Timeframe, BFA to SL

[Dracullus]

but could/would they reveal 9.1 and 9.1.5 for a game that isn't out yet?

Of course, last few years they revealed X.1.5 and X.2 patches with huge spoilers even before X.1 was out. And 7.1 was announced even before Legion launch.

[noladrew]

so going off that calendar the events being held on the 6th and 7th November did not appear at all on the calendar from 2019, I checked October to December. so either they are fake, or BlizzCon is going to be sharing the space the weekend of 13th/14th with DesignerCon

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but could/would they reveal 9.1 and 9.1.5 for a game that isn't out yet?

All of the events in Nov2020 weekends show up on the actual event websites as well, hard to believe the random companies would be in on at is well.

[MrLachyG]

Of course, last few years they revealed X.1.5 and X.2 patches with huge spoilers even before X.1 was out. And 7.1 was announced even before Legion launch.

Ah yeah that is true. I’d forgotten about that

[Penegal]

With the current expansion currently closed, i apologize in advance if their are other threads identical to this one but when do you see Alpha and Beta releases, and then the expansion launch?

Alpha: March 10th (Final Nyalotha wing open, builds pushed)
Beta: May/June
Prepatch: August 11th or 18th (Lately we've had roughly around 30 days of prepatch before exp launch)
Launch: September 17th (Prequel book launches July 14th, creepy vampire raid in Venthyr zone could open in early October)

What do you guys think? Do you think we will see a pair of allied races added in the prepatch to give an incentive to go through the new leveling system?

I recently saw a video of Preach. I'm not gonna summarize it but he said that he wouldn't be surprised if they release SL Dec 2020 or Jan 2021

[Lolites]

Something no one is factoring in... the Anaheim Convention Center has a detailed schedule of events on their site and there's no time slots for Blizzcon to even fit into. Unless Blizzard has them post fake events on certain dates to keep things a secret. [

Might not get a Blizzcon this year or not a full weekend one or perhaps a digital version showcase of some sort, who knows.

OR just blizzcon in October/December i guess. Which i guess October is more likely than December, since December has everything booked in the first week or two of the month, I doubt they'd hold Blizzcon the week before Christmas.

or they might have it elsewhere, its unlikely but still possible

[MrLachyG]

or they might have it elsewhere, its unlikely but still possible

They’ve had it there since 2013. It has quite a hefty attendance so you’d think they would give priority to them over other smaller events

[Onikaroshi]

if we go by past times,SL can easily come out in 2021

One game with a tiny team and outsourcing gets released a month late and suddenly its "past times"

[Nyel]

Or... they're simply switching to a 2-year-cycle between Blizzcons. That removes basically the shitty Blizzcons were nothing gets announced (like 2018) and gives them more time to finish things etc.

[Dhomeli]

It's been in November from 2013 through 2019, but the first 6 Blizzcons were in October/August... so it's possible that it will be a different month this year.

For reference:
2005 - October 28/29
2007 - August 3/4
2008 - October 10/11
2009 - August 21/22
2010 - October 22/23
2011 - October 21/22

2013 through 2019 - Early November

[AlmightyGerkin]

I agree. They announced BFA (November 2017) the same month as Shadowlands (November 2019). Yet BFA got an "on or before September" and Shadowlands got an "on or before December". This indicates that Shadowlands would be released after September. October and November are most likely (November more than October), but if there are major issues, January isn't out of the question. There is a lot to fix.

Hope its not another WC3 Refunded. Dangle the carrot infront of players than immediately rip it away and push it ahead. If they do seem to not release this year and push it next year can only hope it fairs better than WC3.

[Erlking]

I think during prepatch they will either remove the restriction from allied races or make the rep grind really quick and tied to prepatch event.

They will need to bring people back for SL.

[Raugnaut]

I really don't think we'll see Launch before October. They are very specific on the Dec 2020 this time, the last two were "September 21". I think it'll be end of october, so they can talk about 9.1/2 at blizzcon and not have to spend another blizzcon on launch.

And quite honestly, October is the only decent release month in that quarter window imo.

Nothing much goes on in Oct.

First two weeks are rough in Nov. with blizzcon (including time after to wind down. Second 2 are bad with Thanksgiving. And then december is cluster, yea they released cata in dec, but it's still less likely than oct.

More WoW expansions have been released shortly after Blizzcon now then have been released shortly before Blizzcon. I'm calling November 13th myself just because.

[Dystemper]

Be stupid of Blizzard to release SL before January so I Am sure it will be a rushed, very buggy shit show

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or they might have it elsewhere, its unlikely but still possible

Or no Blizzcons anymore as it might be too expensive and troublesome to put them on now

[Kalcheus]

Gang, it seems pretty obvious to me when BlizzCon will be happening


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To add to that, Hilton Anaheim is already "sold out" for the 22nd and 23rd, my guess is that it's the convention center holding all the rooms.

[Lolites]

Be stupid of Blizzard to release SL before January so I Am sure it will be a rushed, very buggy shit show

Or no Blizzcons anymore as it might be too expensive and troublesome to put them on now

wtf, you know how much money that shit earns them, not to mention its good for marketing, unless there will be corona pandemia in whole US by then blizzcon will happen

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if we go by past times,SL can easily come out in 2021

if we go by past times, ALL of wow expansions after BC (which was delayed if i remember correctly) were released in announced window, and so will be shadowlands

[GreenJesus]

It's already march and we still dont have alpha. I really hope it doesnt come out until December.

[Letdown]

Alpha should start literally any day now -- I'm thinking the 6th, no later than the 13th. Beta probably hits somewhere around May 8th.

Pre-patch July 28th. With the leveling changes and the "feeling weaker as we leveled" from Legion combined with the lack of 8.3.5, I think we're going to get an abnormally long pre-patch. This will give players time to get alts ready for Shadowlands and get used to how the game feels post Heart of Azeroth, hopefully creating an initial "oof" when the pre-patch hits, but avoiding the "I hit level 116 and my DPS is 1/3rd of what it was at 115" effect.

Finally, my money's pretty firmly on September 15th for launch.

There's a few reasons for this, namely that based on the launch schedule and content cadence Blizzard likes to do, this (or around this date) is the only time Blizzard can launch the expansion without having a weird World First race schedule. Assuming they use a similar cadence to what they did for the last 2 expansions (August 14th release for BfA, September 4th opening for Uldir, 3 week gap). Looking at some of the other launch windows, assuming BlizzCon is the first weekend of November:

October 6th -- Raid opens October 27th -- progression overlaps with BlizzCon.
October 13th -- Raid opens November 3rd -- BlizzCon would only interfere with raid prep, this one is possible.
October 20th -- Raid opens November 10th -- BlizzCon would more heavily interfere with raid prep, but is still possible.
October 27th -- Launch flat out overlaps with BlizzCon, this is a no-go.
November 3rd -- Raid opens November 24th -- Progression overlaps with Thanksgiving. That's a negative ghostrider.
November 10th -- Raid opens December 1st -- This is one of the two November dates that I even consider as possible.
November 17th -- Raid opens December 8th -- This is the last date in 2020 that I think is reasonable.
November 24th -- Raid opens December 15th -- Office holiday has usually hit by now. Pretty unlikely Blizzard would WANT to release in this window, but it's possible.
December 1st -- Raid Opens December 22nd -- Absolutely not. They've held back patches in the past to avoid launching new content during the holiday window.
December 8th -- Raid Opens December 29th -- This is still during the holiday window.
All other December dates are simply too heavily over the Holiday window, with MAYBE the exception of December 29th, however that would still require Blizzard to end their office holiday early to support the launch, which they won't want to do.

Some of these dates become more probable if BlizzCon is the weekend of November 13th, which would be noteably late for a BlizzCon, but would make more dates in September viable and even October viable.

TLDR: September 15th, 22nd, October 6, October 13th, November 10th are the most likely release date candidates, depending on when BlizzCon falls. I think September 15th is the most probable of these dates, as it gives the content the most time to settle for BlizzCon and sets a very nice hype drip-feed for 2020 into 2021.

Edit: If BlizzCon is in fact the weekend of October 23rd, then it's almost definitely October 27th, November 10th, or November 17th, with my money being on October 27th.

[rhorle]

The cloak fully upgrades around September 8th I believe. So I am guessing the patch around then and the expansion a month or so later. It would have been great timing for Blizzard to release the expansion on the day of the dead/Halloween but I don't see that happening given the days they are.

[Nyel]

Finally, my money's pretty firmly on September 15th for launch.

That's still Q3 and wouldn't make much sense regarding their deadline. On top of that it would make 8.3 an 8-month final patch which is also very short in comparison to other final patches. With the pre-patch approaching in July 8.3 would be shorter than 8.2 overall. A late October launch (or even November), as you suggest at the bottom, makes a lot more sense.

And even if launch happens after Blizzcon, they coul easily cover launch + 9.1 stuff there.

[Letdown]

That's still Q3 and wouldn't make much sense regarding their deadline. On top of that it would make 8.3 an 8-month final patch which is also very short in comparison to other final patches. With the pre-patch approaching in July 8.3 would be shorter than 8.2 overall. A late October launch (or even November), as you suggest at the bottom, makes a lot more sense.

And even if launch happens after Blizzcon, they coul easily cover launch + 9.1 stuff there.

My issue isn't with it launching after BlizzCon, my issue is how few windows don't have severe conflicts with BlizzCon or the Holidays IF BlizzCon is in November again this year.

I think generally speaking, people were frustrated with the length of 8.2 (at least going off of the vocal minority), and the fact we're not even getting a .5 patch this go around makes me think 8.3 will likely only be in the 8-monthsish range.

I think it'll be a lot clearer once we see the state of the first proper Alpha release (I say proper because I am expecting the first wave of Alpha to be the blizzcon 2019 content again tbh).

If BlizzCon is October 23rd, then I think we're almost definitely looking at an early November release.

People are looking at the Q4 stuff too aggressively, when pre-orders first went up for BfA it also said December 2018 before we got the date announcement, and that was very solidly Q3.