BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Nyel]

I just realised it could be badass if 8.3 was Tyrande, pissed off over Anduin magically having the resources to help free Baine but not bothering to help with Darkshore, deciding that Thunder Bluff must burn.

Yeah that’s what I said some weeks ago. It would be insane if Anduin is helping out Baine and Thunder Bluff but didn’t bother with helping the Night Elves. And that’s where my Tyrande revenge scenario comes into play where she just goes into rage mode.

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Wonder if the encrypted 8.2.5 stuff is staying that way until BlizzCon, in a "you can play it tomorrow" kind of deal. Sure hope not.

I think this would only make sense when we get new allied races, too. Just for some storytelling? Most people don’t even bother with that.

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I wanted November, but I'm afraid this way we wouldn't get any patch news on Blizzcon next year (like on Blizzcon '14). So let it be October ;P.

Totally agree, feel the November releases are the best.

Not sure how it was back during Legion but didn’t we get all the Nighthold and TOS stuff during Blizzcon 16? Maybe I’m mistaken though, quite some time ago.

[Darksora110]

I speculate that we get close to our faction (as usual) then N'Zoth whispers to you and you kill your allies or in an attempt to do so. But it might be extreme.

[Hellspawn]

Massacre everyone on Ogrimmar while Anduin and friends are busy in thunderbluff would make more sense for Tyrande.
Also at the same time Sylvanas may attack Stormwind.

[huth]

I just realised it could be badass if 8.3 was Tyrande, pissed off over Anduin magically having the resources to help free Baine but not bothering to help with Darkshore, deciding that Thunder Bluff must burn.

Tyrande would have needed an army. We went to free Baine with what, 3 people, us included? That's a rather large difference in resource investment.

So no, it wouldn't be badass at all. In-character, sure, but not badass.

[Dracullus]

Not sure how it was back during Legion but didn’t we get all the Nighthold and TOS stuff during Blizzcon 16? Maybe I’m mistaken though, quite some time ago.

We did, but Legion released in August. Same with BfA.

It's possible they could talk about details of 9.1-9.2 next Blizzcon before 9.0 launch, but it would be rather unlikely - whole promo machine would be focused on 9.0 launch. They don't want to confuse people.

[Nyel]

We did, but Legion released in August. Same with BfA.

It's possible they could talk about details of 9.1-9.2 next Blizzcon before 9.0 launch, but it would be rather unlikely - whole promo machine would be focused on 9.0 launch. They don't want to confuse people.

Man, I am dumb. You’re right on that, don’t even know why I came up with that example. Did they announce selfie patch on Blizzcon maybe?

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Tyrande would have needed an army. We went to free Baine with what, 3 people, us included? That's a rather large difference in resource investment.

So no, it wouldn't be badass at all. In-character, sure, but not badass.

Jaina is like an army. She saved the Alliance in Undercity, she rescued Baine and teleported everybody away... I mean honestly.

[Blayze]

Tyrande would have needed an army. We went to free Baine with what, 3 people, us included? That's a rather large difference in resource investment.

So no, it wouldn't be badass at all. In-character, sure, but not badass.

Fly up high > drop azerite bombs > watch as tauren hurl themselves from burning bluffs to their deaths

Job done.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Fly up high > drop azerite bombs > watch as tauren hurl themselves from burning bluffs to their deaths

Job done.

Its never that simple, not at all.

[huth]

Fly up high > drop azerite bombs > watch as tauren hurl themselves from burning bluffs to their deaths

Job done.

And that helps keep the Horde out of Darkshore how?

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Jaina is like an army. She saved the Alliance in Undercity, she rescued Baine and teleported everybody away... I mean honestly.

Which is useless if you need to control a large area because she can only be in one spot at a time.

[Blayze]

And that helps keep the Horde out of Darkshore how?

If the Horde are all dead, they can't invade. :P

Its never that simple, not at all.

I know obviously it'd never work out that way--for one thing, Horde players would need to be able to counter any attack (at least in part) so they can see what's going on and therefore understand the narrative better. I'm imagining the bombs wouldn't go off immediately, and Horde bomb disposal teams go in to try and defuse them, only for one of the bombs to detonate.

Many lives lost, but what was intended as the explosive equivalent of a surgical strike to remove a major Horde military presence on Kalimdor has only served to inflame the war further and drive a wedge between Tyrande and the other leaders, the Night Elves and the rest of the Alliance, and even between the Night Elves themselves.

[huth]

If the Horde are all dead, they can't invade. :P

So you want to employ military assets well in excess of what Anduin could spare to prevent an invasion that had already concluded?

No wonder your plan makes no sense. And that's not getting into the part where you assume the Alliance can just fly into Horde airspace unhindered.

[Kemsa]

At this point of time, people need to understand few things:

1- 8.2.5 PTR its not full yet. We can expect 4 more weeks of "content"
2- 8.3 havent been confirmed beyond 2018 Blizzcon (with nzoth fish) so IF it have been scrapped, we still dont know.
3- Sylvannas its not going to die, her story its still in develop and faraway from ending (this doesnt mean she cant become garrosh, get trial, and next expansion be dead)
4- We can expect at least 2 more heritage armor for normal races (trolls and Draenei) Orcs, humans, undead and night elf, seems to be left aside because of Warfronts.
5- I strongly believe we are going to get 2 Allied Races as preorder of next expa, continuing a patron of, 2 preorder BFA AR, 2 AR in the expansion, 2 AR ending expansion/preorder of next expansion.
6- Goblin and Worguen heritage will actually come with some world revamp. People dont know that, RIGHT NOW, the Starting zone of the Worguen, "Gilneas" its suffering tons of bugs, from high ping (1400) to despawned mounts, to AI mounts going wild, to despawning events and neverending quests. So the "push back" of Heritage its not only because of the quests not being ready, but the maps in retail are not working properly. I dont know about the Goblin starting area, but the worguen one was a hell to get out this past 2 weeks.
7- Dragon Isles its just a concept that was introduce on BfA, even tho we knew before thanks to interviews and books. So i dont expect to be a zone in the "near" future.
8- There are a lot of thematics that can occur now. The Light Zealots, The hungering Void, the unrrelenting Death, the Shadowlands, the Everbloom invasion thanks to the Maghar. This is probably why the hype its being accompany with "fear". We have never being in this position of " we dont know whats happening next"
9- none of the datamined models have a reason or quest tied. YET. Becoming again fuel to the "we dont know whats happening next"
10- BfA has a lot of people already being accepting,that, its just an Introductory expansion, probably just introducing new enemies, getting rid of older discrepancies (Zul/Aszhara) introducing new concepts and making differences between classes (engineer =/= tinker, Necromancer =/= DK) and seeing the state of the older concepts of Horde vs Alliance, if it reasonable to still hate each other, is there a reason why we cant play together. Did Horde racials were better than Alliance on Dazar alor, specifically Jaina. Its the breach from the Hall of Fame something to take consideration.

Overall. It seems that Blizzcon its the biggest cow in the room right now. I believe we are not getting anything important in this ptr and probably Blizzard doesnt want another Argus, so they are going to wait until Blizzcon. But i can be wrong and we could get next week Dragon Isles (timeless isle copy paste) and a content drought of 6 months XD.

[Nathanyel]

Wonder if the encrypted 8.2.5 stuff is staying that way until BlizzCon, in a "you can play it tomorrow" kind of deal. Sure hope not.

I kinda wish this type of thing would happen more often, story bits (or 'flavor' like the N'Zoth whispers) dropping a while after the patch, without announcement. They can do it and have done it, but not really often yet.

[Dracullus]

At this point of time, people need to understand few things:

1- 8.2.5 PTR its not full yet. We can expect 4 more weeks of "content"
2- 8.3 havent been confirmed beyond 2018 Blizzcon (with nzoth fish) so IF it have been scrapped, we still dont know.
3- Sylvannas its not going to die, her story its still in develop and faraway from ending (this doesnt mean she cant become garrosh, get trial, and next expansion be dead)
4- We can expect at least 2 more heritage armor for normal races (trolls and Draenei) Orcs, humans, undead and night elf, seems to be left aside because of Warfronts.
5- I strongly believe we are going to get 2 Allied Races as preorder of next expa, continuing a patron of, 2 preorder BFA AR, 2 AR in the expansion, 2 AR ending expansion/preorder of next expansion.
6- Goblin and Worguen heritage will actually come with some world revamp. People dont know that, RIGHT NOW, the Starting zone of the Worguen, "Gilneas" its suffering tons of bugs, from high ping (1400) to despawned mounts, to AI mounts going wild, to despawning events and neverending quests. So the "push back" of Heritage its not only because of the quests not being ready, but the maps in retail are not working properly. I dont know about the Goblin starting area, but the worguen one was a hell to get out this past 2 weeks.
7- Dragon Isles its just a concept that was introduce on BfA, even tho we knew before thanks to interviews and books. So i dont expect to be a zone in the "near" future.
8- There are a lot of thematics that can occur now. The Light Zealots, The hungering Void, the unrrelenting Death, the Shadowlands, the Everbloom invasion thanks to the Maghar. This is probably why the hype its being accompany with "fear". We have never being in this position of " we dont know whats happening next"
9- none of the datamined models have a reason or quest tied. YET. Becoming again fuel to the "we dont know whats happening next"
10- BfA has a lot of people already being accepting,that, its just an Introductory expansion, probably just introducing new enemies, getting rid of older discrepancies (Zul/Aszhara) introducing new concepts and making differences between classes (engineer =/= tinker, Necromancer =/= DK) and seeing the state of the older concepts of Horde vs Alliance, if it reasonable to still hate each other, is there a reason why we cant play together. Did Horde racials were better than Alliance on Dazar alor, specifically Jaina. Its the breach from the Hall of Fame something to take consideration.

Overall. It seems that Blizzcon its the biggest cow in the room right now. I believe we are not getting anything important in this ptr and probably Blizzard doesnt want another Argus, so they are going to wait until Blizzcon. But i can be wrong and we could get next week Dragon Isles (timeless isle copy paste) and a content drought of 6 months XD.

Your whole post is confusing as hell. You mix obvious stuff with your speculations and tell us we "need to understand this".

1. Well duh. We don't expect 8.2.5 launch at least before late September.
2. Hah, this again ;D At this point even doesn't try to convince everyone that 8.3 isn't coming.
3. Who knows, it's Blizzard story. Characters death is not something you could predict in the story.
4. Why? Because you said so and we "need to understand this"? Heritage is not only armor, it's also questline crafted for this race. Also it's very possible that these heritage will come in patches next expansion.
5. We need understand things you strongly believe? You try to make pattern from thing that started this expansion.
6. That just your theory. My theory is that they just didn't finished questlines in time for 8.2.5, so it's pushed back to 8.3. Which is more likely?
7. First, it was first planned as late zone for Vanilla - but of course it was just an idea back then, most likely current one have nothing to do with it. Second, most WoW zone are introduced the same expansion they launch (hell, sometimes even whole continent - hi Pandaria).
8. We have always been in that position. Usually people speculated "oh, this time it will be South Seas with Azshara for sure" without any pro. But this time it's out of picture, so there is more room to speculate.
9. ... and?
10. Don't what's your point with this as well.

11. What do you mean "Blizzard doesnt want another Argus"? From where did you get 6 months number? If we have 8.3, it will likely launch with same schedule as rest of patches - so December/January. They can reveal it on separate stream, just like 8.1 (8.2 also had separate stream to refresh our memory from Blizzcon).

And I agree Dragon Isles fit rather as continent than patch zone. If I had to bet, I would go with revamped Silithus and/or Tirisfal Glades.

[FlubberPuddy]

I wanted November, but I'm afraid this way we wouldn't get any patch news on Blizzcon next year (like on Blizzcon '14). So let it be October ;P.

Sept-Nov always feels like good dates!

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I love it. Always have time off in the summer. The end of the year is always crazy at work.

To me it just "feels better" having the games release during Fall time. Yeah it is busier toward ends of year, but also nice to know you have a lot of gaming to look forward to when you get breaks from responsibilities lol.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I would think the release would come sooner if they are spreading things out. We will see though....Blizzard is at a good point of spacing out content patches(Major) but not being super early either.

[FlubberPuddy]

Well their issue was never their release times of the next expansion, it was the time it took between the last patch of the current expansion to the first patch of the new expansion. It was pacing issues, always.

They're at a good point now, but weren't before Legion, so hopefully the 8.3 patch time doesn't overstay its welcome.

[Nyel]

Just a thought...

... what if 8.2.5 is the transition patch between BfA and 9.0, Blizzard is going to announce the new expansion at Blizzcon and we're getting a Q2/20 release of the expansion?

Something like 8.2.5 is the resolve of the faction war storyline. We'll get new allied races later on when pre-purchasing of the new expansion starts, that's why we haven't gotten them yet in a PTS build. 8.2.5 is as of now so heavily encrypted because it acts exactly like that, transition from BfA to the next expansion.

The announcement of the next expansion then starts directly were 8.2 ended, with N'zoth being freed and Azshara opening her eyes - that's basically the introduction to the new expansion and the lose end Blizzard picks up at Blizzcon reveal. The new expansion then will be heavily centered around Azshara, N'zoth, Sylvanas, Wrathion. In this way Eternal Palace works as a "final raid tier" with enough of a cliffhanger to matter in the next expansion, akin to Gul'dan in Hellfire Citadel (Azshara was even meant to be this expansion's Gul'dan - yet the WoD and not the Legion version though!).

As a schedule I could imagine something like this:

8.2.5 around October
Expansion announcement at Blizzcon + pre purchase first glimpse
8.2.5 allied races pre purchase December/January
9.0 pre patch in February/March
Expansion release in April/May

What do you think? Please don't brush it off with "there will be 8.3!!!", Blizzard only talked about "The End?" with the N'zoth fish last Blizzcon so "The End?" could basically be the new expansion centered around N'zoth. The (non-)existence of 8.3 was never mentioned by Blizzard officially, it's like Schroedinger's Cat at this point. Just think about it this way and tell me why it couldn't / wouldn't work as I lay it down here (by the way, I am not talking about 8.3 being scrapped or stuff like that, I'm talking about 8.3 was never meant to be at the first place).

I think a schedule like this would work good for BfA's closure and a faster upcoming expansion, tackling the not-so-small problems Blizzard as a whole company has at the moment.

[huth]

Just a thought...

... what if 8.2.5 is the transition patch between BfA and 9.0, Blizzard is going to announce the new expansion at Blizzcon and we're getting a Q2/20 release of the expansion?

Timing just doesn't work out for that. They basically would have to have announced the expansion already to have enough time for beta left.

[Nyel]

Timing just doesn't work out for that. They basically would have to have announced the expansion already to have enough time for beta left.

Beta starts directly after Blizzcon as another "goodie" announcement. 4-5 months as usual, May release date.

I checked beta/release dates for Legion and BfA:

Legion:

May 12 beta -> August 30 launch (16 weeks)

BfA:

April 24 beta -> August 14 launch (16 weeks)

FYI regarding my idea:

November 5 -> February 25 (16 weeks)

See, there's plenty of time for beta to achieve a Q2/20 release.