BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Aeula]

So... as a refresher 8.1.5 comes with:

Kul Tiran human and Zandalari troll allied races
Darkmoon Faire rollercoaster ride
Children's Week update
New Micro-holidays: Wanderer's Festival, Vash'jr Diving, Free T-Shirt Day, etc.
Warlords of Draenor Timewalking
Portal rooms in Stormwind and Orgrimmar
Tools of the Trade profession questlines
Return of Brawler's Guild, including a new murder mystery questline
Remastered Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin
New PvP Brawl: AI Comp Stomp

Which means we have at most until late April to wait until its release, since Children's week begins May 1'st. Hopefully it'll launch before then. I reckon we won't see it until at least the final wing of LFR for Dazar'alor launches.

Maybe we'll see an 8.2 release in July?

[FlubberPuddy]

Uldir came out September 4th. Meaning we've had about 4.5 months of Uldir for this raid tier/season because Dazar'alor begins on January 22nd. If next tier is another 4.5 months we should be seeing an 8.2 patch nearly end of May/June I think. Or maybe 8.2.5 then and 8.2 a month before?

Why the heck has BFA felt like it's been out longer than it actually has?

If I fudged up the math someone correct me

[Atticon]

Uldir came out September 4th. Meaning we've had about 4.5 months of Uldir for this raid tier/season because Dazar'alor begins on January 22nd. If next tier is another 4.5 months we should be seeing an 8.2 patch nearly end of May/June I think. Or maybe 8.2.5 then and 8.2 a month before?

Why the heck has BFA felt like it's been out longer than it actually has?

If I fudged up the math someone correct me

Because in Legion we had Kharazan and ToV between launch and Nighthold.

[Deleted]

Guys when do you believe patch 8.1.5 will hit live servers? I want to finally play as a fucking Zandalari Troll.

[DeicideUH]

Guys when do you believe patch 8.1.5 will hit live servers? I want to finally play as a fucking Zandalari Troll.

I have two guesses: one, less likely, is it hitting with the raid, Jan 22th.
THe other is coming after the raid schedule ends, Feb 19th.

[Obelisk Kai]

I have two guesses: one, less likely, is it hitting with the raid, Jan 22th.
THe other is coming after the raid schedule ends, Feb 19th.

Patch 8.1.5 has lots of other content not dependant on the raid. The scenarios for KT and Zandalari also have to be tested and every Allied race has a scenario. WOD timewalking has to be tested.

In Legion the X.X.5 patches took about two months to test on PTR. Jan 22nd is impossible and Feb 19th is unlikely.

I figure it will be early March before 8.1.5 and the new allied races are unlocked.

[Deleted]

Because in Legion we had Kharazan and ToV between launch and Nighthold.

And we are forgetting about the other 2 boss raid after dazar.

[Deleted]

Patch 8.1.5 has lots of other content not dependant on the raid. The scenarios for KT and Zandalari also have to be tested and every Allied race has a scenario. WOD timewalking has to be tested.

In Legion the X.X.5 patches took about two months to test on PTR. Jan 22nd is impossible and Feb 19th is unlikely.

I figure it will be early March before 8.1.5 and the new allied races are unlocked.

This sounds really depressing.

[DeicideUH]

Patch 8.1.5 has lots of other content not dependant on the raid. The scenarios for KT and Zandalari also have to be tested and every Allied race has a scenario. WOD timewalking has to be tested.

None of the allied race recruitment scenarios were open for test in past PTRs. All of them were datamined, but only playable when they went live.
I don't know if timewalking dungeons were tested, thought. Probably yes, but can't remember it.

In Legion the X.X.5 patches took about two months to test on PTR. Jan 22nd is impossible and Feb 19th is unlikely.

I figure it will be early March before 8.1.5 and the new allied races are unlocked.

BfA 8.1 patch had way less content than Legion 7.1, thought. It was mostly just improvements to 8.0 content. I don't think it can hold the players for 3 more months.

This sounds really depressing.

Yes, it is.

Zandalari/Kul tirans were announced with BfA. To have to wait so much for them is already very frustrating.

[Obelisk Kai]

None of the allied race recruitment scenarios were open for test in past PTRs. All of them were datamined, but only playable when they went live.
I don't know if timewalking dungeons were tested, thought. Probably yes, but can't remember it.



BfA 8.1 patch had way less content than Legion 7.1, thought. It was mostly just improvements to 8.0 content. I don't think it can hold the players for 3 more months.



Yes, it is.

Zandalari/Kul tirans were announced with BfA. To have to wait so much for them is already very frustrating.

Patch 7.1.5 was tested between November 15th 2016 and January 18th 2017. It covered the return of the Brawler's Guild and MOP timewalking. This was a period of two months. Initially I attributed the delay to the 2016 christmas holidays so I compared with future X.X.5 patches.

Patch 7.2.5 was deployed on April 11th 2017 and went live June 7th 2017. This was one week shorter than the patch 7.1.5 PTR and there were no holiday periods. This patch added the Black Temple Timewalking event and the trials of chromie.

Both small sized patches, they both required approximately two months to test on a PTR.

Patch 7.3.5 took over one and a half months to finish and the main features were a new battleground and another timewalking raid.

Using these as a baseline, we can see that the mini patches can take between one and a half and two months to deploy. Patch 8.1.5 contains multiple timewalking dungeons and the return of the brawler's guild. It is therefore more analogous to patch 7.1.5 than patch 7.2.5 or 7.3.5.

Early March still strikes me as the likeliest deployment time IF the patch hits the PTR this week. Late February is also possible.

Of course the longer it takes for them to get the patch on the PTR the more this timeframe will slip.

[Nathanyel]

Zandalari/Kul tirans were announced with BfA. To have to wait so much for them is already very frustrating.

No. Kul'Tirans weren't announced at all. Chance is, Zandalari were supposed to come alongside Dark Iron, but got replaced with Mag'har because they decided Zandalari were better paired with Kul'Tirans.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Pretty simple thing with Zandalari and Kul'tirans - Kul'tiran models are not done yet.

Zandalari model with heritage armor was teased at blizzcon 2017, so model is just sitting since then and probably was like 70% done.

I started to think that Kul'tirans were not planned as AR but then it looked really stupid during development and they swapped Zandalari with Mag'har to release them alongside Dark irons.

[FlubberPuddy]

No. Kul'Tirans weren't announced at all. Chance is, Zandalari were supposed to come alongside Dark Iron, but got replaced with Mag'har because they decided Zandalari were better paired with Kul'Tirans.

Actually I think in an interview somewhere early on they said this - that Zandalari were revealed early because originally they were going to be released at the outset of BFA but then realized "wait the player hasn't quested with them yet/seen their story" or something like that. Thus they decided to switch em around.

[Rhlor]

7.3 vulpera and mechagnome allied races

[DeicideUH]

No. Kul'Tirans weren't announced at all. Chance is, Zandalari were supposed to come alongside Dark Iron, but got replaced with Mag'har because they decided Zandalari were better paired with Kul'Tirans.

They're still a feature announced with the trailer that still hasn't come out for six months after the game's release.

Pretty simple thing with Zandalari and Kul'tirans - Kul'tiran models are not done yet.

Zandalari model with heritage armor was teased at blizzcon 2017, so model is just sitting since then and probably was like 70% done.

I started to think that Kul'tirans were not planned as AR but then it looked really stupid during development and they swapped Zandalari with Mag'har to release them alongside Dark irons.

Kul tiran model was already well-developed and showcased during Blizzcon 2017, thought. They weren't in the trailer, but people were guessing they'd be an allied race since then.

I have the feeling that ma'ghar/dark irons were meant to be released with 8.0 prepatch, and KT/Zandalari would be available in 8.0 max level, but development was delayed and everything was pushed for later.

[Makabreska]

They're still a feature announced with the trailer that still hasn't come out for six months after the game's release.
Kul tiran model was already well-developed and showcased during Blizzcon 2017, thought. They weren't in the trailer, but people were guessing they'd be an allied race since then.

Confuzzled af here.

[AngerFork]

Kul tiran model was already well-developed and showcased during Blizzcon 2017, thought. They weren't in the trailer, but people were guessing they'd be an allied race since then.

I have the feeling that ma'ghar/dark irons were meant to be released with 8.0 prepatch, and KT/Zandalari would be available in 8.0 max level, but development was delayed and everything was pushed for later.

The Kul Tiran male model was, but we really didn't see much of the female model as I recall. They could show off the Male & Female models of the Zandalari, but they only really showed a little bit of the Kul Tiran male that they were looking at.

You may be right on the KT/Zandalari thing. Patch datamining as I recall had a dungeon map for what we'll soon see as Battle of Dazar'alor as well as a map for Junker Gnome Island. I suspect the initial plan was still to release them when the raid completed, which might well have been in 8.0 or at least pre-holidays. Mechagon in this theoretical scenario would have then been in 8.1. But as things took longer than expected (a common gamedev problem), KT/Zandalar both got pushed back until 8.1.5...still after the Dazar'alor raid.

[DeicideUH]

Confuzzled af here.

First paragraph is about Zandalari, second about Kul tirans.

[Marlamin]

There was some minor PTR maintenance last night (45 min). Wonder if they're prepping for 8.1.5.

[Nyel]

Uldir came out September 4th. Meaning we've had about 4.5 months of Uldir for this raid tier/season because Dazar'alor begins on January 22nd. If next tier is another 4.5 months we should be seeing an 8.2 patch nearly end of May/June I think. Or maybe 8.2.5 then and 8.2 a month before?

Why the heck has BFA felt like it's been out longer than it actually has?

Easy, because BfA's new features suck and the content is already dragged out. Mythic+ and WQ aren't "fresh" anymore and get boring very quick. It was different in Legion.

- - - Updated - - -

I have two guesses: one, less likely, is it hitting with the raid, Jan 22th.
THe other is coming after the raid schedule ends, Feb 19th.

Well, if the two new races unlock with the raid it's unlikely that they drop 8.1.5 before raid finder has got all wings, isn't it?

Another thing is: will CoS drop in 8.1.5 with the two races or will 8.2 contain CoS and 8.2.5 contain the Azshara raid.