GC Says Blizzard Wants Yearly World of Warcraft Expansions

[Thorqin]

Speaking to Digital Spy, lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street acknowledged that expansions always saw a boost in subscriber numbers, so the team were interested in bringing them out quicker.

"We really want to get to a cadence where we can release expansions more quickly. Once a year I think would be a good rate. I think the best thing we can do for new players is to keep coming out with regular content updates."

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/11/1...aft-expansions

An expansion a year? I can dig it.

[Deleted]

Quantity over quality? No thanks.

[Deleted]

I remember them saying this around a couple months ago,they also mentioned Monthly patches with a raid every 3-4 months. also Bojax, there Dev team was increased by 40% Recently.

[Majestian]

This is smart in terms of freshness, and also a way to accelerate the storytelling (either to continue the cash cow, or to get the story to fully play out before subscriptions dwindle further. Plotlines flow from one expansion into another without long gaps.

Will it equate to great content? Who knows.

[Saroc]

yearly expansions was the original plan, afaik. Then it shifted to every 18 months, as a goal.

[perera]

Blizzard has wanted yearly expansions since before the burning crusade: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bli.../1100-6156502/

[Kazlofski]

Yeah made me chuckle nicely, hahahaha.

[Thelxi]

They said they wanted to push out patches and expansions faster before Cata too.

[Herecius]

I feel like the year and a half cycle is better. 3-4 month tiers is just... honestly too fast, for my taste.

[McNeil]

Yearly expansions would mean an incredible lack of new features, kinda like with WoD already.

[Marema]

Every 12 months seems excessive. I'd be happy with every 18 months with an expansion and new raids/dungeons every 3-4.

[Gozzu]

Aslong as it doesnt go EQ where we got expansions instead of patches.

[Orange Joe]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/11/1...aft-expansions

An expansion a year? I can dig it.

I would pass.. I don't really want to pay $60 a year on top of a sub.

[bals]

I don't think yearly expansions would work unless they reduce the # of raid patches or lower the difficulty.
If they kept the three tiers per expac that would be 4 months a tier (people would complain if they cut back the amount of content per expac)
it's just over 2 months in SOO and only 89 guilds have killed garrosh on heroic vs 8146 on normal (22947 have killed immerseus normal) via http://www.wowprogress.com/
Unless they go back to the model of not outdating a raid as soon as the next one comes out.

I think 18-24 months is really a better time frame.

I would pass.. I don't really want to pay $60 a year on top of a sub.

good thing they cost $40!

[namelessone]

Yeah, because making content outdated every 3 months and forcing everyone either to rush or quit is a perfect idea.
To put it into perspective, you would only have 20-25 raid resets before the next raid comes out (assuming one raid every other patch). Good luck, casual guilds!

[Eucep]

Unless they have significantly increased the number of people working on wow, not happening.

[Wow]

You know there is a quote of this same goal said from 2008 hasn't ever happened yet and probably never will.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Yearly expansions on paper sounds nice but I think they should stick to to 18-24 months.

[Sprink]

Unless they have significantly increased the number of people working on wow, not happening.

I remember them saying this around a couple months ago,they also mentioned Monthly patches with a raid every 3-4 months. also Bojax, there Dev team was increased by 40% Recently.

I don't mind expansions being faster, but not sure about yearly. Every year and a half sounds good to me, though.

[Deleted]

Before it made sense for Blizzard to rollout xpacs when they was at their peak with 12 million players, rushing xpacs may have compromised the quality of the xpacs and thus reduce player interest.

But now they are down to 8 millions players, I am willing to bet they are doing all they can to keep those players and gain some back!

So a yearly release is a good idea, but having said that, they should not charge so much for the xpac as for some people, they may not financially be able to justify paying for a yearly xpac on top of subscription fees, over what is a game after all.