Blizzcon - Anything for WoW players?

[Klingers]

As the title suggests. Do you think there willl be a significant Warcraft-themed Big Thing™ relayed to us this year at Blizzcon?

I'll classify Big Thing™ as something like a full-length Trailer for the Warcraft film, an announcement of Warcraft 4 or a preview trailer/panel for the expansion after WoD.

This isn't an entitlement complex thing by any stretch. It's more just that I'm just curious as to what might actually draw me towards watching Blizzcon streams this year due to an expansion coming out pretty much the same month, us already having a good picture of what's happening with the 10th anniversary event.

I'm also not a massive fan of generalized WoW Q&A panels, live raids or any of that Jazz. I don't hate them, but they're not that exciting for me. I feel we know enough about WoD at this point that there's not much new ground Art/Technical panels could cover on WoD. Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm don't do much for me either.

Also I'll that while I enjoy Starcraft II, I'm not really a regular player of anything else Blizzard puts out anymore except WoW. A Legacy of The Void panel might get my attention, but that's about it at this point. How about you?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes ofcourse: the 6.1 preview and 6.2 teaser.

Oh, big thing? Warcraft film teaser and interviews.

And hopefully a new book announcement. I. Must. Have. The LORE!!!

[Klingers]

Yes ofcourse: the 6.1 preview and 6.2 teaser.

Oh, big thing? Warcraft film teaser and interviews.

And hopefully a new book announcement. I. Must. Have. The LORE!!!

Oh yeah. I'm a lore junkie. Kind of the angle I was going for

[Deleted]

There has only been 2 Blizzcons without a major WoW announcement. The other 5, all announced an expansion.

2005 - TBC
2007 - WotLK
2008 - Nothing
2009 - Cata
2010 - Nothing
2011 - MoP
2013 - WoD

My guess is no major WoW announcement, but who knows!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There has only been 2 Blizzcons without a major WoW announcement. The other 5, all announced an expansion.

2005 - TBC
2007 - WotLK
2008 - Nothing
2009 - Cata
2010 - Nothing
2011 - MoP
2013 - WoD

My guess is no major WoW announcement, but who knows!

We could get a small little peek at what Blizzard has in store for the 7.0 patches. But who knows?

[Klingers]

There has only been 2 Blizzcons without a major WoW announcement. The other 5, all announced an expansion.

2005 - TBC
2007 - WotLK
2008 - Nothing
2009 - Cata
2010 - Nothing
2011 - MoP
2013 - WoD

My guess is no major WoW announcement, but who knows!

Yeah, you could be right. I think the major difference is I'm pretty sure for the two where there wasn't an announcement, the preceding one had the announced expansion in very early alpha at best. The next year's Blizzcon allowed for a massive info-dump of things like zone previews, technical panels, etc. That's part of what's got me curious about this year. WoD's out right on the con's doorstep. Totally new paradigm.

[Izalla]

It might actually be a terrible idea to announce the next expansion plans before this one is even out, just because it spoils the one we haven't even got our hands on yet by telling us what's coming next, and it's probably not that hard to look at A and C and figure out what B is and how we get from A to B to C based on that. They said it was a bad idea to tell us Garrosh and Siege would be the last patch of Mists right off the bat, so I would think they wouldn't want to say "hey you have no idea what's happening in the patches beyond launch right now... but let's skip all that and take a look at 7.0!!"

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It might actually be a terrible idea to announce the next expansion plans before this one is even out, just because it spoils the one we haven't even got our hands on yet by telling us what's coming next, and it's probably not that hard to look at A and C and figure out what B is and how we get from A to B to C based on that. They said it was a bad idea to tell us Garrosh and Siege would be the last patch of Mists right off the bat, so I would think they wouldn't want to say "hey you have no idea what's happening in the patches beyond launch right now... but let's skip all that and take a look at 7.0!!"

I'm not imagining that; what I am is that they might do "Hey guys! Were working on the next expansion [after WoD] and we want your feedback on what features you want in it! Also, we are considering X, Y, & Z. What's your thoughts on that?"

[Aquinan]

a trailer for the movie would be nice

[Mytheros]

We could get a small little peek at what Blizzard has in store for the 7.0 patches. But who knows?

If could means 0% chance then yes I agree with you.....

WoD doesn't even release until the Thursday AFTER Blizzcon and you think they'll talk about the expansion after WoD? I'd say pretty confidently that's not going to happen. I don't think we'll see a trailer for the Warcraft film either....if we do then that means they have been busting their ass big time to get one done considering filming only ended a few months ago. That and the fact the movie's release is March 2016...not March 2015....I really doubt we'll see a trailer for a film that far out from release. This time NEXT year...I'd say there's 99% chance the trailer will be revealed.

[Baine]

There has only been 2 Blizzcons without a major WoW announcement. The other 5, all announced an expansion.

2005 - TBC
2007 - WotLK
2008 - Nothing
2009 - Cata
2010 - Nothing
2011 - MoP
2013 - WoD

My guess is no major WoW announcement, but who knows!

Yeah, I am looking on Youtube what we had in 2010: Lore panel, Wow cinematic panel, Wow Art panel. I guess it is roughly what we will have.

[Pozix]

6.1, 6.2, Lore and hopefully the trailer for the Warcraft movie that was shown at Comic Con, or at least another trailer. Also Blood Elves, I'm thinking we get a preview of at least a couple faces.

[Golden Yak]

Previews of future WoD content would be my guess, as well as the Warcraft movie.

[Baronthefirst]

They have said before that with WoD they know what to do next. The next expansion is already being worked on. Do I expect to see anything crazy? No! If anything this year I expect to see what we will get in the first few major content patches for WoD and possibly the Warcraft movie trailer. As far as books go. War Crimes wasn't very good for me. It didn't even do a good job of connecting MoP to WoD. They had to make a 5 page story called Hellscream which was a better read then the book to fill in the blanks I didn't expect to have.

[Daetur]

The announcement for the next expansion is a possibility, though I'm not banking on it. But if we assume a level of accuracy and... trustworthiness to recent Blizzard interviews, the conclusion can be drawn the the next expansion will be announced at Blizzcon 2014.

This is the information we received from August interviews:

Zones are already in production for the next expansion, so things should finally be better moving forward.

In theory, Warlords could only have two raid tiers and then a new expansion. It depends on how quickly the next expansion is ready.

"Some of it will depend on the time before the next expansion after Warlords. It is very possible that if we are successful and there is a shorter gap, then we won't necessarily want to have multiple raid tier content patches. Each raid content patch needs about four months to breathe. Any less than that and it feels like you really rushed through the content."

Warlords of Draenor took longer than anticipated to create, by roughly 6 months. Getting the new members of the team up to speed took longer than anticipated and slowed things down. A group is already working on the next expansion though, so hopefully there won't be another long gap next time.

The World of Warcraft team grew by around 80 people during Mists of Pandaria, which should allow them to produce content faster in the future. This did slow things down in the short term though, which contributed to the delay of Warlords of Draenor.

These statements indicate a few things:

Blizzard thinks raid patches should last a minimum of 4 months. They think that they might only have time for 2 raid patches in Warlords, implying that the next expansion is planned to be released within 12-16 months after Warlords launches (three 4-month raid tiers would be 12 months, whereas 18 months would be plenty of time for three 6-month raid patches). They are already beginning production of the next expansion. They planned to release Warlords of Draenor in May or June, 20 months after Mists's debut, but were delayed by training new employees. They expect to release expansions faster than their plan for Warlords in the future.

If this is all the case, and they plan to launch the next expansion 12-16 months after Warlords, it will go live between November 2015 and March 2016. They have two opportunities to announce the expansion- Blizzcon 2014 or Blizzcon 2015. However, launching in March 2016 would mean that the beta for the expansion would have most likely started by the time of Blizzcon 2015. If they want to announce it at a Blizzcon, it will be at Blizzcon 2014.

Additionally, they usually announce the expansion 11 months in advance, or more. A Blizzcon 2015 announcement would indicate a Fall 2016 release, which is more than enough time for three raid tiers, and makes no sense given their "probably two raids" statement.

[Seefer]

Yeah I am kind of iffy on whether or not I want Blizzcon this year.

[shoc]

Assuming annual expansions, they will announce the next WoW expansion at this years Blizzcon. An advantage to having launch after Blizzcon is that they can begin a standard of "Blizzcon announce, Blizzcon release".

[Durandro]

Warcraft Trilogy Remastered would be nice. Updating the graphics and UI of all three Warcraft games and bundling them all together. Yes please.

[Gyrotex]

Blizzard thinks raid patches should last a minimum of 4 months. They think that they might only have time for 2 raid patches in Warlords, implying that the next expansion is planned to be released within 12-16 months after Warlords launches (three 4-month raid tiers would be 12 months, whereas 18 months would be plenty of time for three 6-month raid patches). They are already beginning production of the next expansion. They planned to release Warlords of Draenor in May or June, 20 months after Mists's debut, but were delayed by training new employees. They expect to release expansions faster than their plan for Warlords in the future.

If this is all the case, and they plan to launch the next expansion 12-16 months after Warlords, it will go live between November 2015 and March 2016. They have two opportunities to announce the expansion- Blizzcon 2014 or Blizzcon 2015. However, launching in March 2016 would mean that the beta for the expansion would have most likely started by the time of Blizzcon 2015. If they want to announce it at a Blizzcon, it will be at Blizzcon 2014.

Additionally, they usually announce the expansion 11 months in advance, or more. A Blizzcon 2015 announcement would indicate a Fall 2016 release, which is more than enough time for three raid tiers, and makes no sense given their "probably two raids" statement.

Very constructive and logical assumptions that I 100% agree with.

My only reservation is around them having to announce another expansion (or at least the next major content patch with Ogres in it... *cough*) before WoD actually launches.

It just sounds like an odd thing to do, you know?

[Musubi]

There is a chance they can give previews of upcoming planned features of 6.1 - 7.0. This allows some WoW news without spoiling the upcoming lore/plot twistspoints that would occur if they fully announced the next x-pack.