BFA: the longest lasting xpac in the history of WoW

[rhorle]

So you don't think it alters the continuity if you change these past events in order to mean something completely different so you can validate your new expansion idea?

The past events are not changed to mean something completely different. We are just learning more about how those events came to be. The Nathrezim delivered the helm and blade to the Legion who turned it into the end result that we saw on Azeroth. Learning more with an expanded backstory isn't always a retcon. And what you keep mentioning hasn't been changed since at least Chronicles was released which was a few months prior to Legion. Which means they didn't change the story for Shadowlands but set up the lore prior. And Blizzard has set up chronicles to be told from a biased/unreliable narrator. So things can be slightly changed with out technically being a retcon.

- - - Updated - - -

I never said the last content patch is when an expansion ends. I specifically said "is done", meaning there wouldn't be anything new added for the expansion, not when it "ends".

Is done and ends is the same thing. The only difference is you are using quotes and I am not but both convey the same meaning.

[Moozart]

I logged in ready to debunk the OP saying BfA is the longest expansion to date, but they're actually correct. The only other time the game went 26 months until the new expansion was vanilla to BC. everything in between has been anywhere from 22-25 months

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Expansion

I did the same thing and looked it up, I swear it felt like Black Temple dragged on forever and then Sunwell after.

[Ielenia]

Is done and ends is the same thing. The only difference is you are using quotes and I am not but both convey the same meaning.

And now who's the one "redefining terms"? "Is done" and "ends" are different terms. An expansion "is done" when its last content patch is released, and it "ends" when the next expansion goes live.

[Musta]

if they would just PULL THE RIPCORD

[naytiry]

More armchair developers not knowing what they are talking about.

The transition from office work to WFH is not a smooth one. It takes time to set up a home office. It takes time to get remote VPNs working properly. There are more distractions at home. Loved ones do their best not to disturb you but it can take a while for them to get used to you being there.
Source? I am an actual software developer that now WFH in a large organisation and I actually played Vanilla.

I am an actual software developer that now works from home.

What you say is absolute bullshit. My company has had 0 problems adapting and to be honest I would say we're even more productive at home

[razorpax]

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.

- - - Updated - - -



So, in all honesty, the same as every other expansion? this is just silly criticism.

For borrowed powers it only really started in Legion

In WoD we got a talent row at least

[Couchpotato2013]

In case anyone has forgotten covid actually freed up blizzard for 2 weeks in quarter 4 to launch shadowlands. Those 2 weeks being one before blizzcon, and the week of blizzcon.

Also just today we had the final cloak upgrade to resistance 125. At no point for any expansion ever has there been ongoing “relevant” progression that bled into the next expansion. We were never going to get shadowlands before October 13. And this was all setup on the ptr and the revisions blizz had for the cloak in January. Way before any substantial shutdowns due to covid happening.

October 13 being the end of a 4 week pre-patch that would have started 1 week (next week) after the final cloak upgrade (this week). Shadowlands launches 2 weeks after that earliest release date and also falling on the (as I mentioned first) now freed up week that they would have not launched anything because it would have been too much of a strain on blizzcon and taken focus away from it. So really with Covid it is likely they actually pushed up their launch window.

- - - Updated - - -

Look up the duration for all odd and even versions of WoW. You’ll see (I set pre-patch starts as the beginning of the expansion, because most things deemed desirable from the prior expansion get removed, thus signifying its end):

784 days of vanilla
667 days of tbc
754 days of wrath
658 days of cata
779 days of MoP
656 days of WoD
714 days of legion

Odd versioned (1.X, 3.X, 5.X) average lifespan before legion: 772.333 days

Even versioned (2.X, 4.X, 6.X) average lifespan before legion: 660.333 days

112 day average difference

Before we knew the end date of legion (bfa pre-patch) give this tick-tock type cycle (no not referring to any hypothetical A and B teams for WoW), you could see a very distinct difference in how long even and odd versions of WoW lasted. Taking Legion’s life span and subtracting it from the average from the odd versions you can see that there was a deficit of 58.333 days in how long Legion could have lasted if it kept the trend set by vanilla, wrath and mop.

And funny enough those 2 months fit with what you have said, and it’s obvious that 8.1 with its 6 dead weeks before BoD, and the utter lack of stuff in 8.2.5. It’s obvious we could have recuperated those 2 months with the dead times in bfa.

[Tiev]

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 get where you're coming from, but whenever I hear people saying this I get a little confused. Maybe my company is the exception when it comes to software development but we were working in the office one day, at the end of the day the manager told us to take our computers home and work from home for the foreseable future. And that was it. And they have something like a thousand employees working too.

I feel delays related to this pandemic are not applicable to software development.

[rhorle]

And now who's the one "redefining terms"? "Is done" and "ends" are different terms. An expansion "is done" when its last content patch is released, and it "ends" when the next expansion goes live.

The reason why you keep putting in quotes is proof enough that you are using a non-standard meaning. One that you are putting forth as the industry wide standard simply because it fits the argument you are making. If an expansion is done then would that not be the end? Besides if an expansion is going to be given an arbitrary "done" then it would be when the last boss is killed for the world first no? Because you can't be done when content still has to be consumed.

Also an expansion ends when the pre-patch comes out. That is why everything switches over to the new systems and the patch number will be 9.0 instead of 8.3 with Shadowlands.

[Steelangel]

Don't you remember how bad the "MoP content drought" was, back then, while we waited for the next expansion?

Most people don't remember these things or choose not to because the current expac is always the worst ever until the new one comes out and the Youtubers tell them how much it sucks.

[Kralljin]

Most people don't remember these things or choose not to because the current expac is always the worst ever until the new one comes out and the Youtubers tell them how much it sucks.

WoD is still much disliked, as is Cata.

For as a small reminder, WoD came out in 2014, 6 years from now.
If we use the time span for Vanilla, then we're in Cata (2010 / 2011), quite a lot of people were nostalgic for Vanilla at this point already.

Are people Nostalgic for WoD now?
Nope.

Another example, Cata came out in 2010 and is a decade old by now.
Using again Vanilla a reference, that's 2015, late WoD, guess what happened there? Nostalrius and thus Vanilla was elevated into sainthood.

Are people treating Cata the same way now?
They aren't.

This is a stupid meme that established itself during TBC-Cata era and somehow people keep repeating it, despite there are quite a few expansions that people aren't nostalgic about, nor when they were the <previous expansion>.

Repeating that makes you a contrarian, which puts you on the same level as those people that copy their opinions from youtubers.

[Steelangel]

This is a stupid meme that established itself during TBC-Cata era and somehow people keep repeating it, despite there are quite a few expansions that people aren't nostalgic about, nor when they were the <previous expansion>.

That some people are not waxing nostalgic about some previous expansions does not negate the fact that current-expansion hate vs. previous expansion "it wasn't so bad" hasn't been a thing.

Christ, just a few months ago there was a lot of WoD nostalgia on this very forum.

[Vynestra]

I logged in ready to debunk the OP saying BfA is the longest expansion to date, but they're actually correct. The only other time the game went 26 months until the new expansion was vanilla to BC. everything in between has been anywhere from 22-25 months

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Expansion

Blizz learned how to spread their content out over an expansion was really the only major change.

[Trend]

I'm a developer too, have been doing this professionally for exactly 10 years since I was 20.

Takes time to set up a home office - nope. Already had my home office to do development on the side.

Takes time to get remote VPNs working properly - nope. People take days to WFH all the time. Same shit as any day - right click on FortiClient, select my location office. Done. Wife had issue with her non IT firm VPN - had to call support, support told us that our router didn't had enabled some routing feature (can't remember it has been so long ago) - another call to our ISP, they enabled that remotely. 20 minutes and VPN still is working fine.

There are more distractions at home - nope. Yes, pets require attention every hour, I take a break every hour anyways at work. And in the workplace colleagues can interrupt you by asking a question by speaking, but when they write on Slack - you can pretend you didn't see the message and reply after half an hour.

"in a large organisation" - yea, large as in large joke - can't even set up VPN for their workers properly, give me a fucking break. I work in a company of ~600 people, and productivity slightly went up during quarantine.

You are correct about the tooling around remote work having already been in place, but your views about at-home productivity do not align with my experience working as a senior engineer at a global technology company. Covid hasn't been hugely impactful, but major initiatives are helped by people having face-to-face interaction. You end up talking through things in unexpected / unplanned ways when your team is in the same physical space that does not happen in the same way when everyone is full remote. Generally speaking, bigger tech companies (you work for a very small outfit) are recognizing that productivity is not made better by work-from-home, although the policy could stay due to employee happiness (and therefore retention.)

[Restors]

This level of borrowed powers started legoin; it was a problem in legion, still a problem in BFA, and will be a problem in SL.

Borrowed power started way earlier, since MoP introduced legendary meta gem and cloak. Legion just escalated it to new heights.

[Yorimar]

People will dip their toes into Shadowlands and then immediately bounce the moment it feels bad. It won't be like BFA where people were "so conflicted and heart broken over the game they love", any sentiments have been long forgotten. It's nut up or shut up time for Blizzard and everyone can kind of sense it.

they said this after WOD aswell. but because Legion happened they somehow started with a clean slate again? because BFA happened and now we are saying the same thing

[Ielenia]

The reason why you keep putting in quotes is proof enough that you are using a non-standard meaning.

Ah, so now on top of redefining terms (which you have accused me of), now you're now projecting what you feel onto what I wrote? (Which you also have accused me of)

I put the words "in quotes" to put them in emphasis.

Also an expansion ends when the pre-patch comes out.

The expansion "ends" when the pre-patch for the next expansion goes live. And the expansion "is done" when the last content patch for the current expansion goes live.

[Luxeley]

I don't believe time correlates with quality. That's Blizzard speak and I only believe Blizzard 10% of the time when I am drunk. Competence and freedom of expression correlates with quality. Truth to be told, I don't believe Blizzard is competent and I'd wager a phat amount of $$$ they don't possess the freedom of expression/ creativity they did 10 or even 5 years ago. There's a fair chance they might get Shadowlands right, better than 50/50, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Very rare pepe]

I've spent a solid amount of time on alpha/beta and I already like it better than BFA.

Let's be honest though, most will like SL over BFA because BFA was pretty lame, brought in GCD changes and in general played poorly. SL looks to be better, but let's play it and find out first.

- - - Updated - - -

WoD is still much disliked, as is Cata.

Agreed, if and when Cata/WoD servers are re-launched by blizzard, they won't be as popular as the classic/TBC/Wrath ones. It is generally considered that TBC/Wrath/MoP/Vanilla are the best times of the game, Cata/WoD/BFA are the worst and Legion sits somewhere in between.

I will happily drop playing SL to go play TBC when it hits, even if SL is really good.

[MasterOfNone]

Was from WOWpedia (didn't go into detail) ... point is multiple expansions have had about the same content time as BfA (+/1 a week or two).

Also - BfA has had one of the shortest post content droughts of any expansion as well.

who cares? i would rather suffer content drought that is good vs bfa content that is newer and shittier