enough to not only keep rubes subscribed, but have them pay for pre-orders because they're gullible enough to think they're getting free stuff.

[Tart]

I rathely have them spend more time on good expansion then nother WoD.

Rushing things aint good and they proofed it with idea of faster expansion. WoD was terrible unless you raid day and night everyday.

Keep clutching those straws son. I hope I'm wrong but I doubt I am, legion will be poor. I think wod was the the lid on the coffin, legion will be the final nail.

[Deficineiron]

And yet Blizzard promised us more content and faster patches since what, Cataclysm? Guess they did the opposite of what they promised. And they accomplished this with a much bigger team? Come on, somewhere the management is f*cking up bigtime.

this thread desperately needs a reality check. Why would anyone consider 4 sequential 1-year no content periods after expansions a 'mess-up' or 'problem' at blizzard?

The simplest conclusion at this point is that it is working at intended, and they intend this. They trot out big names during the drought each time around with soothing platitudes (we have gone from 'we want faster expansions' to 'biggest team ever yay' and now not sure what the new big story is.).

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Just because they don't add end-game content, does not mean a patch was content-less. It just means YOU didn't like what was in it. HUGE difference.

That is right, good to see someone sticking up for Selfie Cam!!

[Echo of Soul]

The simplest conclusion at this point is that it is working at intended, and they intend this.

If that's the case they should stop saying that they are trying to address the problem.

[Shudder]

First of all, Legion is not said to be released in september. The september date is the last possibility. Not a given. .

^THIS

It most likely will NOT be released in September. You're looking at October-Decemeber. :P

[Deficineiron]

Of course it is.

We've no idea how many designers work on World of Warcraft full-time, and I say full-time very deliberately; because it'd mean that claiming "there are more designers than ever" (which Chilton has done) might yet remain true despite many of those designers actually being employed on several projects. What we do know, via the accounts, is that production budgets at Blizzard have been going down for the last half-decade or so. That hardly suggests to me that there are somehow more staff working on World of Warcraft. Given that they now have more games to support than they did five years ago, while also knowing that World of Warcraft no longer accounts for over half of their income, we can deduce in relatively clear terms what's going on.

If we want to be really speculative, we could also argue that Blizzard has now found out that minimal effort will still bring in substantial revenue. Warlords of Draenor made them billions by any conservative estimate, and it was essentially half of an expansion when compared to its predecessors.

As consumers, we're free to bury our head in the sand for as long as we want. You can do it, and I won't criticize you for it. But World of Warcraft is making a fortune compared to what's being invested in the game itself, and loose arguments like paying designers "tons of money" (when we don't know how many there are, or what salary they're taking home) just don't wash after even a cursory consideration. Support has also gone down, given that waiting times on tickets have gone up despite the game losing half of its players.

Hell, Blizzard have learned that they can actually make more money out of people by offering pre-orders that amount to chopping stuff out of the game and selling it to people stupid enough to cough up for it.

And where is all that money going?

We know it's not going into the game, and their other titles have revenue streams of their own.

If you don't think investors are getting richer out of their stock, you're being hopelessly naive about it given what we know about Mr. Robert Kotick and his business priorities.



1) 6.1 wasn't a content patch, as Ion Hazzikostas himself was forced to admit it. He stated that it'd have been more accurate to have called it 6.0.x.
2) Expansion releases are paid for via their box sales. They don't count as content patches, because they need to be paid for in advance.
3) In order for 2016 to see a content patch, Blizzard would have to release 7.1 in a faster timeframe than any major patch before it.

Look, I get it. White-knighting is considered the "mature" stance to take, and anyone being critical is just an entitled baby. But the edifice really is crumbling when you have to start defending the terrible content provision since 5.4, and is making such defences look ever more desperate, and ludicrous.

a point - i doubt wow overall showed over 2 billion gross revenue since wod launched, including pre-sales.

but yes, here is a nice exercise with numbers

Wow's lifetime revenue is greater than all other western mmo's lifetime revenues combined. this has been the case since 2007, and maybe even 2006 or ?? 2005.

Wow's annual revenue now is almost certainly greater than annual revenue for all other western mmo's combined.

I will offer one more thought. I think it is very likely wow's annual INCOME is even now higher than all other western mmo's combined REVENUE. they are on a 750~~million run rate recently (revenue).

It would be interesting to flesh this out. has EA ever broken out swtor revenue? what are the other majors and are there ways to model them, with some reasonable margin for error? It might be that wow's revenues are 2x or 3x greater than combined annual revenues for all other western mmo's combined, just just 'greater.'

so take alllllll those other mmo's out there that put content out, and compare that quantity and quality of content to what wow puts out. I doubt many posters here really know the bulk of other mmo's well enough to quantify or try to, but I am sure it is many, many multiples of the content wow puts out by any measurement.

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If that's the case they should stop saying that they are trying to address the problem.

bad, bad business idea. You do the opposite, and send the blue names out with soothing statements that won't be true and may be absolute lies, but sound good and soothe the herd until the next culling/shearing/whatever.

[Shudder]

It actually says "Game will be released on or before September 21, 2016."

It actually didn't. But making stuff up is fun, right? Yay fun! You should go look at it again, I think you'll find the missing word to be even more fun!

[Thetruth1400]

It's definitely not a step in the right direction in my opinion.

I personally liked the vanilla model the best where we had content patches every 1-3 months over the course of roughly 2 years. Not all content patches brought raids though, some brought new dungeons and some brought new battlegrounds. 12 content patches where some were major and some minor made the game feel more alive as there was always something new being added.

I agree 100%. Frankly, what Blizzard has been offering since Cataclysm is a joke when you look at it in the grand scheme. The content really hasn't been that high quality, and we're seeing a hell of a lot less of it, not to mention we're seeing it in big chunks instead of spread out so there is always something to do. Part of that issue though is the fact they've taken the loot treadmill / carrot on the stick out of the game in favor of "bring the player" and "we want people to be able to play with their friends." They sound good on paper, but basically water the game down to no individuality and too many catch up mechanics that make the game trivial.

[Farath]

I rathely have them spend more time on good expansion then nother WoD.

Rushing things aint good and they proofed it with idea of faster expansion. WoD was terrible unless you raid day and night everyday.

They spent their time creating WoD. What makes you think they won't stuff it up again?

[sykoex]

MoP was the perfect model for an expansion. I hope they can get back to the level of quality and content with Legion.

[Amerissis]

It actually didn't. But making stuff up is fun, right? Yay fun! You should go look at it again, I think you'll find the missing word to be even more fun!

Seriously, you think I didn't check before correcting you? You're making a fool of yourself.

https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/produc...arcraft-legion

[Shudder]

Seriously, you think I didn't check before correcting you? You're making a fool of yourself.

https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/produc...arcraft-legion

Blizzard is located in the US. Notice the wording.
https://us.battle.net/shop/en/produc...arcraft-legion

[feellucky]

Just because they don't add end-game content, does not mean a patch was content-less. It just means YOU didn't like what was in it. HUGE difference.

Very few people liked what was in it, you can call twitter integration and selfie cams content but most of us do not.

[Tart]

Ultimately it won't matter of legion is amazing, but another WOD will kill this game

I think it's inevitable it's going to crash as the rot has already set in. Fingers crossed I am wrong as I want the game to make a glorious come back, but the direction it has been going since wotlk it's only a matter of time.

[OreoLover]

I think it's inevitable it's going to crash as the rot has already set in. Fingers crossed I am wrong as I want the game to make a glorious come back, but the direction it has been going since wotlk it's only a matter of time.

...it's only a matter of time for anything... What sort of glorious comeback do you want?

[samus]

MoP was the perfect model for an expansion. I hope they can get back to the level of quality and content with Legion.

Holy crap we've reached the stage were MoP is actually the standard to which blizzard are held.

Let's look at the previous models:

Naxxramas was released June 20th 2006
The Burning Crusade was released January 16th 2007
6 month gap

Sunwell was released march 25th 2008
Wrath of the lich king was released 13th of November 2008
7 month gap


ICC was released December 8th, 2009.
Cataclysm was released December 7th 2010
1 year between the two

Dragon Souls was release 29th November 2011
Mists of Pandaria was released 25th September 2012
10 months between the two

Siege of Ogrimmar was released 10th of September 2013
Warlords Of Draenor was released September 25th 2014
1 year between the two.

The truth is, ICC took a year and the subs started dropping. Players don't want 1 year between a content patch and an expansion.

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...it's only a matter of time for anything... What sort of glorious comeback do you want?

Give me an MMO that focuses less on single player content and more on working with people and I'll be happy. Would be good to make some friends within the game again. All my olds ones have left.

I miss the leveling experience of the older expansions. Working with people you find out in the world to finish group quests was always fun and I made a lot of friends that way.

[Tart]

...it's only a matter of time for anything... What sort of glorious comeback do you want?

Difficulty in the world, weapons and armor not being handed out like sweets, removal of lfr and group finders, no xrealm and the return of server communities, classes being unique, no more conveniences, no more raid or die, dungeons being big and tough with quests galore. I have a list as long as my arm.

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Holy crap we've reached the stage were MoP is actually the standard to which blizzard are held.

Let's look at the previous models:

Naxxramas was released June 20th 2006
The Burning Crusade was released January 16th 2007
6 month gap

Sunwell was released march 25th 2008
Wrath of the lich king was released 13th of November 2008
7 month gap


ICC was released December 8th, 2009.
Cataclysm was released December 7th 2010
1 year between the two

Dragon Souls was release 29th November 2011
Mists of Pandaria was released 25th September 2012
10 months between the two

Siege of Ogrimmar was released 10th of September 2013
Warlords Of Draenor was released September 25th 2014
1 year between the two.

The truth is, ICC took a year and the subs started dropping. Players don't want 1 year between a content patch and an expansion.

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Give me an MMO that focuses less on single player content and more on working with people and I'll be happy. Would be good to make some friends within the game again. All my olds ones have left.

I miss the leveling experience of the older expansions. Working with people you find out in the world to finish group quests was always fun and I made a lot of friends that way.

And this 10char

[Accendor]

As I said, it is still possible if released in the summer. September 21st is what is called a critical release date, the day it HAS to be out. December is still a possibility, even at that, depends of the next expansion and the schedule which we don't know shit about.

It's 99% guaranteed that legion will not be out on September 1st. Around 6 months of beta testing is usually needed and if you look at the desaster that WoD was from a technical point of view you should actually add another month, but let's stay with 6.
Even if beta was released today it would still be October when legion launches.
But we are currently not even close to beta yet when you look at the state of alpha at the moment. My guess would be at least two more months in alpha.

That being said I would not bet money on only the year 2016 for legion release. It is very possible that we will not see a in 2016.