Warlord of Draenor and the warcraft movie

[bufferunderrun]

I was wandering: the movie will be released around march 2016 pretty much at climax of WoD and it will attract alot of new fans into the game, it's possible that blizzard decided to make an xpack with a familiar environment and lore for those who never played even giving a free 90 boost for the sake of letting them skip all the old and unfamiliar events and just go stright into draenor?
Is that really the reason of why they are postponing Azshara, The Legion and many other thing and give us another evil horde xpack?

[shoc]

I'm sure Blizzard will try to time the release of the movie with Expac # 6, it's way too much publicity to possibly ignore.

[MoanaLisa]

Is that really the reason of why they are postponing Azshara, The Legion and many other thing and give us another evil horde xpack?

They decided a very long while ago about what this expansion would be. At the time they had no clue at all when or even if the movie would be made and when it would be released. So extremely unlikely.

[Cagerlac]

They decided a very long while ago about what this expansion would be. At the time they had no clue at all when or even if the movie would be made and when it would be released. So extremely unlikely.

That's completely untrue. This movie has been in the making since 2006. It has evolved through different scripts, different directors, and different motion picture companies; but blizzard has known this was coming for a long long time. Way before WOD was planned.

[huth]

That's completely untrue. This movie has been in the making since 2006. It has evolved through different scripts, different directors, and different motion picture companies; but blizzard has known this was coming for a long long time. Way before WOD was planned.

Just like StarCraft Ghost, Titan and WarCraft Adventures? Blizzard is perfectly willing to cancel projects that don't work out.

Besides, part of the point was that they didn't know back then when it would be coming, either.

[Yig]

That's completely untrue. This movie has been in the making since 2006. It has evolved through different scripts, different directors, and different motion picture companies; but blizzard has known this was coming for a long long time. Way before WOD was planned.

No. They had not met with Duncan Jones yet and heard his pitch which was completely different than Raimi's project until after WOD was already in production.

[bufferunderrun]

well i don't dubt that blizzard was planning wod long time ago, but they decided to do it now as the xpack 5 and try to give peoples that come in game after watching the movie (those who never played wow or the rts) a more "friendly" environment even giving them a free 90 boost to skip all the other events.

[The Flavour Cat]

It's probably just coincidental timing. The film had been in development since 2006, and it's picking up steam now, what with the casting and shooting to begin next year. Look at the release date, and when WoD is estimated to be released:
Warcraft: March 11, 2016 (originally Dec 18, 2015, but Star Wars decided to compete, forcing them to re-schedule)
WoD: Summer/Autumn 2014

By the time the film comes out, WoD will most likely have released the final boss/raid patch, Expansion VI announced and maybe due to come out later in 2016. Besides, if you watch the WoD Source video on youtube, the devs mention they had a different plan for how Expansion V would pan out, and then they decided to send him back to Draenor. It just doesn't look like they timed them to be together.

[Deleted]

I think some of you have a very unrealistic expectation of how Blizzard plans these expansions. I'm going to come off like a dick in this post and I apologize, but it's Christmas and I am a grumpy fuck.

WoD was absolutely NOT on the cards until after the Pandaria announcement.

Blizzcon 2011 had Metzen state categorically that we were going to need Alleria and Turalyon for "what's coming next." Some people have tried to play this off with some stupid "next is not a definite passage of time." Bullshit. Next means fucking next. (Next: immediately adjacent... Not "a few down the line").

You could see him pause and think before composing his words. This was not a throwaway comment.

They have said Warlords had been a year in production from the time they showed it off at Blizzcon (source: direct tv interlude with keighley and kat hunter talking to tom chilton - edit on reflection it may have been J Allen Brack - but it was one of them. Now it'll end up being Corey Stockton as I've taken it upon myself to be so exasperated) so we can assume somewhere in between they decided on a different expansion than the one they were thinking of before MoP released.

I have no doubt that the WoD and movie storylines were developed individually as the time lines do not match up. However, you can't say that WoD was planned out far in advance because it clearly was not.

Metzen is now claiming that they have many expansions lined up like a six shooter, ready to fire at us. We'll see whether that pans out going forward but given that MoP and WoD appear to have been last minute interludes into any plans they have had, who knows if they'll keep with their current plan?

[huth]

Blizzcon 2011 had Metzen state categorically that we were going to need Alleria and Turalyon for "what's coming next." Some people have tried to play this off with some stupid "next is not a definite passage of time." Bullshit. Next means fucking next. (Next: immediately adjacent... Not "a few down the line").

WoD also significantly changed since it's original inception. So it's quite possible that they were supposed to take part in the incarnation they had in mind back then (which we know was significantly different), but they wouldn't make much sense in what we get now.

In short, you have nothing to counterindicate WoD as being in pre-production at that point in time. Only that the current (and likely final) version of it wasn't.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Didn't they say at one point that the storyline was going to be about the space between WC3 and WoW? Or was that the rejected Raime idea?

- - - Updated - - -

I think some of you have a very unrealistic expectation of how Blizzard plans these expansions. I'm going to come off like a dick in this post and I apologize, but it's Christmas and I am a grumpy fuck.

WoD was absolutely NOT on the cards until after the Pandaria announcement.

Blizzcon 2011 had Metzen state categorically that we were going to need Alleria and Turalyon for "what's coming next." Some people have tried to play this off with some stupid "next is not a definite passage of time." Bullshit. Next means fucking next. (Next: immediately adjacent... Not "a few down the line").

You could see him pause and think before composing his words. This was not a throwaway comment.

They have said Warlords had been a year in production from the time they showed it off at Blizzcon (source: direct tv interlude with keighley and kat hunter talking to tom chilton - edit on reflection it may have been J Allen Brack - but it was one of them. Now it'll end up being Corey Stockton as I've taken it upon myself to be so exasperated) so we can assume somewhere in between they decided on a different expansion than the one they were thinking of before MoP released.

I have no doubt that the WoD and movie storylines were developed individually as the time lines do not match up. However, you can't say that WoD was planned out far in advance because it clearly was not.

Metzen is now claiming that they have many expansions lined up like a six shooter, ready to fire at us. We'll see whether that pans out going forward but given that MoP and WoD appear to have been last minute interludes into any plans they have had, who knows if they'll keep with their current plan?

I'm not gonna derail this totally, but about your definition of "next."

You're assuming next means "the next expansion, aka 6.0, aka WoD." When Metzen could well have meant "you'll need them for the next big threat, when the Legion returns. That threat we've spent the whole MoP legendary chain building, and that will likely happen after WoD or even because of WoD."

[Rosstafa]

I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. The idea for the plot of the Warcraft film has been kicking around way longer than we've known about it, probably a couple of years at least.

[Deleted]

I'm not gonna derail this totally, but about your definition of "next."

You're assuming next means "the next expansion, aka 6.0, aka WoD." When Metzen could well have meant "you'll need them for the next big threat, when the Legion returns. That threat we've spent the whole MoP legendary chain building, and that will likely happen after WoD or even because of WoD."

My definition of "next" is not mine. It is the dictionary's.

Your point regarding interpretation is somewhat valid - however, most people would consider the burden of proof to be on the person arguing for possible implications of something that was said, not the person quoting what was actually said, verbatim.

The previous poster does bring up a good point that in an earlier incarnation of Warlords, Alleria and Turalyon might have been involved. Given the argument, this is absolutely valid.

However, the front page today suggests that the story was only begun in earnest just after launch of Pandaria but that they had been doing some conceptual work before. That is unlikely to have been a conceptual period lasting as long as ten months (putting it in line with Blizzcon 2011). Given my experience with conceptualising a project - this is not something that takes much longer than a quarter.

There remains nothing to suggest Warlords has been on the radar for more than 18 months. Given the way they refuse to comment on the time travel aspect, choosing to ignore it rather than find interesting solutions to the inherent paradox (we're clever - that was their answer to the possibility of two Velens and two maraads) everything points towards a patchwork concept shoehorned in to act as potential fan service.

Given this there is every reason to believe that continued development on the expansion might be heavily influenced by the production of the movie, which is itself being set in the same time period - but on both worlds.

[huth]

There remains nothing to suggest Warlords has been on the radar for more than 18 months. Given the way they refuse to comment on the time travel aspect, choosing to ignore it rather than find interesting solutions to the inherent paradox (we're clever - that was their answer to the possibility of two Velens and two maraads) everything points towards a patchwork concept shoehorned in to act as potential fan service.

WoD is not a time travel expansion. We're not getting a story about time travel, we're getting one about Garrosh, Draenor and the Iron Horde.
Two of those three won't be in the movie.

Not to mention that there is no paradox anyway.

Given this there is every reason to believe that continued development on the expansion might be heavily influenced by the production of the movie, which is itself being set in the same time period - but on both worlds.

Correlation != causation. We can't exclude it, but you're just making assumptions.

[MoanaLisa]

That's completely untrue. This movie has been in the making since 2006. It has evolved through different scripts, different directors, and different motion picture companies; but blizzard has known this was coming for a long long time. Way before WOD was planned.

The project was stuck in turnaround for nearly seven years. This is not the same thing as knowing anything. More movies get to that point and never get made than do. And even now if it doesn't turn out to the studio and director's liking it may never see a movie theater. That's unlikely but not a certainty. Read up about how movies get made, marketed, produced and released. Nothing is ever certain until it's filmed and released.