Should Blizzard slow down on delivering content during expansions?

[NickCageFanatic]

Blizzard should release content a bit slower paced during expansions mainly to avoid the 12 month drought that happens after the final raid tier.

Wrath, Cata, and MoP have all suffered from this. Whereas TBC had Sunwell and a few months later Wrath came out.

Blizzard most likely won't be releases more content per expansion, which is why they just need to slow down on the raid tiers earlier on that way the final tier doesn't need to last a year, but rather no more than 6 months.

agree? or disagree? vote

[Deleted]

It's a possibility, although I'd rather that we got content out at the same rate and just kept up that pace between expansions. Even if it's not raid content (which I don't really do anyway) I'd like to see some smaller patches in between xpacs, maybe delivering on the huge wishlist of quality of life changes Blizzard has.

[Deja Thoris]

The question fails to address the underlying problem of there being too long between expansions.

Lets face it, WoD should have shipped or been close to shipping. If they fixed this then pacing between expacs matters less.

[heartless8604]

No, they just need to add more content that isn't raids. Every expansion all they add is raids. No wonder people get bored and burnt out. All they have is raids or dailies.

[Kelimbror]

Heck no. They should speed up expansion delivery and use staggered development teams to produce more streamlined patches throughout the life of the expansion.

[blackblade]

Blizzard should release content a bit slower paced during expansions mainly to avoid the 12 month drought that happens after the final raid tier.

Wrath, Cata, and MoP have all suffered from this. Whereas TBC had Sunwell and a few months later Wrath came out.

Blizzard most likely won't be releases more content per expansion, which is why they just need to slow down on the raid tiers earlier on that way the final tier doesn't need to last a year, but rather no more than 6 months.

agree? or disagree? vote

It's kind of tough.

Naxx and Sunwell were too short lived. ICC Was too long. DS was content light, which sort of meant that it was also too long, simply because its content was consumed a little too quickly.

A Majority of guilds are still not done with SoO heroic. The problem is that because they projected the release date for WoD as late as the end of the year, a lot of people are panicking.

6 Months, IMO, would be too short for SoO. 8 months would be ideal. 6 months would be great for a little 8 boss endgame raid ala dragonsoul, a 13 boss raid needs a bit more time.

[deadman1]

Either spread it all out a bit if they are going to stick with the 2 year lifespan, or release new shorter xpacs faster.

[La]

First people complain they don't release enough content, then they release it too fast and people complain. Like someone already said, the problem is the time between the last patch and the new expansion, they need to find a way to create another patch in between, while development is going on during the expansion. Somehow I doubt increasing the time between the content is going to change the feel of a lack of content.

But hey, I'm all for an expansion being released and then 5 months later the only new content is two new heroic dungeons.

[Lochton]

But if they slow down releasing content, then we'll just meet a longer period of something else that some might not like?

I mean, if you slow one bit of the process down, it'll all be slowed.

I think I understand your picture, but seems it'll just be even wider openings between other content that didn't have a long period of break.

And don't count the 12 month thing... still not gone 12 months with SoO, and we don't know anything about the release of WoD.

[WurstKaeseSzenario]

if they slow down just a bit more then they'd be removing content instead of adding it.

[Sansnom]

Blizzard should release content a bit slower paced during expansions mainly to avoid the 12 month drought that happens after the final raid tier.

Wrath, Cata, and MoP have all suffered from this. Whereas TBC had Sunwell and a few months later Wrath came out.

Blizzard most likely won't be releases more content per expansion, which is why they just need to slow down on the raid tiers earlier on that way the final tier doesn't need to last a year, but rather no more than 6 months.

agree? or disagree? vote

Depends. Referring to raid contents, primary mythic raid content. Judging from comments from certain portion of the player base, a slow down would be nice. Provided the content they are delivering is super super super hard. One minor minor minor mistake will lead a group wipe. The is will make progression extremely hard. Which judging from the same player base I am referring, is how they want it. That clearing this super super hard content would take the average mythic raider maybe a year to complete due to the difficulty. In the meantime they could release smaller easier content for the rest to enjoy on a regular basis.

After all, heroic raiders are expected to grin and bear it. Accept that this boss will require 600+ wipes to past.

I am partially serious about this. A super hard mythic raid for those who wants the challenge and a much more casual friendly normal or flex for the rest. In between the long year wait, sprinkle some relative easy contents for them to consume while the mythic raiders keeps themselves progressing the raid for the year. Would be interesting how popular this would be.

[Trickname]

Slower content would work with gradual nerfs after 6 months or so, the best players have their glory and epeen by this point and people who have hit a brick wall on heroic (mythic) progression would be motivated not to just quit. However ultimately I doubt it would work we would probably end up just waiting 3 years for an expansion and since we are getting three years worth of entertainment they would have to increase prices.

[twiddler]

Slightly off topic but how many of you actually believe that heroic difficulty is content? Though I always come back every patch/expansion, I never really last beyond 2 months subscription. After two weeks of killing the last boss, it just seems redundant to do it again.

[Ikkarus]

I always thought that. If they increase the life time of the patchs for at least a month we wouldn't have a huge gap at the end of expansion...

What's the point of faster content between patches if we gonna hit the wall for 8/12 months at the end? I don't see a positive point..

[Tziva]

I've been an advocate of this for awhile. For example, I feel like Throne of Thunder was put out a little too quickly, especially considering the staggered release of Tier 14 raids and the comparative difficulty of Heart of Fear and I was vocal about that when the patch was announced. I'm not saying they should add months and months to each tier, but a few extra weeks is probably reasonable in many instances.

Part of the problem with this -- aside from the fact that many people probably don't want artificial added duration to tiers -- is that Blizzard doesn't actually know how long the final tier will last and history shows they are not especially great at estimating it (that's part of why they seldom give us dates early anymore, because they know it's decent odds it will change). I'm reasonably certain that they were originally intending for a months earlier release on Warlords.

The ideal thing would be development just picking up the pace, but I also don't think that's realistic expectation at this point.

[Effbee]

Personally no. I think (not without some changes of course) they should continue to release content as quickly as in Mists. Remember, so many people have banged on about faster released content for many years. That way, you can enjoy the game while you play it and remain active throughout the main cycle of the expansion.

It is really up to Blizzard whether they are willing to have a big gap at the end before the next expansion, because they know they will lose subs in the time. But essentially everyone got faster content while they were playing. Not saying it is the best idea (but it is essentially what we have so far in WoW), and you can think of the gap at the end as a sort of down time

I agree Tziva, certain parts were perhaps released too quickly making good content less relevant too fast, but as we have seen with the Watercooler, Blizzard is fully aware of mistakes and misjudgements they made in the past, so with a few changes I think a fast release schedule can still be the way to go

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Maybe they should of pushed SoO in October(Basically October first). About a Month of SoO or such and WoD is announced. Might of been better but alas.

[TheTaurenOrc]

I said no. BUT if waiting 1 month more for ToT and 1 month more SoO, meant the reducing the gap between expansions by 2 months, then that would be preferable.

Really they should schedule between expansions better.

[Pejo]

Heck no. They should speed up expansion delivery and use staggered development teams to produce more streamlined patches throughout the life of the expansion.

Definitely this. They need to not be afraid of releasing smaller content patches quicker. They really need to reorganize their team as their content creation, for the size of their team, is not very good. Hopefully they get more pressure from other games

[Halicia]

They need to slow down the launch content.

In both MoP & Cata we had more raids (and dungeons, etc) released in the first couple weeks of the expansions then the remaining 2 years combined.

Sure, the boss counts may have added up in different ways, but there's absolutely no reason we couldnt have had a 'drought' for a month or two at the start of the expansion and then slowly roll out the raids for 6-9 months so that there's more time to fully develop the patch content for the remainder of the expansion.

I know Blizzard's not stupid, and they have already thought of this... but have decided to frontload all the content in an expansion's life cycle to get those initial sales figures as high as possible.