Do you think Antorus will last 14 months like HFC and SoO did?

[Thunderi]

They stated they would like to have beta available EARLY 2018 (I would guess Jan-March beta) then full release mid-late summer.

[hulkgor]

Man Blizzard has done a good job hoodwinking people into thinking they're delivering things faster. They're not. It's a 5 month patchcycle, just split in 2 with the raid coming in the second part of the patch.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good move, but all they're doing is finishing the non-raid content first, testing it and dropping it on live, then doing the raid and associated content. But if you look at the time from raid open to raid open or at the time from one non-raid patch to the next, it's still 5 months.

And is a 5 month patch\tier\raid cycle a bad thing? Also, you're forgetting the filler raid (which was awesome and actually relevant) in ToV between Emerald Nightmare and Nighthold.

Yes, content has come at a very high pace this expansion, i have no idea what you're on about "hoodwinking".

[Zaydin]

I hope not. The idea of another raid tier lasting over a year five expansions in a row is not one I relish.

[Seramore]

Man Blizzard has done a good job hoodwinking people into thinking they're delivering things faster. They're not. It's a 5 month patchcycle, just split in 2 with the raid coming in the second part of the patch.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good move, but all they're doing is finishing the non-raid content first, testing it and dropping it on live, then doing the raid and associated content. But if you look at the time from raid open to raid open or at the time from one non-raid patch to the next, it's still 5 months.

They are delivering things faster, though. Tiers are on average, shorter than other tiers in the past. There have also been additional content added to the raid unlock patches. You're not wrong in the sense that they are splitting up patches into two parts, but it's still more content being delivered at a faster pace.

And they are releasing it too fast atm. A lot of guilds won't even get the cutting edge achievement or even have time to finish the raid tier altogether. They release new stuff pretty fast i'd say.

The length of time between tiers is fine, the issue is that they fucked up with Tomb of Sargeras. Plenty of people got Cutting Edge for Xavius, Helya, and Gul'dan.

[clevin]

And is a 5 month patch\tier\raid cycle a bad thing? Also, you're forgetting the filler raid (which was awesome and actually relevant) in ToV between Emerald Nightmare and Nighthold.

Yes, content has come at a very high pace this expansion, i have no idea what you're on about "hoodwinking".

No, 5 months for complete patches isn't bad. But it's also about average. It's not faster than in the past for the full patch. That's my point. Hoodwinking was probably a bit pejorative, but it's not faster content... it's designed to feel that way, that's all. Don't get me wrong, I really like them doing this - it gives people something new every 2.5 months.

- - - Updated - - -

They are delivering things faster, though. Tiers are on average, shorter than other tiers in the past. There have also been additional content added to the raid unlock patches. You're not wrong in the sense that they are splitting up patches into two parts, but it's still more content being delivered at a faster pace.
.

Most patches in past expansions are about 5 months long, though (I'm sure there were some that were 6) - none aside from the end of expansion patches were longer than 6 months that I can remember.

[Deleted]

1. Showed way less content / gave way less concrete information compared to legion and even wod announcement
2. no hint of alpha/beta whatsoever
3. non raid content filler patch announced

2019 release is a real possibility. Forget anything before September 2018.

This entire expansion has been out for 14 months.
Yall really think that this last raid is going to last another 14 months?
June at the latest.

Did you play wod? If you did read your own post again and laugh out loud over that wishful thinking.

[TheHodedOne]

To be honest, they showed a large amount of content, compared to other Blizzcons even if they showed almost nothing of the new prog systems, also, there is no new class and no new class changes/talents so the only thing that really needs heavy testing are the Azerite system and the Warfronts. I could easily see this expansion to have the shortest beta testing in a long time.
So if they release the alpha in january or early feb, a may-june release of the expansion could be very logic.

[Brewhan]

I think Antorous will last 8-10 months. With sprinkle of new stuff in 7.3.5 or whatever later on down the road before the 10 month mark right when we are begging for something new.

[TheHodedOne]

1. Showed way less content / gave way less concrete information compared to legion and even wod announcement
.

In the legion Gamescom announcement they only had the DH starter zone to play. At Blizzcon only 2 dungeons plus other zone, if I´m not mistaken.
This time they showed 1 full dungeon, first 3 bosses of the Zandalar dungeon and 2 110 lvl starting zones.

[Bubleheart]

1. Showed way less content / gave way less concrete information compared to legion and even wod announcement
2. no hint of alpha/beta whatsoever
3. non raid content filler patch announced

2019 release is a real possibility. Forget anything before September 2018.

Absolutely this. This was the first xpac announcement I have ever been at where hardly anything talked about. That "Deep Dive" panel was as shallow as a kiddie pool in actual end game content. Like I still have zero idea what I am doing at level 120 besides killing crabs on islands by throwing starfish or clams at them.

How does leveling work with 3 zones compared to 4-5? What do we do on Kur'Tiras/Zanadalar at 120? What reward systems are in place for half the stuff they did announce? Why did we bring class buffs back and why did we make it so you need 1 of every class instead of combining them? Who knows?

They may have a direction for story for this xpac, but I think end game is something they are struggling with right now and I would agree that anything before Sept. 2018 is extremely optimistic.

[TheHodedOne]

Absolutely this. This was the first xpac announcement I have ever been at where hardly anything talked about. That "Deep Dive" panel was as shallow as a kiddie pool in actual end game content. Like I still have zero idea what I am doing at level 120 besides killing crabs on islands by throwing starfish or clams at them.

How does leveling work with 3 zones compared to 4-5? What do we do on Kur'Tiras/Zanadalar at 120? What reward systems are in place for half the stuff they did announce? Why did we bring class buffs back and why did we make it so you need 1 of every class instead of combining them? Who knows?

They may have a direction for story for this xpac, but I think end game is something they are struggling with right now and I would agree that anything before Sept. 2018 is extremely optimistic.

Lordaeron will be the 120 zone. Pluz the third and 2nd zone of Kul´thiras and Zandalar.
And you´ll be farming Crystal (Azerite) like Walter White, just like in WoD (apexys).

[Rogalicus]

1. Showed way less content / gave way less concrete information compared to legion and even wod announcement

They've showed more content already. Also in BfA they are not redoing classes from scratch, sharding is already in place and Mythic+ system also is in finetuning mode, so alpha and beta don't have to last that long.

[Deleted]

They've showed more content already. Also in BfA they are not redoing classes from scratch, sharding is already in place and Mythic+ system also is in finetuning mode, so alpha and bete don't have to last that long.

Good for them. They will need a shorter beta to deliver this in 2018 considering warfronts only exist on paper and beta won't start ANY time soonTM.

[TheHodedOne]

Look at this video. Judge how much done everything looks (combat,zones,models). If anything the only thing missing are the HD textures. Same with the Alliance zone.

[Derpleton]

I'm guessing 10 months of Antorus. BfA launching in Late September similar to MoP

[thunterman]

If BFA wasn't far enough along to close the gap, they would not have been releasing the patches as quickly as they have. I genuinely think it's going to be much sooner than people think. Like, Q1 2018 early. They'd have stalled the patches another few weeks otherwise IMO. With the features coming in 7.3.5 though, even if there is a drought, we can atleast level up alts without burning out.

Ion has been at the helm like, 4 years? He took over after development for WoD would have started. The only thing we really have now, to put his name to as director is Legion, which overall was a massive success. The guy is awkward as fuck, but he's the best thing that's happened to the game, without a doubt. The promise of "More content faster" has only become real since he was in charge. I think it will continue personally.

Good for them. They will need a shorter beta to deliver this in 2018 considering warfronts only exist on paper and beta won't start ANY time soonTM.

They've been saying in some of the interviews "I've played them internally and they are super fun" e.t.c
they are in, not just on paper, they probably just aren't good enough to be playable in the demo, or possibly way too long. There was a general pointer to them taking an hour or so to complete start to finish.

[Seramore]

Most patches in past expansions are about 5 months long, though (I'm sure there were some that were 6) - none aside from the end of expansion patches were longer than 6 months that I can remember.

Patches are lasting about 2.5 months each in Legion, raids for about 4-5 months each. I guess there were more shorter raids than I thought but I'm pretty sure Legion still has on average, shorter raids than most of the others in the game.

Did you play wod? If you did read your own post again and laugh out loud over that wishful thinking.

Did you play Legion? If you did read your own post again and laugh out loud over the idea that Blizzard would repeat the mistake that was a 14 month tier again after looking at the patch history from this expansion.

Look at this video. Judge how much done everything looks (combat,zones,models). If anything the only thing missing are the HD textures. Same with the Alliance zone.

God bless this guy for making a video with a Warrior.

It does look like the expansion is more polished than the others when they were revealed. It seems like they held off on showing a larger quantity of features like they typically do for other expansions and instead showcased a bigger part of the zones.

[Estherna]

Well it's always really hard to predict the release of a new expansion. The "Opt-in for the Beta" option was always announced at the Blizzcon announcement, as far as I remember. So not really a proof.

This said, there is indeed way more content shown that previously. For WoD and for Legion, they couldn't even show other zones being completed, when this time, the 6 zones seems already a little bit fleshed out (doesn't mean it isn't communication and they just show small zones done in advance to give players an idea of what they will be...).

This time around, there seems to be way less things to balance/conceive. No class campaign, no artifacts weapons to balance (even if there is the collar thing), no new class to test and implement... Of course there is the islands, but that just coming back to the old 3 man scenarios from MoP and the Warfronts. Which honestly looks like PvE Battlegrounds (which mean that it is not a new NEW content, just some tuning around). Same thing with the new subraces, which are already in game.

This said, that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of things to do and problems can arise during Beta. But a release around end of August/Beginning of September would be plausible. I think we can have something like :

- March 2018 Beta
- April/May 2018 : 7.3.5
- Beginning of August/Mid August : Pre-patch 8.0
- End of August/September : Release.

Which would give us 10 months in total of Antorus, with some new things to do in 6 months with 7.3.5 and new events during August in 9 months. It isn't far fetched in my opinion.

But hey, I've been wrong before.

[clevin]

Patches are lasting about 2.5 months each in Legion, raids for about 4-5 months each. I guess there were more shorter raids than I thought but I'm pretty sure Legion still has on average, shorter raids than most of the others in the game.

I think we're talking past one another. I mean from, say, 7.1 to 7.2 or 7.2 to 7.3. Alternatively, from 7.1.5 to 7.2.5.

Those are 5 month spans and I'm counting the .x.5 patches as just the back half of the whole patch, i.e. 7.2.0 and 7.2.5 are all one big 7.2 patch, split in two.

Keep in mind that they used to drop a raid with whatever non-raid content (quests, etc) were planned for the patch and we had to wait about 5 months for those. NOW, they're just breaking the two apart so we get the non-raid content and then, 2.5 months later, the raid content... and 2.5 months after THAT, the next non-raid patch. To get the same amount of content still takes 5 months but we get it in smaller bites spread out.

As I said, I *like* this approach but it's not 2x the content we used to get. It's just a smarter way of delivering things. More than the frequency of things, what I think is a hopeful sign is that they've been able to keep to schedule to the week for all of the patches (Antorus is a bit late because of the holiday, but meh.) Hopefully that indicates some process and/or system changes that will make the expansion delivery more reliable.

[Zephre]

June/July is likely their aimpoint with the novel coming out in May, that said, they always screw up on releases so it'll likely be August.