Battle for Azeroth closer than we think?

[Ganksinatra]

Each day I log into MMO-Champion, WoWhead, and other WoW centralized websites to see the newest additions for BfA, and, right now, most importantly, 7.3.5.

Today alone we're already hearing hints of what could happen to our artifact weapons. Silithis changes are really molding the world to put out Azerite for our new necklace artifact coming in BfA. Even more interesting is all the additions to the game in a somewhat minor patch to support allied races.

Yet we know SO LITTLE about Battle for Azeroth in the grand scheme of things.

Is Blizzard trolling us and BfA is actually closer than we think it could be? Seems to me that movement toward a new expansion is really moving at a "fevered pace".

Thoughts? I know a lot of speculation that BfA would release in later 2018, but with everything coming in the next "minor" patch, it really seems to be a whole lot closer than we originally thought.

I actually agree with some people here, and think that the new races (likely only 4....they will hold one back from each side since the Zandalari likely cannot come out until BfA) are going to be the "stop gap" measure to keep people here. There is a new riddle to solve, the hardest ever (get your pet from the Many Face Monstrosity or whatever it's called.....the little girl dranei pet is supposedly going to play a part in it), leveling is being made "tougher" (more xp needed, mobs have more life and hit harder), and the new races are going to be tossed in for good measure in order to give people at least a month or two's worth of content. The fact of the matter is, they have clearly said late 2018 for BfA. That means we are in for yet another 1 year content drought. I have no idea why a company would continue to do this after years and years of complaints about it, but hey, I just play the game.

I think we will see the new races for people to level and whatever the pre-patch is for BfA and that is about it.....for a year. This is why I unsubbed last month and plan on staying unsubbed until February or so. That gives me plenty of time to grind out the Seat of Triumverate, grind for pets/mounts, level the new races, and play other games leisurely without rushing through. But it still will only be 3 months tops. Which means people like me will likely unsub for most of this year unless there is a "stop gap" patch with a dungeon or something. Something in line with the WotLK patch at the end with the new raid and dungeons...

[Chickat]

Really surprised that a lot of people are thinking summer time (June/July)... Normally Beta lasts 6-7 months and that is not even open, and as some have said, zones and dungeons are not complete yet.. so I would say we get Beta in March/April and looking at a September/October release.. at the earliest.. I would even say November is possible.

TBC beta lasted less than 4 months.
Wrath beta lasted 4 months.
Cata lasted 7 months but had to test the whole world remade.
MoP lasted 6 months but had to fit annual pass people in so was probably a little longer than necessary.
WoD beta lasted 5 months and even had zone reworks.
Legion beta lasted 8 to 9 months some how, but they started that so early it was ridiculous. No beta/alpha ever started that early. Most likely do to them wanting to generate hype because people were mad at WoD, and they had nearly 12 new classes to test with the class revamps, plus 36 artifact weapons and quests etc. Legion was the biggest change to WoW since Cataclysm.

Lets take the TBC and Legion outliers out as both are unreasonably short and long. Even Cata is too long seeing as BFA isnt remaking the world, but even leaving it in we get 5.5 months average beta. Even a 6 month beta starting in March would see BFA well before November.

[rcshaggy]

I am just wondering, but when does Battle for Azeroth take place in the Warcraft Timeline?

What do you want in the special version for Battle for Azeroth?
Like the in-game goodies?

I am thinking for Horde and faction mount bundle thing with pet as well...
Then something like a mount as well for Heroes of the Storm...Maybe a Old God minion thing...
Hearthstone is the cardback we seen on the front page etc...

Don't play Star or Dia...So yeah...

[Yassy]

No Blizzard is going to use revamped leveling system and Allied Races as a content filler to fill the length Antorus will be current. I think were more likely to see 8.0 pre patch earlier than the traditional 1 month prior.

[Kirbypro]

Antorus for 1 year. sounds like fun.

[Drekmar]

They just added 4 more prestiges levels .

Also, idk where i saw in game, but once u hoovered the mouse over with, it would show something like legion Season 5, 6 & 7

Whats the average lenght of LEGION seasons?

[serra2]

Whats the average lenght of LEGION seasons?

About 11-13 weeks seems to be the average length so far.

EDIT: Assuming 11 weeks, PVP season 7 should start 02/13/2018, 13 weeks : 02/27/2018. This should line up with around the time 7.3.5 hits. Going from those dates, if we go with the outlier of Legion PVP season length of 15 weeks, we get the end of Season 7 on either 05/29/2018 or 06/12/2018

[Lightforged]

I am expecting BfA to be released in September of 2018. Given their renewed focus on dripping content out, I could easily see them releasing a smaller number of dungeons to begin with, then expanding them out as the patches roll out, which would give them weeks and weeks of extra time to make and refine the dungeons.

So what do they need to make for the launch of BfA?

- 6 leveling Zones
- 6 Dungeons (one for each leveling zone)
- Azerite System
- Class Rebalancing
- War Fronts
- Islands
- New Races
- A phased Tirisfal

Most of the leveling zones are likely most of the way done at this point.

They probably have a few of the dungeons done the others are probably in various stages of development.

The Azerite system is likely in the testing phase, with a few different concepts being worked on concurrently to see which feels best.

Class Rebalancing will be hard. Most specs won't be changing a ton, so it is just a process of deciding how much of the artifact stuff should be baked into the class. A few specs are likely being overhauled completely. No different than usual for a new Expansion.

War Fronts are probably still in the testing phase. A lot of it is just figuring out how long you want the battle to take and then figuring out how many resources are needed to build each building and creating an interesting map.

The AI for islands is already done, the issue now is making sure it works in the various environments correctly. The maps for the Islands are probably procedurally generated within certain pre-defined constraints. Blizzard is likely testing the heck out of the system to ensure there is lots of variety.

Four of the new races are already done. The last two likely will not take long.

They completed a phased Silithus pretty quickly. I imagine Tirisfal will be about as quick. To go along with this, I imagine we will get a new version of the Scarlet Monastery, maybe filled with undead/forsaken (it is a good place to flee to once Undercity falls).

It's sounds like BFA is taking place immediately after Legion, which officially is 7 years after Vanilla - thought the timeline is station BFA is taking place 33 years after the first war.

Vanilla and every expansion take place over the course of 1 year, except for Cataclysm which was 2.

[Soeroah]

The best guide for how close it COULD be is the playable demo at Blizzcon. Did the zones look "finished"? Was everything playing well?

The PTR isn't as helpful as you may think. The Azerite stuff is just going to be a lead in to the next expansion, not an indication that it's imminent; they've done this before with Cataclysm, hinting at new race/class combos in Wrath months before the Shattering even happened.

The Allied race stuff is unusual, but that just supports the idea we'll be getting the first four Allied Races before BfA's official launch, most likely (sadly) as pre-order incentives.

[Steampunkette]

The best guide for how close it COULD be is the playable demo at Blizzcon. Did the zones look "finished"? Was everything playing well?

The PTR isn't as helpful as you may think. The Azerite stuff is just going to be a lead in to the next expansion, not an indication that it's imminent; they've done this before with Cataclysm, hinting at new race/class combos in Wrath months before the Shattering even happened.

The Allied race stuff is unusual, but that just supports the idea we'll be getting the first four Allied Races before BfA's official launch, most likely (sadly) as pre-order incentives.

Also worth noting: Not only was that build of BfA revealed over a month ago, now, it also wasn't the "Latest" internal build. They spent a significant amount of time getting the clients installed and updated on each of those dozens of PCs, and doing boatloads of polish on the 2 zones and 2 dungeons they showed off while the other teams were still working on other sections of the world!

[Deleted]

BfA close to next Blizzcon most likely.

Classic WoW in 2019.

[Deleted]

September 26th, 2018.

Screencap this.

[hulkgor]

Each day I log into MMO-Champion, WoWhead, and other WoW centralized websites to see the newest additions for BfA, and, right now, most importantly, 7.3.5.

Today alone we're already hearing hints of what could happen to our artifact weapons. Silithis changes are really molding the world to put out Azerite for our new necklace artifact coming in BfA. Even more interesting is all the additions to the game in a somewhat minor patch to support allied races.

Yet we know SO LITTLE about Battle for Azeroth in the grand scheme of things.

Is Blizzard trolling us and BfA is actually closer than we think it could be? Seems to me that movement toward a new expansion is really moving at a "fevered pace".

Thoughts? I know a lot of speculation that BfA would release in later 2018, but with everything coming in the next "minor" patch, it really seems to be a whole lot closer than we originally thought.

Expect a 6 month beta (as usual). No beta yet announced\started, so it's not that close. That being said, i expect it to release in AUG\SEPT, so i can 'see' it releasing in JUN\JUL (a bit earlier), but i highly doubt it.

[Lightforged]

Classic WoW in 2019.

Classic will come out in November 2019. That will be in time for the 15th anniversary of WoW and during the start of the content drought for BfA. makes too much sense, IMO.

[hulkgor]

BfA close to next Blizzcon most likely.

Classic WoW in 2019.

Agree.

Classic WoW will be released as a 15th anniversary thing, which makes me believe they'll delay it just to make it match that date (November '19)

[Lightforged]

Agree.

Classic WoW will be released as a 15th anniversary thing, which makes me believe they'll delay it just to make it match that date (November '19)

The Marketing team will demand that they release it during the anniversary. It will generate a lot of buzz.

[Bearded Sith]

@All here that have said, "expect late next year", or "no F&F or beta announcement", or whatever other argument you can toss out regarding PAST expansion release trends.

This is a big hypothetical, obviously, but based on the information/cinematic that have already been released, would it not be possible that Blizzard is trolling us with the release of BfA? Making it closer than we think it could be, and, most importantly to the discussion here, vastly different release process than previous expansions? We've already seen a few aspects of the "typical" release process being upended and altered to what could possibly be a "new" release process.

Basically, TL;DR, might Blizzard be altering the typical release process we are used to? So far, signs point to yes. Obviously, anecdotal.

[Lightforged]

@All here that have said, "expect late next year", or "no F&F or beta announcement", or whatever other argument you can toss out regarding PAST expansion release trends.

This is a big hypothetical, obviously, but based on the information/cinematic that have already been released, would it not be possible that Blizzard is trolling us with the release of BfA? Making it closer than we think it could be, and, most importantly to the discussion here, vastly different release process than previous expansions? We've already seen a few aspects of the "typical" release process being upended and altered to what could possibly be a "new" release process.

Basically, TL;DR, might Blizzard be altering the typical release process we are used to? So far, signs point to yes. Obviously, anecdotal.

Blizzard's problem has always been that an expansion has about a year's worth of content and then a year-ish of no content. The goal with WoD was to speed the process up so we would get a new expansion almost every year. That did not work. Legion has done a very good job at releasing new content every 3 months, or so. I am sure the bean counters are looking at the numbers and found that - surprise - releasing content on a regular basis maintains subscribers for longer period of time.

I would be surprised if Blizzard is not trying to break free from the expansion mold and try to create a "living game" where content updates are consistently rolled out on a regular basis without the constant need for an expansion to justify the addition of said content.

[WowIsDead64]

Each day I log into MMO-Champion, WoWhead, and other WoW centralized websites to see the newest additions for BfA, and, right now, most importantly, 7.3.5.

Today alone we're already hearing hints of what could happen to our artifact weapons. Silithis changes are really molding the world to put out Azerite for our new necklace artifact coming in BfA. Even more interesting is all the additions to the game in a somewhat minor patch to support allied races.

Yet we know SO LITTLE about Battle for Azeroth in the grand scheme of things.

Is Blizzard trolling us and BfA is actually closer than we think it could be? Seems to me that movement toward a new expansion is really moving at a "fevered pace".

Thoughts? I know a lot of speculation that BfA would release in later 2018, but with everything coming in the next "minor" patch, it really seems to be a whole lot closer than we originally thought.

This is just illusion, they try to create via putting some preparations for BFA changes straight to PTR and live, instead of starting Alpha/Beta. Not only free, but paid Beta-testing, you know. BFA won't be released till next autumn. 100%.

[Bearded Sith]

I would be surprised if Blizzard is not trying to break free from the expansion mold and try to create a "living game" where content updates are consistently rolled out on a regular basis without the constant need for an expansion to justify the addition of said content.

This is basically what I'm trying to say, and you worded it so much better than I did, thanks!

I, personally, think Blizzard learned from "The Xpac that shall not be named" and since Legion has released, their content release schedule has been really efficient. Hopefully that bleeds over to Xpac releases.