BFA: the longest lasting xpac in the history of WoW

[Soluna]

People say every two years "IT was rushed." Its not an actual thing.

I mean it's a fact that some expansions are rushed. They literally had no clue of what to present in Blizzcon. Feel free to pretend it's not the case though. All other blizzcons I've checked, the expansions presented were a lot more fleshed out and well thought.

[Tyrannosaur]

Read the rest what I wrote about "feeling like a long expansion", too. It links to what the OP spoke about BfA "having dragged on" when it comes not even close to how much other expansions have "dragged on for", especially MoP.

Except your premise is wrong about SL having, by far, the most time to be worked on. Legion and WoD began development at the same time in 2012 shortly after the launch of MoP.

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And ignores that Legion and WoD were in simultaneous development.

Blizzard always has multiple expansions in development at once. They don't ever release their timetables, but if they didn't co-develop them, it would be years and years in between expansions. Look at how long Vanilla took. It was announced in 2001 and didn't come out until 2004.

However, that doesn't really have anything to do with the original question. The OP just stated that BfA is the longest lasting expansion, and that is correct

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Except your premise is wrong about SL having, by far, the most time to be worked on. Legion and WoD began development at the same time in 2012 shortly after the launch of MoP.

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And ignores that Legion and WoD were in simultaneous development.

Read the rest what I wrote about "feeling like a long expansion", too. It links to what the OP spoke about BfA "having dragged on" when it comes not even close to how much other expansions have "dragged on for", especially MoP.

The OP doesn't mention anything about content droughts. he just said that BfA will be the longest expansion to date, and they're right.

Blizzard is much better at pacing content than they were back in the day. Yeah, tiers like ICC, Dragon Soul and SoO lasted close to a year or more. That just shows that Blizz have gotten better at planning things out.

[Sensa1]

Yea, let's just forget about the impact covid-19 had on the world, and the huge delays (and complete stops) that were a direct consequence of the pandemic.

I wouldn't just expect a more polished\complete expansion because of a few (2?) extra months in comparison to usual expansion duration, when we had way longer than that as complete lockout and production halt (they eventually started to work from home, but not immediately, and not nearly at the same productivity level). So i just feel it's a naive conclusion the op is making.

Assuming your argument is correct, and there was a dramatic decline in production due to Covid-19, the old Blizzard would have bit the bullet and delayed the release of Shadowlands (which they did for either TBC or Wrath - forget which one) because they were more concerned about shipping a tested, quality product. Activision-Blizzard just cares about meeting quarterly targets to appease shareholders.

So, again, if we assume you're correct we can pretty much expect (and there is some evidence in the Beta of this) that Shadowlands, despite being largely based on re-skinned versions of past systems, will be a rushed, half-baked beta product that they won't resolve a host of issues with for months on end.

[Accendor]

Unfortunately Shadowlands is already set up to fail.
Basically nothing relevant to do at 60, story in shambles, disjointed locations. Some classes are still a joke (looking at you Havoc DH), Covenants can never be balanced. Maw not even remotely finished, personally not a fan of roguelikes, new m+ affixes look terrible. Levelling will be an even worse experience than BfA, no idea how they managed to do that.
Yeah, better luck next time in 2 years maybe.

[dcc626]

Unfortunately Shadowlands is already set up to fail.
Basically nothing relevant to do at 60, story in shambles, disjointed locations. Some classes are still a joke (looking at you Havoc DH), Covenants can never be balanced. Maw not even remotely finished, personally not a fan of roguelikes, new m+ affixes look terrible. Levelling will be an even worse experience than BfA, no idea how they managed to do that.
Yeah, better luck next time in 2 years maybe.

hey, at least it give people things to complain about.

have fun in shadowlands.

[Ielenia]

Blizzard always has multiple expansions in development at once. They don't ever release their timetables, but if they didn't co-develop them, it would be years and years in between expansions. Look at how long Vanilla took. It was announced in 2001 and didn't come out until 2004.

However, that doesn't really have anything to do with the original question. The OP just stated that BfA is the longest lasting expansion, and that is correct

In the OP's own words:

Given how long this expansion has dragged on for,

To drag on: to last longer than you want or think it's necessary.

To which I point back at my original post: MoP had the longest content drought, therefore that is the expansion that has "dragged on" the most.

[rhorle]

To which I point back at my original post: MoP had the longest content drought, therefore that is the expansion that has "dragged on" the most.

The OP never mentioned content drought or since the last content patch. You are projecting that in because that is how you've argued it. The title of the thread offers context clues of the meaning, longest lasting expansion in the history of WoW, which is talking about the expansion as a whole and not just the last patch. Dragged on can refer to any period of time and does not exclusive mean "since the last patch" when discussing games.

[SirBeef]

Blizzard always has multiple expansions in development at once. They don't ever release their timetables, but if they didn't co-develop them, it would be years and years in between expansions. Look at how long Vanilla took. It was announced in 2001 and didn't come out until 2004.

However, that doesn't really have anything to do with the original question. The OP just stated that BfA is the longest lasting expansion, and that is correct

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The OP doesn't mention anything about content droughts. he just said that BfA will be the longest expansion to date, and they're right.

Blizzard is much better at pacing content than they were back in the day. Yeah, tiers like ICC, Dragon Soul and SoO lasted close to a year or more. That just shows that Blizz have gotten better at planning things out.

Yeah, usually concepting the one after the ine they are currently working on. But Legion was different. With so much work needed for Order Halls, artifact weapons and skins, and legendaries they were actively developing Legion and WoD at the same time. The doubled their staff to handle this, had issues getting new devs up to speed, hence the cuts to WoD. But Legiin was actively being developed for 4 years.

[Mayia]

Its hard for shadowlands to break away from the traps Legion and BFA have started with borrowed power, the Devs still don't understand how stupid it is.
Tier sets were the best method it was more balancing but it worked oh so much better. - and they could create lesser world quest line tier sets with similar bonuses to apease the masses.

i don't know if they've learnt the lessons required Blizzard are far too prideful.

[Hitei]

I mean it's a fact that some expansions are rushed. They literally had no clue of what to present in Blizzcon. Feel free to pretend it's not the case though. All other blizzcons I've checked, the expansions presented were a lot more fleshed out and well thought.

What are you basing this on?

BC was pretty much entirely concept art at announcement, and they literally didn't have Draenei developed firmly enough to even announce them as the Alliance race until 6 months after Blizzcon.

Cata's presentation had Archaeology as a profession based around the Path of the Titans, a system that did not make it past the concept stage. Uldum, Hyjal and Deepholme were not fleshed out enough to show outside of concept art and maps and Twilight Highlands was only conceptual.

MoP's scenario and challenge mode explanations were significantly shorter and less fleshed out than Torghast's.

[rhorle]

Tier sets were the best method it was more balancing but it worked oh so much better. - and they could create lesser world quest line tier sets with similar bonuses to apease the masses.

It is always amusing when people complain about borrowed power per expansion yet want it to go back to borrowing power per tier. It really is just the latest buzzword to use to hate on Blizzard/WoW.

[Argorwal]

Did you read your data? Shadowlands launch follows a 9 month post content drought. TBC and Wotlk followed a 7 and 7.5. 7 is shorter than 9. Shadowlands does not follow one of the shortest droughts. Using your argument BFA and MoP both have one of the shortest droughts as well.

Is this where we get to claim the Wrath drought was short because we got a trash Ruby Sanctum patch? Because the final raid tier ICC lasted for over a year.

[arkanon]

Is this where we get to claim the Wrath drought was short because we got a trash Ruby Sanctum patch? Because the final raid tier ICC lasted for over a year.

I mean.......RS was crap, but it wasnt nothing.

[Argorwal]

I mean.......RS was crap, but it wasnt nothing.

A 1 boss joke doesn’t really create a feeling of a content drought ending.

I assume for Legion we would use the patch with seething shore added rather than Antorus release since it was added content.

[rhorle]

Is this where we get to claim the Wrath drought was short because we got a trash Ruby Sanctum patch? Because the final raid tier ICC lasted for over a year.

The post is referencing the drought that happened before the expansion launch and not during the named expansion. So WotLK launched after a 7.5 month drought. TBC launched after a 7 month drought. As for your question it uses patch 3.3 so the drought during WotLK or prior to Cataclysm launch was 12 months. If it was going off of Ruby Sanctum it would have been a 5 months and 11 days.

3.3 lasted for a year. Not over. 364 days so technically under a year.

[Mafic]

I mean.......RS was crap, but it wasnt nothing.

Yeppers.

RS was part of a patch even if people did not like it. They could have rolled out another patch for BFA but chose to go with shadowlands. A big gamble if they don't deliver with the new expansion.

[rhorle]

A 1 boss joke doesn’t really create a feeling of a content drought ending. I assume for Legion we would use the patch with seething shore added rather than Antorus release since it was added content.

Seething shore was added with patch 7.3.5 but wasn't didn't enter in rotation until March (it had a preview in February). So it wasn't its own patch but if you count 7.3.5 then Legion to BfA would only have had a 7 month content drought.

[arkanon]

A 1 boss joke doesn’t really create a feeling of a content drought ending.

I assume for Legion we would use the patch with seething shore added rather than Antorus release since it was added content.

So a new boss to kill doesnt end the drought of bosses to kill? What a strange thought process...

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Yeppers.

RS was part of a patch even if people did not like it. They could have rolled out another patch for BFA but chose to go with shadowlands. A big gamble if they don't deliver with the new expansion.

Yeah i mean i hated RS - but it was something new to do after not having anything new to do......

[Ielenia]

The OP never mentioned content drought or since the last content patch. You are projecting that in because that is how you've argued it.

I'm not "projecting". Those were the OP's words: "given how long this expansion has dragged on for..." And the expansion that "dragged on" the most was MoP due to its immense content drought. We had sixteen months between MoP's last content patch, and Warlords of Draenor. Nothing but Siege of Orgrimmar to tide us over to the next expansion. Whereas we're having only ten months between BfA's last content patch, and Shadowlands. And on top of that we had more than just the Ny'alotha raid to busy ourselves with.

The title of the thread offers context clues of the meaning, longest lasting expansion in the history of WoW, which is talking about the expansion as a whole and not just the last patch. Dragged on can refer to any period of time and does not exclusive mean "since the last patch" when discussing games.

Even then, BfA ties with MoP.

[rhorle]

I'm not "projecting". Those were the OP's words: "given how long this expansion has dragged on for..." And the expansion that "dragged on" the most was MoP due to its immense content drought. We had sixteen months between MoP's last content patch, and Warlords of Draenor. Nothing but Siege of Orgrimmar to tide us over to the next expansion. Whereas we're having only ten months between BfA's last content patch, and Shadowlands. And on top of that we had more than just the Ny'alotha raid to busy ourselves with.

You are projecting. Expansion does not equal only the last content patch. The OP doesn't mention mists at all and in fact you are the first one to do so. Odd huh? Also the time between 5.4 and WoD launch was 14 months, 9-10-2013 to 11-13-14. The OP wasn't just talking about the last content patch but the entire length of the expansion and BFA will have lasted 26 months by the time Shadowlands launches. 8.3 will have lasted 9 months, not 10 as well. 1-14-2020 to 10-27-2020 is 1 month and 9.

26 months is the longest expansion to date. Not by much since both Wrath and Mists lasted 25 months and Vanilla to TBC lasted 26 months but is excluded on the technicality that Vanilla wasn't an expansion. Though depending on how you round it you could round Mists up to 26 but SL would still be longer.