When should TBC to be released, if it will be released?

[Julian Rayne]

Sidenote: Has BC even been officially confirmed anywhere, or is everyone just making the assumption it's going to come out?

It's not officially confirmed, but Blizzard put out a poll to selected players asking their opinions on how TBC should be implemented. Not if but how. Which is a pretty strong indicator.

[RevolverLynx]

The reasoning for that date is....?

How was the patch release cycle in Classic compared to Vanilla? Take the math from there and get your estimates for Naxx release and possibly TBC.

Its just my assumption as its two years after classic release.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not officially confirmed, but Blizzard put out a poll to selected players asking their opinions on how TBC should be implemented. Not if but how. Which is a pretty strong indicator.

Yep, its inevitable.

[Julian Rayne]

Yep, its inevitable.

Which kind of raises the question of where they're going to stop with this. I could see them doing Classic and then stopping. What I cannot see is them doing TBC and then not doing Wrath. So how far are they going to go?

[RevolverLynx]

Which kind of raises the question of where they're going to stop with this. I could see them doing Classic and then stopping. What I cannot see is them doing TBC and then not doing Wrath. So how far are they going to go?

I think they should stop at wotlk as thats where the "old" WoW ends. And cata is the worst expansion imo.

[lagiacrux]

I think they should stop at wotlk as thats where the "old" WoW ends. And cata is the worst expansion imo.

my personal interest would stop at cata. tbc and wrath were both really good expansions (not without flaws) but i cant think back to anything in cata that i remember fondly.

[Hitei]

Which kind of raises the question of where they're going to stop with this. I could see them doing Classic and then stopping. What I cannot see is them doing TBC and then not doing Wrath. So how far are they going to go?

I expect they do not have firm plans. They will see how BC goes and what BC classic does to regular Classic's population. Assuming it does well they will do Wrath. If BC and Wrath leave classic servers completely empty, they might consider moving beyond that.

Anything BC+ begins to get sort of unnecessary though, in the sense that most of its content still exists, completely unchanged in the current version of the game. Classic involves a bunch of altered instances, hundreds of quests that either don't exist, were heavily rewritten or are altered, a completely different style of PvP ranking system, faction limited classes, etc. ZA aside, you can basically do all of BC right now in 8.3, exactly as it was in 2.4.3, but with different classes/scaling.

Not that I don't think it would be successful, just that BC is significantly less necessary, and Wrath even more so.

I think they should stop at wotlk as thats where the "old" WoW ends. And cata is the worst expansion imo.

What is the "old" WoW?

[dcc626]

Summer 2021

not likely. probably wont get info about it untiul blizzcon 2021, so probably summer 2022

[RevolverLynx]

I expect they do not have firm plans. They will see how BC goes and what BC classic does to regular Classic's population. Assuming it does well they will do Wrath. If BC and Wrath leave classic servers completely empty, they might consider moving beyond that.

Anything BC+ begins to get sort of unnecessary though, in the sense that most of its content still exists, completely unchanged in the current version of the game. Classic involves a bunch of altered instances, hundreds of quests that either don't exist, were heavily rewritten or are altered, a completely different style of PvP ranking system, faction limited classes, etc. ZA aside, you can basically do all of BC right now in 8.3, exactly as it was in 2.4.3, but with different classes/scaling.

Not that I don't think it would be successful, just that BC is significantly less necessary, and Wrath even more so.


What is the "old" WoW?

Before cata, before classes were revamped totally.

[Zylos]

What is the "old" WoW?

I mean I feel like this is pretty obvious considering how drastically cata changed every Zone in EK and Kalimdor as well as removed the old talent trees in favor of new ones.

[dcc626]

they will probboly stick to the original pace and release tbc about 6months after naxx. So somewhere around august 2021 seems like a resonable estimation.

my guess is that since there is no retail releases to be talked about at blizzcon next year, they will announce tbs and release it sometime in 2022. they tend to alternate.

[Hitei]

Before cata, before classes were revamped totally.

Are you thinking of MoP? Because most classes were not all that different between Cata and Wrath. Certainly nowhere near "revamped totally". Most specs have like an extra button in their rotation and a new utility or two.

I mean I feel like this is pretty obvious considering how drastically cata changed every Zone in EK and Kalimdor as well as removed the old talent trees in favor of new ones.

This feels very arbitrary. If the basis for worth doing vs not doing is in EK/Kalimdor, why do BC and Wrath at all, when Classic now exists with that exact leveling in its original form? Neither BC nor Wrath are the 1-58, to the extent that most people are pushing for being able to copy over their classic 60, or get a premade 60 so that they don't have to do that content.

[RevolverLynx]

Are you thinking of MoP? Because most classes were not all that different between Cata and Wrath. Certainly nowhere near "revamped totally". Most specs have like an extra button in their rotation and a new utility or two.


This feels very arbitrary. If the basis for worth doing vs not doing is in EK/Kalimdor, why do BC and Wrath at all, when Classic now exists with that exact leveling in its original form? Neither BC nor Wrath are the 1-58, to the extent that most people are pushing for being able to copy over their classic 60, or get a premade 60 so that they don't have to do that content.

Well cata destroyed that old athmosphere what the WoW before that had, and also i missed the old 123 buttons retri pala faceroll in bgs with wings and bubble activated.

[tikcol]

I expect they do not have firm plans. They will see how BC goes and what BC classic does to regular Classic's population. Assuming it does well they will do Wrath. If BC and Wrath leave classic servers completely empty, they might consider moving beyond that.

Anything BC+ begins to get sort of unnecessary though, in the sense that most of its content still exists, completely unchanged in the current version of the game. Classic involves a bunch of altered instances, hundreds of quests that either don't exist, were heavily rewritten or are altered, a completely different style of PvP ranking system, faction limited classes, etc. ZA aside, you can basically do all of BC right now in 8.3, exactly as it was in 2.4.3, but with different classes/scaling.

Not that I don't think it would be successful, just that BC is significantly less necessary, and Wrath even more so.


What is the "old" WoW?

Private servers usually died a few months after naxx and devs released a new fresh server and people would play it all over again. This cycle repeated for years and years.

I can assure you classic will die a few months after naxx if they don't release tbc or fresh vanilla servers.

If they picked nostalrius devs brains even a little, blizzard should be aware of this. What kept pserver community going for a decade were fresh servers.

Usually naxx servers kept around 500 players while the new fresh server had 20k people online for months. People don't want to do naxx forever.

[crusadernero]

if retail effects classic it will kill it so no.

It will be perfect for Blizzard to release BC when retail is in a drought on content.

[Schmilblick]

Right now, I'm bored :/

[Tojara]

My guess would be August or early fall in 2021.

They aren't going to announce TBC anytime soon because we aren't even done classic, and such an announcement would take away from Shadowlands, which is going to hit in late November or sometime in December (my guess anyways). From a marketing standpoint, it doesn't make sense to announce multiple things within the same franchise, regardless of whether or not they're somewhat different products (classic and live both have massive overlaps).

I don't think they mind AQ lasting a bit longer than it originally did, simply because the rate at which servers open the gates is completely varied depending on the server you chose to roll on. Naxxaramas, logically to me would happen a few months after Shadowlands releases as to not step on Shadowlands toes at all, and fit neatly in after the honeymoon period of Shadowlands is about to expire. This puts Naxxaramas firmly in a late February or early March release date. This accomplishes multiple things. It's a good 6 months after AQ was released, and it's essentially between patches on live.

I'd honestly expect an announcement concerning TBC early in 2021, and if I was a betting man, it was probably one of the two big reveals that was going to happen during the 2020 Blizzcon that got cancelled. TBC doesn't need as much development time as classic did as they (according to them) have all of the source code still and TBC (outdoor and dungeons) still behave the same way they did over a decade ago, even on live servers.

My date is around the assumption they want to wedge classic and retail releases between each other (during dead periods) to keep engagement high and the possibility of somebody maintaining a subscription and/or having the urge to check over the other portion of the game. Naxxaramas coming out in late February or early March gives it an exact 6 month lifespan through to August, which would also mark the two year anniversary of classic WoW coming out.

November/December 2020 - Shadowlands release
January/Febrary 2021 - TBC announcement
February/March 2021 - Naxxaramas release
May/June 2021 - Shadowlands first major patch
August/September - TBC release
October/November - Shadowlands second major patch

Obviously dates can vary slightly, but I think you're a fool to not notice a pattern with how they release things. I wouldn't call it 'evil' because it certainly benefits the consumer if WoW is your thing, but it's obvious that one of the major reasons that classic versions of the game got the green light was because it's an easy way to curb subscription loss between major raid tiers. Anybody who has played WoW for any number of expansions will tell you that engagement typically falls off pretty sharply by the second or third month into a tier, then picks back up right before a new patch goes out.

I play both classic and live versions of the game, and in my classic guild there were so many people screeching about how retail fucking blows (despite not playing it for years, and just going by what they heard). Nearly every single one of them bought retail during some period of the final patch and played varying amounts of the game despite being so against it during the honeymoon period of classic WoW. Of the ~20 that bought the game, half played the game for a couple months and quit, while the other half still play the game and make sure to do their active 'chores' every single week. I'm going to guess that I'm not the only person who has witnessed this either.

[Moozart]

For some of the dates you guys are giving Blizz would have to be already working on TBC servers... which I Doubt they are. Between covid, Shadowlands and Vanilla I doubt they have even had time to think about it.

[Nokura]

if that were the case, why even bother release tbc after classic is "finished"? classic players wont play tbc anyway since the will play classic forever ...

on a serious note: i hope they dont wait too long. playing and leveling in classic was fun for a while, but i got bored very quickly. im really excited for TBC and i hope they dont wait for 1 year after naxx release like some here hope. give them max. 3 months of naxx. dont most people just raidlogg anyway in classic?

the better of the bad players will since tbc was 100x better than vanilla.

[letssee]

not likely. probably wont get info about it untiul blizzcon 2021, so probably summer 2022

lool noo way, classic wont surive for a full year without anything new, theres a digital info dump blizzard is plannig for early 2021, they will just announce it then

[RevolverLynx]

lool noo way, classic wont surive for a full year without anything new, theres a digital info dump blizzard is plannig for early 2021, they will just announce it then

Indeed, i was so eager to wait for classic but when i got to lvl60 and got AV exalted i just logged out right after and havent logged back in 8 months. Altho i met really awesome people there, i miss the social aspect more than playing classic.