Would you be ok with Expansions every 3 years and patches to .5

[Bangdingow]

I don't think it would work. Blizzard has set out to craft a very specific experience for players and too long of a content drought could really derail the experience.

World of Farmvillecraft uses a ton of analytics and metrics to determine how often they need to release content and how much user engagement they can get out of a particular patch. They look at things like how long the average player plays per week, how long it takes their target demo to clear current content and at what point in the patch cycle do these metrics break down.

They've used data over the last 14 years to come up with the current release cycle and I don't expect them to arbitrarily change that unless their data suggests that they do.

[kamuimac]

BFA is great in a lot of areas, but I think another year of development would of helped a lot.

Would you be ok with a extra year between expansions and a few extra patches with new zones and raids.

honestly ? yes.

there is so much to do in game that i wouldnt mind it at all

[Musta]

Legion felt too rushed. It could easily went to 7.5

[Byleth]

Having free time to play a videogame is a privilege. Let alone 2+ games.

Nah mate. I don't have kids and never will. So I have plenty of free time and money.

It's a choice, not a privilege.

[dope_danny]

I wish more people did this rather than staying sub'd, hating it, and letting themselves become bitter.

Yeah but i play a lot of games and have done for decades. There are people, god alone knows why, that say "i only play wow" and literally mean its the only videogame they have and will ever play. Metal Gear Solid? The Legend of Zelda? Mario Odyssey? Final Fantasy VII? nope videogames=WoW no matter how bitter it makes them in the downtimes.

[Onikaroshi]

I think testers should remember to stay in their lane though, test it and report what the bug / problem is. Don't give a 'solution' leave that up to the designers who are much more versed in handling that sort of situation. Too many 'testers' think they know how to design a game and just present things as if they are the only solution but in reality they are just creating a new timebomb somewhere else.

Except for the fact that blizzard asks for in depth reports, including solutions. Blizzard ASKS for what people think a solution might be, because the more eyes on something the better, someone might catch something or come up with an idea that Blizzard missed.

[Pilek01]

would you really like 3 years of Azerite gear, island expeditions, warfronts and some boring classes after redesign ?
Thats the problem with blizzard. They introduce systems that sometimes dont work as expected and they have to stick to them for the expansion before they can do new systems with a new expansion. The same with class redesign, they usualy dont do huge class redesigns in the middle of a expansion, they just do some little adjustments. If your class is boring and feels broken, would you like it to last for 3 years? Yeah some people would tell you to play something else but for example i play paladin since 9 years and dont want any alts.

[Schizoide]

Sure, if they consistently add a patch worth of content every 4 months, 1 raid, 1-3 dungeons, a bunch of solo content, and a large outdoor zone every 2 patches, I don't care how long they take between expansions.

Thing is, core WoW really hasn't changed much over the years. The only meaningful change was mythic+ dungeons in a VERY long time. I don't mean to minimize mythic+, that was a big deal. But that's it, as far as core WoW goes.

They iterate on features; WQs are a better version of daily quests, for example. Islands are roughly equivalent to scenarios. But really it comes down to daily crap solo, then you raid or PvP.

All that said, Activision doesn't want them to take longer between expansions. Each expansion is a brand new SKU, selling for fifty bucks. Each one brings millions of players back to the game, for 3 months anyway. Subscription costs, service costs, maybe buy a token or a mount? Sure! So they don't want long expansions at all, the monetary incentives all point in the opposite direction. They would be yearly, like Call of Duty releases, except Blizzard is simply unable to create them that quickly and being Blizzard, won't allow Activision to pressure them to release garbage.

[Donald Hellscream]

Provided the flow is steady and the end of expansion content drought isn't massive then sure, but if its something that leads to a 15 month drought then I'd rather have more frequent expansions.

[Azerate]

I would probably prefer longer expansions with more patches. We would still be getting content, without having to so frequently do all that "new expansion" stuff, on multiple characters.

I actually felt BfA came a bit too fast. I still had a lot of things to do in Legion and I could play it for many months more without running out of things to do. Then again, most people claim there is not enough content after playing for 1 month in every patch, so those guys probably wouldnt' be happy.

[Powerogue]

Depends on the expansion. They made the tough, but right call to end WOD early. Legion could have lasted another content patch, with Argus being much more elaborate, and I wouldn't have complained a bit. (except being on the "all this fel green is getting a bit old" train)

[Bodonius]

If free yes...

[Thestuff1992]

If they would stop trying to reinvent the game every expansion, it might cut down a lot of this development time.

I know they have feedback about what worked in the past and what was most popular. Keep those things in the game and then focus on making the story and gameplay better.

This is why BFA is in the current state, so much new shit that is not fun and feedback on the systems were ignored. If your gameplay/classes ever suffer and are not fun, it makes everything else not fun.

Are you joking? BfA is bad because it’s literally legion 2.0 with some of legions systems removed. The main complaint towards BfA is that it feels like a patch rather than an expansion because it’s so similar to legion just with shittier systems (like azerite, islands warfronts etc).

They -need- to add new shit or people will leave. They don’t need to completely redo classes but adding new shit generally feels good when it has purpose. They barely changed certain classes and they feel awful.

Sorry but no. Reinventing the game is how they’ve kept it fresh for so long. BfA is basically legion with a few of its own systems (namely 3). It has the same class design as legion just without legion specific systems.

They didn’t do much with class design and it’s one of the most complained about things on every forum. There’s obviously areas where you don’t need to iterate much but changing things with purpose has been pretty good. Leaving classes how they did was pretty damn bad because they expected azerite gear to “fill the gaps” (from Ions mouth) like the weapons did. This didn’t work so they iterated on some specs and left others.

OT: No I feel like that’s way too long. 2 years is more than enough honestly. It just feels like they didn’t pay enough attention to the right things. They stripped a ton of class specific systems away after legion and then expected azerite gear to carry class design which it didn’t.

[Marrilaife]

Moot point tbh, Blizzard wouldn't be fine with getting massive box sale revenue 50% less often. They even tried to push for yearly expansions until finally during WOD they realized that it's impossible with their development cycle. Every new expansion is millions in box sales and millions in new / returning subs, and that number quickly drops off. They want this surge as often as possible. We're getting new expansions whether we're ready for them or not, and whether they are ready, or not.

[Sanguinerd]

If it would've meant Legion had a better ending then yes most definitely.

WoD(and BFA) couldnt be over quick enough for me.

[Boricha]

Only if it's a worthwhile expansion. I don't think it should be a constant thing, but I'm fine with extending it if the expansion is getting a really good reception.

[chrisnumbers]

Nope. 3 year expansion sounds like hell.

[vertigo12]

I've done Lordaeron so many times leveling up alts that I would HATE to have to sit in EPL for 2 years straight.

Not unless there is 3-in-1 zone. A past+present+future phases in one.

[Flurryfang]

I would highly prefer long expansions, since it allows for a specific status-quo to develop for longer and be more interesting over time. Expansions are always the time, where you reset things and i think things should only be reset when you have hit a temporary end-point of an expansion philosophy.

[PaladinBash]

2-3 years if there's patches every 6 months or so, sure. I mean real patches with actual shit on them. 3 big raid tiers at least. New zones too.