At what point does a patch become "old" and a "content drought" begins?

[MoanaLisa]

What about for the final tier of an expansion?

6 months at most to pre-patch. A month or two for that and then on to the next thing.

[Raetary]

Currently we are 8-9 months into the HFC 6.2 patch of WoD. It is the final raid tier of the expansion. To me, (and i think everyone would agree with me on this), the patch is still fresh and there is still stuff to do.

the patch is boring and getting old pretty fast.

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum. This gives everyone ample time to finish mythic raiding if they choose to do so, and then be ready for the next expansion (after gearing a few alts in fully mythic warforged gear as well).

god no, everything after 8 is just too much.

Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 8-9 months into the patch.

you use "everyone will agree with me" too much.

At what point in a patch's life cycle is it considered "old"?

when you get bored and know there is nothing new gonna happen in game for next months.

[Flurryfang]

So this is really something that you can not measure, since we all eat up content in different paces. I, personally, would say that a patch is old, when i don't have anything new to experience. When i have seen every new boss right and have done every quest, when every reputation is maxed out, then the patch is old. It has really nothing to do with gear.

Edit: So with the current patch, it was already old after 4 months. Had seen everything that there was to see. It has been shorter with other patches(Last patch of Cata) and longer with others(last patch of TBC and Wrath).

[avahle]

When time from expansion release to a patch is shorter than the time from patch to next expansion release. I mean we spent less time pre HFC in WoD than post HFC which is just ridiculous.

[Faroth]

I've gotten spoiled by a new content patch every 4 months. Going past 6 would be the "quit playing and whittle the backlog" point for sure.

[Echo of Soul]

When you've seen every art asset added in the new patch, so after roughly ~1 month.

[Kuntantee]

What about for the final tier of an expansion?

10 months with prepatch.

[Granyala]

6 months is not enough time for the majority of the players to finish that patch's raid tiers.

It is.
They only get further now because Blizzard is throwing item level upgrades etc at them like candy.

[avahle]

When you've seen every art asset added in the new patch, so after roughly ~1 month.

Very very few people saw Mythic HFC art assets within a month. It look Method nearly a month to get their kill.

[Bigbazz]

Becomes stale after 4 months, after 6 months it becomes hard to bear and new content needs to be out.. Unless it was something like ICC where it was gated and thus the gating prolonged the staleness for a little, then they released Ruby Sanctum to prolong the staleness some more.. By the end ICC was still unbearable, but HFC is more so.

WOTLK had a 4 month cycle on content until ICC, which was gated and had 6 months before RS and nearly a year until Cataclysm.. I think that time frame works best to keep the content coming in fresh, keep people excited. But ICC was too long, people complained about it back then and Blizzard claimed they agreed and wanted to improve it, but instead they did exactly the same thing again but worse for the next 3 expansions.

[Tharkkun]

6 months is the lifecycle of a patch. Blizzard has even said this themselves which is why they do raids every 6 months. While it may last longer for some it's intended that people keeping up with the content will be ready to move on at that point.

[Echo of Soul]

Very very few people saw Mythic HFC art assets within a month. It look Method nearly a month to get their kill.

Yup, they released the next raid before most people had a chance to

[Kazgrel]

6.2 became old once it was announced it would be the patch for WoD, seeing how the reality of "well this is it for the next year and change" set in immediately at that point.

The 6 month timespan seems legitmate, maybe 8 for the particularly large raids (say, anything over a dozen bosses, maybe? Large = subjective).

[Thetruth1400]

To me, (and i think everyone would agree with me on this), the patch is still fresh and there is still stuff to do.

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum.

Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now.

At what point in a patch's life cycle is it considered "old"?

So to sum up my answers quickly; No, No, No, and as soon as it's on farm, which doesn't even take two months.

Longer answers, no, the majority wouldn't agree with you. It's clear as day by the many, many threads that people are wanting Legion because there is nothing to do anymore. Sure, they could hop in a higher difficulty, but again, that's not more to do just an artificial longevity measure.

Considering they release content every 3 to 4 months, it's clear we are in a drought as we're double that already with no sign of anything to come.

What point does content become old? When the majority of the players that want to see the content have seen it and are craving more. We've long since gotten to that point, and the sub numbers reflected that up until they decided to "Stop reporting them because they weren't really telling of anything." Not really telling anything besides just how few people still play the game that is, but they'll deny that to their last breath.

[Xires]

Currently we are 8-9 months into the HFC 6.2 patch of WoD. It is the final raid tier of the expansion. To me, (and i think everyone would agree with me on this), the patch is still fresh and there is still stuff to do.

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum. This gives everyone ample time to finish mythic raiding if they choose to do so, and then be ready for the next expansion (after gearing a few alts in fully mythic warforged gear as well).

Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 8-9 months into the patch.

At what point in a patch's life cycle is it considered "old"?

7 months per patch and 9 months for end of x-pac patch.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Content patches should be every 3 months, just like WOW's competition can churn out, with 1/100th the dev team size and 1/10000th the funding.

But the world we live in is garbage, and people let Blizzard treat us like garbage despite their competition being able to churn out content at a much quicker pace, which should in turn force Blizzard to change or lose subs. It only did the latter, hopefully the former happens once WOW bleeds down to vanilla levels of subs.

[The Flavour Cat]

4-5 months for a major patch, I'd say. Drought probably begins 6 months +.