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Bdk Nagrand / Astae Nagrand
Pokemon X FC: 4656-7679-2545/Trainer Name: Keno
lets hope they deliver on all their pomises.,.
...may I point out the other trend that's sadly keeping up called "Significantly larger loss of subs". More content =/= good enough content for people to want to stay. IE: The right Idea, but the wrong implementation. Not everybody wants to be a full-time Raider anymore...
Also, do consider that the Annual Pass goes far deeper than just "WoW subs". I'm MORE than betting that Diablo III's expansion is going to be presented more like a "relaunch" of the game, because they probably REALLY want to establish a second cash-cow like WoW - especially at the continually falling WoW subscriptions.
There was a thread on this weeks back with a great chart showing Blizzard's past expansion cycles and timing, and projecting what will come:
As you can see, expansion announcements have come 8-11 months after the release of the previous expansion. Beta testing a new expansion takes ~6 months. Blizz has events at Comic Con in July, Gamescon in August, and PAX in September. One of those would be a great announcement opportunity, with the beta beginning late in the year, around the time of Blizzcon. If they wait for Blizzcon to announce, I expect the beta would start immediately afterwards.
I guestimate the next expansion releases between April and June of next year.
Edit to add: Also, the expansion announcements have been coming before the last patch released, making sure people have something else on the distant horizon even when they know the current expansion is drawing to an end.
Now that I think about it, that may be a great argument for a summer announcement. How long was ToT being tested on the PTR? That's probably the announcement window.
Last edited by Jtree; 2013-06-28 at 06:59 PM.
I can't find the quotes now but I am sure I remember them saying that they would not have another year long tier when Cata was released.
I am not so sure that another Annual Pass is going to work this time around of course it will be popular but I think that its popularity will be amongst those who do not need convincing to hang around those who are having doubts will be far more cynical.
Agreed.... the only question remains is, what is Blizz listening to? The voice of the consumer - or their accountants saying "Well, sir, it helped lock in over a million people before!"
...and never, EVER, underestimate the power of the impulse buying mentality. Looked how it worked for the PS4 six-months before its release! :P
Lastly, as somebody said above - it's got to be "one amazing Ballerina pony to get me to get the pass again". Who knows how Blizz may sweeten the deal this time around. Hell man - they might even throw in the next expansion for free. That would get a lot of people impulse-buying right away!
Giving 6.0 away with the year contract seems logical to me.
They would have to hope the player stays around for at least 9 months to make the same amount of money.
$40 + ($15x9) = ~$180 = one year of subscription time w/ free expansion
The big question is how many of those million that took up the Annual Pass last time actually saw it all the way through? You only had to look at these forums a few months after DS was released to see threads complaining about the AP and asking how to get out of it cropping up with alarming regularity. I think this time people will still be tempted by whatever is on offer but they will not be afraid to just walk away if they find themselves in the same situation as last time; fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Last edited by Pann; 2013-06-28 at 07:18 PM.
Maybe a teaser trailer for World of Warcraft: Path of the Titans
But yeah, we should hear something soon. I'd like to see something on that chart up there about when the next expansion was 'datamined' by checking the US Patent Office. If I remember right, the title to every expansion was correctly found as a patent filing.
Last edited by Doombringer; 2013-06-28 at 08:39 PM.
A Farewell to Pre-Cataclysm Azeroth (video)
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlhcVG2p7M
WCM: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=168677
Are we sure SoO is the last expansion?...
I mean vast parts of the expansion are about Sha and it corruption eventually leads to Yshaara'j.
It will be quite odd we ain't gonna face it....
What is that Final Titan Wrathion talking about? Timeless Island?!? Wrathion plans? Are mogu corrupted or were nuetral? Ra-Den been imprisoned to keep him at bay due it corruption or he was an experiment puppet for the Thunder King? Is there ANY connection between Sha and Mogu?
My personal theory is we will see the trademark registration sometime in early August, then they will have some basics at Pax Prime (the Hearthstone announcement at Pax East was probably to test the waters about releasing info in other venues besides Blizzcon. Its expensive to host something that and 2011 didn't give them the best good publicity) with a detailed reveal at Blizzcon and the public demo open starting then or very shortly after. That would put the next expansion right on target for Late April/May/Early June window and the stated goal of 18 months between expansions. I would expect 6.0 to hit sometime in March. Assuming a September 5.4 release, that would give about 6 months of SoO (about the same as ToT will be). They MIGHT release a small 5.5 PVP patch or something, but I highly doubt it.
if they dont release another expansion before mid november they will see way too many sub drops. Early september is optimal. Im not saying its guaranteed to happen, but blizz has stated they want faster expansions out to get new subs, old ones back + decrease current losses, aswell as the base wants faster xpacs. Waiting on next xpac announcement until blizzcon in nov = xpac release in 2014= another 3M sub loss. This would be very bad indeed.