Still no release date announcement

[ReVnX]

Maybe the video is releasing with the event and the expansion 3 weeks later.

[Tiberria]

They are paying to have the employees stay in hotels

I think they even booked half the rooms in one

The fires might be a set back but I find it odd that they posted the brawl schedule with 2 gaps in November and 1 in December

The gaps are normal - they have never had a PvP brawl up in every single week - it's always been every other week or 2 out of 3 weeks. Has nothing to do with release.

I have to wonder if the employees are even able to work fully from a hotel room - since they are doing development type work, I'd assume they would need to setup pretty high end desktop systems, and probably couldn't just work off a MacBook? Would they really be dragging their entire desktop setup when they evacuated?

[AngerFork]

They are paying to have the employees stay in hotels

I think they even booked half the rooms in one

The fires might be a set back but I find it odd that they posted the brawl schedule with 2 gaps in November and 1 in December

Even if Blizz is paying to keep them in hotels (which I'd not heard, but really cool if so), there's still a lot of issues that will entail. Hotel internet is spotty on the smallest of transactions, let alone testing a new expansion to an MMO. Plus there's the whole mental block of "my place is near a fire" that will almost certainly kill productivity time.

I personally wouldn't pay too much attention to the brawl schedule itself. The current release plan matches the previous release setup for each brawl: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/ne...-schedule-2020. This tells me that the brawl schedule is less about the expansion/prepatch release dates and more just where they sort of fell in the setup anyway.

[Revamp Man]

Ingame calendar doesn't mean anything

not in game
they updated the one in the forums

[Morthis]

not in game
they updated the one in the forums

Where can I find this calendar?

[Revamp Man]

Where can I find this calendar?

blue post tracker

[rayvio]

it will be released before the 31st of November, guaranteed

[This One Time At Bandcamp]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

[whoisqnx]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

they can easily release the raid early Jan with SL coming in Dec

- - - Updated - - -

blue post tracker

am i going crazy or i cant see the brawl post? nvm... im stupid

[Dracullus]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

My guess is 4 weeks between every event:

13th October -> 10th November (Scourge) -> 8th December (launch) -> 5th January (Normal/HC raid)

Gives time both to polish expansion and get a lot of data for Mythic Nathria balance hotfixes. Only bad thing in this scenario is direct clash with CP77 release (maaybe ;D), but it isn't in control of Blizz.

[Dch48]

So you are expecting the PRE-expansion event to continue into the first week or 2 of the new expansion?

No, pre-event either first week or 3rd week of November. The expansion itself 2 weeks after the pre-event.

[Spiritguide]

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318811/...g-feature-vide
Just to add to the NVidia theory also

[facefist]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

Then don't? You're not forced to play during X-mas days, unless you make your living via this game then that is sort of required I guess.

[Nyel]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

There's a 0% chance that you'll see Castle Nathria live this year. So nothing to worry about.

You all are interpreting way too much into those Nvidia and AMD things. Maybe they've been planned a long time ago when launch for October 27 was still a thing.

[Yayeet]

Why would december 15th be unlikely?
Yes, it would mean the 2nd reset would be during christmas, but the 3rd reset would be jan 5th which would be the perfect date to release the raid because it's after christmas, which means people are back to work.
And as always, heroic week is the tuning week, enough time to gather information and tune specs for mythic week on jan 12th.

Because the second week is generally a big hotfix week, doesn't go well when a big portion of your staff won't be working that week.

[Omedon]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.
Most people would hate to raid and grind, during the X-mas days.

Most people don't raid

Source: Same as yours.

[Neopain]

not in game
they updated the one in the forums

I think that Brawl message was a necro'd one from earlier this year. It says it was closed in April after 30 days of no new posts.

[valrchron]

Kinda hoping it will be 2021 now.

I really don't. If they hadn't released the pre-patch yet, I'd agree. But live right now is tuned for an entirely different expansion and the balance is understandably shit (even more shit than BfA in general). Neither PvE or PvP is fun or rewarding. BfA in 9.0 is in an awful state. That would be fine if it was like pre-patches for previous expansions, for ~5 weeks. However spending months in a game tuned for a different expansion, where there is nothing to do except level alts, is not fun.
I don't see how anyone can defend playing for 3+ months in a game that isn't balanced for the available content.

I've even seen some say that they wouldn't mind a 2021 spring release. That would make Ny'alotha about the same length as SoO, and even worse, about half that time would be while the game is balanced for the next expansion. Yes of course I would like SL to be as polished as it can be, but you can't forget the current state of live either. BfA in 9.0 is NOT tenable long-term.

If they hadn't released the pre-patch, I'd say take all the time you need. But they did release it, and they can't stay like this for long since not only is there nothing to do, but the game isn't even balanced for what content is available.

[Izzyfurious]

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318818/...ently-not-live

Damn it blizz, stop with these jebaits!

[Dawnseven]

I really don't. If they hadn't released the pre-patch yet, I'd agree. But live right now is tuned for an entirely different expansion and the balance is understandably shit (even more shit than BfA in general). Neither PvE or PvP is fun or rewarding. BfA in 9.0 is in an awful state. That would be fine if it was like pre-patches for previous expansions, for ~5 weeks. However spending months in a game tuned for a different expansion, where there is nothing to do except level alts, is not fun.
I don't see how anyone can defend playing for 3+ months in a game that isn't balanced for the available content.

I've even seen some say that they wouldn't mind a 2021 spring release. That would make Ny'alotha about the same length as SoO, and even worse, about half that time would be while the game is balanced for the next expansion. Yes of course I would like SL to be as polished as it can be, but you can't forget the current state of live either. BfA in 9.0 is NOT tenable long-term.

If they hadn't released the pre-patch, I'd say take all the time you need. But they did release it, and they can't stay like this for long since not only is there nothing to do, but the game isn't even balanced for what content is available.

This is exactly what I'm thinking. The delay announcement said "we're delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year". I don't think Hight would have said that unless they were confident. And if they weren't confident, I don't think we would have gotten the pre-patch at all. For all the complaining and they could have easily gotten away with letting people continue to do whatever they were doing rather than upset everyone's applecart with the end of the PvP season, the squish, and all for new hairdos and tattoos. Especially if it were possible that people were going to be stuck in that shit state for 3 months. Is it possible we're looking at a 2021 release? Sure. Is it probable? No.