5.4? Wait what?

[Zoldor]

Ulduar with no gating lasted from April 23rd until JULY 7th for the world 1st Yogg0. Beat it too fast? Then they pushed ToC and it's retard gate system at the beggining of August.

Ulduar was current from April 23rd- August 5th that is like 3 months 12 days. #1 this is why Ulduar is so overhyped because of it's swift and quickly outdated lifespan. It was nothing exciting to run and going back weekly to finish maces when it was made old content for too soon wasn't enjoyable it was a chore.

And no ToC wasn't an OH CRAP SURPRIZE RAID. we had the tournament grounds being built on site during the Ulduar patch.

Isn't a lot of Ulduar's hype and longivity from open to Yogg-0 because its the first raid with an actual hard mode; I mean the mind set of we are creating fight A and Fight B and fight B will be harder on purpose? Until that point all fights had been Fight A, and they gated them with what Blizz in house would think to be "unkillable until nerfed fights' Cthun, M'uru (proved wrong because folks did beat it) etc being a few examples that come to mind. Raiders had never actually been tested at the level they were in Ulduar Hmode until then. Also, wasn't Yogg-0 a fight they tuned in a nearly unbeatable fashion, wasn't it nerfed soon after the kill. This is all off the cuff memory.

ToC was the first raid to be built in the idea of rushing expansions. Could we get away with a raid that is essentially one room. Soon followed by Rub Sanctum that taught blizz okay, maybe we actually have to make the dragon relevant and the raid worthwhile. Wrath isn't a good measuring stick for things, Wrath was a huge test bed as an expansion compared two the prior to and the ones to follow. Cata is the more formulated expansion really. Yes, it was a fail but I think its the true ground work for wow expansions. 3 raids, 5 patches, mild gating and then new expansion. I feel 5.3 being a large lore patch, bigger than what we saw with 5.2. But only time will tell.

[KrazyK923]

I don't...how is this a thread? And how did this thread last this long?

Blizzard never announces far ahead of time which patch will coincide with which raid. We've known from their blatant implications that it will go "Release, no-raid, raid, no-raid, raid, ect." So...5.4 will be the next raid. Will it be SoO? I don't know. Depends on how quickly after 5.2 that 5.3 drops and what the 5.3 lore is.

/thread

[MMOmaxi]

I wouldn't like MoP to have just 3 tiers

I don't mind a 24 month x-pac cycle, where
month 0 - release, raid 1, initial 5-mans
month 2-3 - minor patch, lore
month 6 - raid 2
month 8-9 - minor patch, more 5-mans
month 12 - raid 3
month 14-15 minor patch, lore
month 18 - raid 4
month 20-22 - pre-patch next x-pac
month 24 - next x-pac, new raid, new 5 mans

The only concern is that it does seem to get a little formulaic. So maybe one of these minor patches could be a ToC-like mini-raid?
I'm not entirely opposed to the notion of Onyxia style encounters, as long as they are not endgame.

[Chickat]

PTR has world maps. it's the island

Well last time i was on the ptr is didn't show up on the world map at all. If so, i admit i was wrong, but they still dont look the same to me hehe.

[Sildor]

I don't think there will be a whole tier between 5.2 and SoO, since that will make MoP the longest expansion yet as it would have to be at least 2 years 4 months or something in that case. However it's very likely that SoO isn't the only raid instance of its tier since it might be hard to fill it with 10+ bosses and they'll probably just make two different raid instances.

The most likely thing is SoO to be out in September or so, making Q2 2014 a likely release time for the next expansion.

Vanilla lasted 2 years 2 months with the last tier being released about 7 months before TBC.
TBC lasted 1 year 10 months with the last tier being released 8 months before Wrath.
Wrath lasted 2 years 1 month with the last tier being released 12 months before Catalcysm (6 months if you count Halion).
Cataclysm lasted 1 year 9 months with the last tier coming out 10 months before MoP.

Blizzard have been hinting at quicker expansions and Q2 2014 would be 1 year 9 months which kinda adds up to me.

[Deleted]

I don't...how is this a thread? And how did this thread last this long?

Blizzard never announces far ahead of time which patch will coincide with which raid. We've known from their blatant implications that it will go "Release, no-raid, raid, no-raid, raid, ect." So...5.4 will be the next raid. Will it be SoO? I don't know. Depends on how quickly after 5.2 that 5.3 drops and what the 5.3 lore is.

/thread

Everything in this post word to word is exactly my opinion on this gibberish from the OP.

[Z3ROR]

What? What does Garrosh have to do with Kul'tiras?

Not so much, but Jaina Proudmoore does. Garrosh pissed off Jaina very much with exploding her city of Theramore. I bet she still wants revenge on Garrosh. Maybe she gets aid from Kul Tiras. Their leader, Tandred Proudmoore, is Jaina's brother.

[Deleted]

5.3 Will contain a load of dungeons with a new unannounced feature (something with scaling characters/gear for certain stuff).
5.4 Will be Siege. However it's not known if it's going to be the final tier, they might introduce a filler they said if they feel 6.0 would drag on.

We'll have to see.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

My point was that Blizzard stated that Illidan was the big bad of TBC, and then he wasn't. Therefore it's entirely plausible that Garrosh isn't the big bad of Pandaria even though they said he was.

Well they said SoO would be the last raid, and Garrosh wouldn't be warchief afterward...

Writing's on the wall.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Except it will be with the accelerated content release schedule.

What accelerated release schedule?

Cata was supposed to be out sooner, was out over 2 years after Wrath.
MoP was slated to be out sooner, was out 1 year 9 months after Cata.

Draw that further and we're not talking about Spring 2014, we're talking about summer at best. And I still suspect next expansion will be 10 levels, which will push launch back further.

[heltvild]

What accelerated release schedule?

Cata was supposed to be out sooner, was out over 2 years after Wrath.
MoP was slated to be out sooner, was out 1 year 9 months after Cata.

Draw that further and we're not talking about Spring 2014, we're talking about summer at best. And I still suspect next expansion will be 10 levels, which will push launch back further.

Well, from MoP release they said they wanted to get content out alot faster than before.

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Well, from MoP release they said they wanted to get content out alot faster than before.

Pretty sure they said that same thing in Cata when they released the troll revamp dungeons.

[Totle]

5.3 is going to be a lore patch like 5.1
5.4 won't be SoO

5.4 is probably going to be coming out some time around Sept/Oct. That gives 5.5 (another lore patch) some time around Christmas, maybe New Years, and we'll finish with 5.6 sometime around March/April.

We'll be in SoO for 6 months (approx) and then new Expansion will touch down around Oct/Nov 2014.

We might see a 5.7 for a conclusion to MoP - it would be a lore patch that finishes this expansion and introduces the setting for the next one.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Well, from MoP release they said they wanted to get content out alot faster than before.

And so far they have. But I'm skeptical of the concept of MoP lasting the mythical 1.5 years. We all know there's going to be a Blizzcon this fall, or late summer, more likely fall. We know Expansion V will be revealed.

After that the game will enter alpha testing for 3-5 months, then there will be a press event near the end of that. Then comes 5-7 months of beta testing.

At a ballpark we're talking 8-12 months between reveal and launch. Which in a best case scenario (Aug. reveal, 8 months testing) is April. Realistically we're talking July - October.

Blizz wants tiers to last about 6 months. So t14 ends in march, t15 in September. And then comes decision time. 10-months of SoO, or 5 months of a "filler" tier and 5 months of SoO.

[lillendal]

At a ballpark we're talking 8-12 months between reveal and launch. Which in a best case scenario (Aug. reveal, 8 months testing) is April. Realistically we're talking July - October.

Blizz wants tiers to last about 6 months. So t14 ends in march, t15 in September. And then comes decision time. 10-months of SoO, or 5 months of a "filler" tier and 5 months of SoO.

Hopefully Blizz will not take the term "Siege" too literally, and the 5 month filler will be decent.

[heltvild]

Blizz wants tiers to last about 6 months. So t14 ends in march, t15 in September. And then comes decision time. 10-months of SoO, or 5 months of a "filler" tier and 5 months of SoO.

Well, I'm pretty sure they won't let us do SoO for 10 months atleast. It might be some small filler raid with story focus on next xpack.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Hopefully Blizz will not take the term "Siege" too literally, and the 5 month filler will be decent.

Well, I'm pretty sure they won't let us do SoO for 10 months atleast. It might be some small filler raid with story focus on next xpack.

I highly doubt they would do SoO for 10 months. DS also lasted 10 months and after about month 5 you saw interest in the game drop like a rock. People that wanted to do it had done it. Even if they weren't 8/8 heroic, they were bored of the same place over and over.

As for the filler being related to the next expansion, I doubt that. Not only did Blizz peg SoO as the last raid in MoP, but they would likely want to avoid another situation like BC where the set up villain (Illidan) was upstaged by someone in a late-game filler raid (Kil'jaedan).

[Volbian]

Why are most of your predictions, for next expansion, always based around Holidays?

MoP clearly showed its release wasnt a Holiday(like Xmas).
Blizzard is sticking to their guns with faster patches, whether its content or non, its still a patch regardless.
If you look at your Wrathion questline, its goes to Chapter 4, which common sense says 5.4(if you know how to count).
Chptr 1 - 5.0
Chptr 2 - 5.1
Chptr 3 - 5.2
Chptr 4 - 5.3
Final Quest - Kill Garrosh 5.4

Follow the storyline and use common sense. I dont how people are coming up with 5.5, 5.6, 5.7. Try trusting Blizzard when they say theyre not happy with long content patches and WILL BE releasing them out faster.

[Blufossa]

I'm thinking that 5.3 will be just like 5.1. A minor'ish patchs with a daily hub to start shoving the Horde rebellion etc and then 5.4 will be t16 with SoO.

/\/\/\ Pretty much this but also to add- more quests and whatnot leading up to a demon expansion. I'm not talking Outlands, but a pure Burning Legion expansion.

I still think "March of the Legion" sounds pretty f***ing sweet!

[EmiHes]

Even though 5.3 wont have any raids, I hope they add some new dungeons.