Possible release date prediction

[Revamp Man]

Here are 3 reasons I believe that the expansion will launch earlier than most believe.

1. Financial junk:
If they launch the game near the end of a quarter then they can brag about the sales in the reports for both quarters. Also helps by launching outside of the Nov-Dec time where most ppl buy presents that can essentially steal from the WoW hype.

2. Competitive junk
MDI and arena heck even the WF race are all in one way or another important to the game and especially important to the hype for BlizzCon. Let's say people are correct about it launching in December. That launch would place BlizzCon in the pre-patch limbo meaning no competition at BlizzCon because the game wouldn't be balanced around BFA. That means that for there to be any WoW competitions then the expansion would have to be out for a minimum of 6 weeks before BlizzCon ( 2 weeks for raid unlock another for mythic unlock and 2 more for the race with 1 for rest)

3. Support
We saw blizz state they want to wait on releasing a patch until after the holidays because they wouldn't have enough tech support for launch..... with a small patch..... imagine how it would be with an expansion.


I suspect that the latest is the 29th of September 2020 for the reasons stated above.

Alpha early Feb
Beta March
Pre-patch August

[Zaganite]

Im going to go with end of Sept start of October. They wont do an early September release due to Labor day and then most people are back from vacation or school starts back up at the start of the month. They'll also want to give players a good chance of leveling before the Halloween event is launched

[Jasperboy]

They've also stated that they will never rush expansions anymore, like they did with BFA. It didnt have enough beta testers which resulted in new systems not having enough feedback. We all see how that turned out.

BFA came out almost exactly 2 years after Legion. If enough people play the beta, test and give feedback, I think Shadowlands will launch at the end of october, at the earliest.

[Revamp Man]

They've also stated that they will never rush expansions anymore, like they did with BFA. It didnt have enough beta testers which resulted in new systems not having enough feedback. We all see how that turned out.

BFA came out almost exactly 2 years after Legion. If enough people play the beta, test and give feedback, I think Shadowlands will launch at the end of october, at the earliest.

You see there was enough feedback it was just ignored or they made last minute changes like the cache change or the fact azerite gear got 3 days of testing before launch

Bigger testing pool
Less pigheadedness towards feedback

They have to launch it early enough to have something in BlizzCon

[MrLachyG]

Prepatch early October with the expansion launching early November. Means we get about a 10 month long final raid tier but that’s not too bad

[ChairmanKaga]

Pre Patch July. Expansion August.

[Revamp Man]

Prepatch early October with the expansion launching early November. Means we get about a 10 month long final raid tier but that’s not too bad

Now that brings up another issue

Launching just after BlizzCon keeps devs on their toes but they also won't have much new stuff for BlizzCon
No arena
No MDI
No new patch info

I'm ok with long end tiers but they are in a strange situation

Also apparently they have a working recendreth area out that game informer got a look at

- - - Updated - - -

Pre Patch July. Expansion August.

Would require beta in February

Possible but they have to have a very stable very large test build ready

[MrLachyG]

Now that brings up another issue

Launching just after BlizzCon keeps devs on their toes but they also won't have much new stuff for BlizzCon

or they announce 9.1 and possibly 9.2 at Blizzcon

[Revamp Man]

or they announce 9.1 and possibly 9.2 at Blizzcon

But would it be a good idea to be like "hey guys this expansion launches there's some stuff that you don't know about and by the way none of that's going to matter in a few months when 9.1 is out here's what's in 9.1"

I mean it is possible but even then the release lands square in the holiday season

[ErrandRunner]

There's a reason they put the placeholder date as 31/12/2020 - they are not very far along with content and if you think it will release before September you are truly dreaming.

[AlmightyGerkin]

They've also stated that they will never rush expansions anymore, like they did with BFA. It didnt have enough beta testers which resulted in new systems not having enough feedback. We all see how that turned out.

BFA came out almost exactly 2 years after Legion. If enough people play the beta, test and give feedback, I think Shadowlands will launch at the end of october, at the earliest.

We know fully well what a rushed expansion results in *cough* WoD *cough*.

[HoodKazekage]

I say November TBH they are no where near done

[kendro1200]

There's a reason they put the placeholder date as 31/12/2020 - they are not very far along with content and if you think it will release before September you are truly dreaming.

The Blizzcon demo had a very TBC level of preparation behind it, meaning it was still super early development and for the demo they just took the current retail version and dumped a new zone into it. They were still super early into the design phase, and have no new features they are adding to the game, just trying to iterate on already existing systems that they've already tooled for quick turnaround. I think the top brass wants another September launch, I think we will be lucky to get a November launch. It is more likely to get a delay to January.

BFA had a pretty long beta and a ton of feedback, but it was largely ignored to just enable a launch with systems as is with as little work as possible. Blizzard has either learned its lesson on ignoring feedback it doesn't want to hear, or it will repeat it. The speed of release I think will show which is which. SL is going to go into beta and be bad. Design is just so drawing board at the moment and anyone looking at their Blizzcon concepts can already point out at least 20 mistakes with what they are planning to do at a glance. BFA showed how out of touch the current team of devs are with the game, Shadowlands is going to be a hard learning experience for them, as they are going to learn that they have a lot of poorly thought out/implemented ideas and are going to have to start from scratch on several things. It would be best to hope for Alpha to start in January 2020, and for beta to start in October. The long Alpha is because the classes need a lot of work that Blizzard hasn't even admitted or realized yet. Internally they also have to accept that the "rent-an-ability" trend of each expansion is the real reason they need to do a level squish this expansion and they need to step away from that mentality. A good level squish is going to take a lot of work and should be done with the class reworks to help gain basic mastery of their core class and a single spec.

SL is going to be a tonne of work, if they want to do it right. Unlike BFA, where they had a decent foundation with Legion that they just had to iterate upon correctly, they have no good foundation to work with and are planning to try and start from scratch again while also going in with the mentality of doing as little work as possible. The one interview that said they aren't doing Legion level reworks on any classes is honestly the most terrifying piece of information. It echoes of the level of ignorance they had prior to Cataclysm with leveling zone reworks. The end result is either they do it right and it takes longer than expected, or they cut corners like in BFA, and ship a piss-poor product.

[Merin]

I say November TBH they are no where near done

This doesn't stop them anymore. BfA was thrown out the door raw.

If your estimation is that the game will be in a shippable state in November, then it'll ship in July or August.

[ErrandRunner]

The Blizzcon demo had a very TBC level of preparation behind it, meaning it was still super early development and for the demo they just took the current retail version and dumped a new zone into it. They were still super early into the design phase, and have no new features they are adding to the game, just trying to iterate on already existing systems that they've already tooled for quick turnaround. I think the top brass wants another September launch, I think we will be lucky to get a November launch. It is more likely to get a delay to January.

BFA had a pretty long beta and a ton of feedback, but it was largely ignored to just enable a launch with systems as is with as little work as possible. Blizzard has either learned its lesson on ignoring feedback it doesn't want to hear, or it will repeat it. The speed of release I think will show which is which. SL is going to go into beta and be bad. Design is just so drawing board at the moment and anyone looking at their Blizzcon concepts can already point out at least 20 mistakes with what they are planning to do at a glance. BFA showed how out of touch the current team of devs are with the game, Shadowlands is going to be a hard learning experience for them, as they are going to learn that they have a lot of poorly thought out/implemented ideas and are going to have to start from scratch on several things. It would be best to hope for Alpha to start in January 2020, and for beta to start in October. The long Alpha is because the classes need a lot of work that Blizzard hasn't even admitted or realized yet. Internally they also have to accept that the "rent-an-ability" trend of each expansion is the real reason they need to do a level squish this expansion and they need to step away from that mentality. A good level squish is going to take a lot of work and should be done with the class reworks to help gain basic mastery of their core class and a single spec.

SL is going to be a tonne of work, if they want to do it right. Unlike BFA, where they had a decent foundation with Legion that they just had to iterate upon correctly, they have no good foundation to work with and are planning to try and start from scratch again while also going in with the mentality of doing as little work as possible. The one interview that said they aren't doing Legion level reworks on any classes is honestly the most terrifying piece of information. It echoes of the level of ignorance they had prior to Cataclysm with leveling zone reworks. The end result is either they do it right and it takes longer than expected, or they cut corners like in BFA, and ship a piss-poor product.

The latest they can release Shadowlands, legally, is 31/12/2020. That end date is tied to the pre-orders and cannot be altered now unless Blizzard wants to open themselves to litigation. I personally predict an October 2020 release.

[Nevcairiel]

2. Competitive junk
MDI and arena heck even the WF race are all in one way or another important to the game and especially important to the hype for BlizzCon. Let's say people are correct about it launching in December. That launch would place BlizzCon in the pre-patch limbo meaning no competition at BlizzCon because the game wouldn't be balanced around BFA. That means that for there to be any WoW competitions then the expansion would have to be out for a minimum of 6 weeks before BlizzCon ( 2 weeks for raid unlock another for mythic unlock and 2 more for the race with 1 for rest)

Competitions are often on a different version of the game then live servers. They could launch at any time and just finish all competitions on 8.x BfA servers.

Competitions like MDI or Arena often take quite long, in which time a new concent patch might launch - and this ability to run a set specific version for competitions allows them to just stick to the version the cometition started on, no matter if something launched in between, without throwing balance off in the middle of it.

[micwini]

They've also stated that they will never rush expansions anymore, like they did with BFA. It didnt have enough beta testers which resulted in new systems not having enough feedback. We all see how that turned out.

BFA came out almost exactly 2 years after Legion. If enough people play the beta, test and give feedback, I think Shadowlands will launch at the end of october, at the earliest.

They said this after WoD. We still got BFA. What blizzard says is never a good argument in these types of predictions. They change their mind every 10 minutes. See: Bring the player not the class/bring the class not the player, "the new warchief will be someone you won't expect" and "grommash is the final boss of WoD".

[kendro1200]

The latest they can release Shadowlands, legally, is 31/12/2020. That end date is tied to the pre-orders and cannot be altered now unless Blizzard wants to open themselves to litigation. I personally predict an October 2020 release.

Blizzard, and vendors that sell their products have put up junk dates for decades at this point. I remember one of their early release dates being October 2003 for WoW, and the game wasn't even in beta yet. How about the Summer 2019 release date for WC3: Reforged? People can pre-order and buy stuff, and release dates can get pushed back all of the time. It "can" open themselves up legally, but the person trying to sue is going to have a very difficult and uphill legal battle to prove damages by not releasing a game by its initial "release date". Video game companies get away with a lot, and there is a lot of precedent that will enable them to continue to get away with a lot.

[huth]

Blizzard, and vendors that sell their products have put up junk dates for decades at this point. I remember one of their early release dates being October 2003 for WoW, and the game wasn't even in beta yet. How about the Summer 2019 release date for WC3: Reforged? People can pre-order and buy stuff, and release dates can get pushed back all of the time. It "can" open themselves up legally, but the person trying to sue is going to have a very difficult and uphill legal battle to prove damages by not releasing a game by its initial "release date". Video game companies get away with a lot, and there is a lot of precedent that will enable them to continue to get away with a lot.

They've yet to miss a preorder date. You're misremembering things there.

[JacobMarley]

It looked really early in development to me from what we seen at blizzcon.

Usually we see an expansion announced and don’t see the game come out for about a year and a half later.. I was really surprised when they announced a 2020 release. My bet is an early December 2020 at the absolute earliest.