8.0 announce and release speculation (with data)

[acf]

Hi all,

Due to a combination of having some free time on hand and me really hoping to see the next WoW expansion announcement at Blizzcon 17 (will be my first Blizzcon), I did some quick data digging and put together the table below with some quick analysis:

On next expansion announce and release date:

• Theoretically, 8.0 could be announced as soon as in 3 weeks
• However, this is unlikely as we don’t even know anything about Patch 7.3 yet
• If it was to be revealed at Blizzcon 17 (Nov. 2) and then released a year later, it would make 8.0 the longest it took to announce and Legion the longest WOW expansion
• Combine the above 2, this makes a Aug. 22 Gamescom announcement more plausible in theory
• Assuming a 8.0 announcement between now and Blizzcon 17, this won’t be the first time an expansion is announced before the release of the final tier of its predecessor: Wrath, Cata and MoP were all announced before their previous expansion’s final tier; Legion was announced ~2 weeks after 6.2 (HFC); WoD being the only exception announced ~2 months after 5.4 (SOO)

On content of Legion:

• Interestingly Legion patches have largely followed a release schedule of every 11 weeks
• By this logic, we can expect 7.3 on Aug 29th and 7.3.5 on Nov 14th
• Legion will be the first expansion with 3 raid patches (NH, ToS, Argus raid) in its lifespan since Wrath; although one can argue its raid content upon release is the weakest in history (EN with 7 bosses)

On expansion history:

• WoD is the shortest-lived expansion, but only beating Cata by 2 days
• The time between final tier and next expansion release has unfortunately been increasing: MoP and WoD both had 13 months+ of their respective final tier (SoO and HFC); Before that, final tiers generally lasted 9 to 10 months; Wrath pre-patch came a mere half year after the Sunwell patch (Wrath was also announced before Patch 2.2)

Regarding the chart:
Black are factual data collected from the Internet
Red are calculated speculations

[Deleted]

They will not announce 8.0 before blizzcon.
They only announced legion at gamescom because wod was running out fast and they wanted to hype something up ASAP.
100% blizzcon announcement, legion isnt running out of content yet we still have 7.3/7.3.5/(7.4? intro to next expac).

And they said they stopped trying to make yearly expacs.

[Flatspriest]

Most likely, they will announce the next expansion at Gamescon instead of Blizzcon much like they did with Legion. Then, about a year later, we would get the expansion. The reason I think this is that they need something big to announce at Gamescon, and that is about the only thing to really announce.

[Hyrja]

I think you're pretty on point. Im just curious tho. If the Argus raid does open in November there has to be another raid between may-november 2018, unless they fail again like with SoO, HFC.

[Deleted]

For me its 99% sure that the next exp pack announcement is at blizzcon.

[Seramore]

The expansion is far more likely to be announced at Blizzcon rather than Gamescon. If anything is to be announced at Gamescon, it will be T21. Even then that would be unlikely simply due to the fact that T21 will probably be announced within a month or so if the past were to say anything.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean, they could have the Argus raid up at November and release 8.0 in September. 10 months is not bad for a final raid, especially if they make it a big one. There is all this other content to do anyway plus alts (and historically people shift heavily to alts after they clear the final raid; Legion has enough alt content to last you for a year).

Blizzard wants to avoid having extended final raid tiers. I know they say it literally every expansion but if they were to have a shorter final raid tier, this expansion would be the one to have it. I don't think ten months of Argus is likely. If anything, they'll release another raid like ToV or at the very least, simply more patch content before 8.0.

[Shampro]

It will be at Blizzcon, at the earliest, Legion isn't even a year old. Hell, it won't be a year old even after Gamescom.

So Gamescom = 7.3

Blizzcon = either another massive patch or expansion.

[Deleted]

It will be at Blizzcon, at the earliest, Legion isn't even a year old. Hell, it won't be a year old even after Gamescom.

So Gamescom = 7.3

Blizzcon = either another massive patch or expansion.

This sounds about right.

[Casagrande]

7.3 is not coming out next month. A major raid released last week, and just started yesterday on mythic. It will be at least 4-5 months, maybe right around Blizzcon time. Which also happens to be a good time to announce an expansion. If that makes Legion a particularly long expansion then so be it, the quantity and pacing of content has been pretty good so far.

[Seramore]

In all honesty I think it might be more likely that they delay the Argus raid a bit more and release an extra raid on THIS tier. 9 bosses is a bit short.

Numbers wise yes, length wise I don't think anybody is really sure yet. If the final bosses of the raid tier are really difficult then the length of the tier will probably be a little bit shorter than the time it took an average Mythic guild to clear Nighthold. That still gives a little bit more extended time in Tomb but ultimately I feel like Argus will end up coming out sooner rather than later.

[Steeberino]

This expansion was meant to be a big restructuring of the way they schedule content releases, so I think it's more likely that we'll see a longer gap until the next expansion, but with less content drought in between. If I had to guess, it means 7.3(.5) will have a bit more space between or perhaps some additional content after and we'll see a late 2018 expansion. It may make it the longest expansion, but it'll also be the one with the most consistent content releases.

[Alydael]

Teaser with a drop of information (to whet our appetites) at gamescomm.

"Full" announcement reveal at blizzconn.

[Kody]

Interesting thread. My guesses, based on their development cycle for the expansion and trade show timing -- as well as industry experience creating product roadmaps. I'm including the remaining development for Legion to illustrate the timeline:

2017
July - 7.3 PTR
August - New expansion (8.0) announcement at Gamescom
Late August / Early September - 7.3 release (Argus story & world content)
Late September - 7.3.5 PTR
November - 8.0 demo at BlizzCon
Late November - 7.3.5 release & Argus raid

2018
January - 8.0 alpha
April - 8.0 beta
Late June / Early July - 8.0 release

8.0 release could fall a little farther into 2018, but I do not anticipate as long of a content drought between 7.3.5 and 8.0 as we've seen in previous expansions.

[Chickat]

7.3 is not coming out next month. A major raid released last week, and just started yesterday on mythic. It will be at least 4-5 months, maybe right around Blizzcon time. Which also happens to be a good time to announce an expansion. If that makes Legion a particularly long expansion then so be it, the quantity and pacing of content has been pretty good so far.

Yeah, If I had to guess, 7.3 will release around mid to late September. Raid/7.3.5 releasing either early December or early January.

[Kody]

Part of the problem with any announcements is, we don't know the outcome of the 7.3 story (and raid) yet. Very hard to make any announcement about 8.0 without spoiling that. I think ideally they will want to have the Argus raid out at least one week before Blizzcon (though probably at least three weeks, so as not to screw the Mythic race). Gamescom will at best announce something about 7.3.5 (maybe a raid preview or maybe they will announce some new feature).

I disagree. Gamescom is the largest consumer convention for video games in the world. Blizzard has effectively treated this as their European BlizzCon in recent years, so I fully expect the expansion to be announced there. It's extremely unlikely it will be playable, but initial details will be revealed.

[Riistov]

We haven't even gotten the 7.3 reveal yet. Personally, I'm really enjoying Legion and I have a ton of artifact appearances to collect still. Heres hoping they stay focused on the current expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

It's extremely unlikely it will be playable, but initial details will be revealed.

I agree with you. I feel like this is a pretty safe bet.

If I had to guess, I would say that Legion is going to have a 7.4 patch, but they will at least tease a new expansion to generate some more buzz.

[Kody]

How do you announce anything, even the title let alone major features, without completely spoiling the ending of the Argus raid though? Story matters to them, they wouldn't go into the trouble of encrypting cinematics otherwise.

The 7.3 PTR will be up before Gamescom, and Argus raid testing will likely be taking place in late August. This follows the development cycle for Legion thus far, with the exception that they will hold off Argus raid testing until later in the patch's development. This is due to feedback from guilds when they tried to run ToS testing while people were still progressing through Nighthold Mythic.

[TheVaryag]

Hi all,

Due to a combination of having some free time on hand and me really hoping to see the next WoW expansion announcement at Blizzcon 17 (will be my first Blizzcon), I did some quick data digging and put together the table below with some quick analysis:

On next expansion announce and release date:

• Theoretically, 8.0 could be announced as soon as in 3 weeks
• However, this is unlikely as we don’t even know anything about Patch 7.3 yet
• If it was to be revealed at Blizzcon 17 (Nov. 2) and then released a year later, it would make 8.0 the longest it took to announce and Legion the longest WOW expansion
• Combine the above 2, this makes a Aug. 22 Gamescom announcement more plausible in theory
• Assuming a 8.0 announcement between now and Blizzcon 17, this won’t be the first time an expansion is announced before the release of the final tier of its predecessor: Wrath, Cata and MoP were all announced before their previous expansion’s final tier; Legion was announced ~2 weeks after 6.2 (HFC); WoD being the only exception announced ~2 months after 5.4 (SOO)

On content of Legion:

• Interestingly Legion patches have largely followed a release schedule of every 11 weeks
• By this logic, we can expect 7.3 on Aug 29th and 7.3.5 on Nov 14th
• Legion will be the first expansion with 3 raid patches (NH, ToS, Argus raid) in its lifespan since Wrath; although one can argue its raid content upon release is the weakest in history (EN with 7 bosses)

On expansion history:

• WoD is the shortest-lived expansion, but only beating Cata by 2 days
• The time between final tier and next expansion release has unfortunately been increasing: MoP and WoD both had 13 months+ of their respective final tier (SoO and HFC); Before that, final tiers generally lasted 9 to 10 months; Wrath pre-patch came a mere half year after the Sunwell patch (Wrath was also announced before Patch 2.2)

Regarding the chart:
Black are factual data collected from the Internet
Red are calculated speculations

They will not announce 8.0 before blizzcon.
They only announced legion at gamescom because wod was running out fast and they wanted to hype something up ASAP.
100% blizzcon announcement, legion isnt running out of content yet we still have 7.3/7.3.5/(7.4? intro to next expac).

And they said they stopped trying to make yearly expacs.

That's not really true, sure we get -content- but It's content In the same sense that we got Timewalking -content- after 6.2, as In not really any.

Content they released so far Is minimal at best, and grindy as hell at worst and please don't count X.X.5 patches as actual content, most of It Is content not available right away.

And the "Major" content releases gave us what? 7.1 cut up the suramar story and released It In 7.1 even though It's been done long ago and had no reason to hide behind a major patch release. Karazhan was okay, but one "Mega" dungeon doesn't do It, and the raid we got was the worst raid I saw, Guarm boss was fun, Odyn was boring, Helya gave us no story conclusion on the whole Sylvannas Lantern deal so I'm mad at her for that.

7.2 Is just useless, It's content on day one was 3 hours at best, 2 on average and then you wait politely for the next 10 "Weekly Campaign" quests to show up, which are not campaigns but weekly quests to grind more stuff you've already grinded. The raid wasn't released for weeks and weeks until 7.2.5 came out, same with Nighthold, a launch raid supposedly launched with 7.1.5 In reality.

So far the content we've got Is minimal and disapointing and provides us nothing but more grinding.

Really my big point Is... Blizzard hopefully saw the backlash of people over the barebones content we got so far and will announce the expansion at gamescom already just like with Legion announcement.

[deadman1]

And they said they stopped trying to make yearly expacs.

If 7.3 comes out in November (which would make sense) then we would still be in for a 5-7 month content drought if they plan on releasing 8.0 around the 2 year mark.

Granted 5 months isn't 14, but it's still too much for no new content.

[TheRealDavidTwo]

Listen. We're no longer in the times where Expansions can be primarily announced at Blizzcon. Sure, they wanted to rush WoD along to move onto Legion to get the schmuck-y taste off of their names, but think about it. So far, they've been doing splendidly with preventing Content Drought (somewhat), and for that trend to continue, we could see the next expansion announcement at Gamescom, alpha/beta at Blizzcon like last time, with maybe a mid-year release 2018 (and maybe even patches to keep thouselves entertained?).


Of course, that's just MY wants. I'm more than likely 100% wrong.