9.0 General Discussion

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Well one issue is the maw is pretty much barely implemented. That is probably what they are calling out most of the other stuff is tested and seems fine but given how important the maw should be there is fuck all interesting to do there at the moment.

Yeah the Maw is weird but IDK if they have enough time to redesign the Maw without getting it pushed back to 2021. I think the Maw is probably always meant to be 9.1 content, like Karasang was in MoP.

[Gorsameth]

Not only did I certainly not expect SL to be delayed but to also release the pre-patch with no notion of when SLs will actually come out?

How long can they keep the game in pre-patch limbo?

[dcc626]

Please please stop with Pets and Mounts as Rewards. There are just so many of them, it simply does not feel rewarding anymore.

i mean, they arent giving us more gear. thats off the table. what are they supposed to give us?

[Sondrelk]

The game isn't going to be made inherently worse if they pull the ripcord, but it'll be infinitely more generic/boring. Not boring enough to tank the expac WoD style but still disappointing.

I really doubt that's what they mean by endgame though, considering the "ability tuning" post they made just a few days ago.

I wouldnt even say it becomes more boring or anything this expansion. What it will do however is reset the progress they made on getting RPG elements back in the game.

It is the same as how flying wouldnt really have mattered much for WoD, but had they capitulated on it we would most certainly not be getting more fun ways to traverse the world like what we have now with various covenant transport systems and whatever.

Blizzard not capitulating on covenants won't mean much for this expansion, but it would mean a whole lot going forward.

[Nagawithlegs]

Yeah the Maw is weird but IDK if they have enough time to redesign the Maw without getting it pushed back to 2021. I think the Maw is probably always meant to be 9.1 content, like Karasang was in MoP.

Maw is fine, unless people are still hung up on "where's my Suramar" after 3 years. Torghast (the tower, not the dungeon, the tower has to be a raid) and the Maw are clearly endgame stuff for the expansion (or at least midgame) and having the zone open at launch to get mats and some cosmetics is fine. Broken Shore sucked because they pretended like it was a zone worthy of a patch when it wasn't: them expanding upon an already emptier zone makes much more sense.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Not only did I certainly not expect SL to be delayed but to also release the pre-patch with no notion of when SLs will actually come out?

How long can they keep the game in pre-patch limbo?

You know I wonder if they might decide to keep some of the "going away" stuff (coughbrutosaurcough) in the game until 9.0.2 (actual Shadowlands) drops. Otherwise there's gonna be a real lack of stuff to do after a while.

[Hyrja]

Good, they are still making major changes to the game and releasing it in 3 weeks would have been foolish.

[gunner_recall]

Yeah. I obviously hate the fact I have to play more of BFA, but a delayed game is eventually good. They made a good decision if they had the choice to release something they clearly did not think was polished.

I mean, delaying != improved quality but it shows that they care enough about trying to delivery a quality product that they would risk taking a financial hit/losing fans than delivering something subpar. Plus, if it's good and word starts spreading, they'll gain those fans and money back. It's really not a lose for them to delay it.

Also, delaying it till later in the year can potential give people more time to play. I'm not sure it'll get delayed to winter but having it come like a month late isn't that big a deal and probably works out better for them anyway.

Yeah definitely. Sucks for anyone that made plans already to no life that weekend, but from a gameplay standpoint this can only be good. It's an extra probably month that they can spend doing polish that otherwise would have had to wait for 9.1 or even 9.2.

Just so long as "polish" isn't "pull the rip cord."

I mean, I hope that's part of what they do but yeah, definitely needs more work and polish.

[Sondrelk]

Yeah the Maw is weird but IDK if they have enough time to redesign the Maw without getting it pushed back to 2021. I think the Maw is probably always meant to be 9.1 content, like Karasang was in MoP.

The Maw is problematic because it had content attached to it, though that became moot when Blizzard removed Torghast keys, which meant they now had a zone with no purpose other than being a slightly inconvenient commute to Torghast.

I am not sure how much they could realistically add to the Maw beyond what they have added by now.

[Hadriker]

Honestly that's pretty surprising.

At least now we have a confirmed prepatch date of the 13th. So now whos hedging bets on a late November or early December release.

[Sondrelk]

I mean, delaying != improved quality but it shows that they care enough about trying to delivery a quality product that they would risk taking a financial hit/losing fans than delivering something subpar. Plus, if it's good and word starts spreading, they'll gain those fans and money back. It's really not a lose for them to delay it.

Also, delaying it till later in the year can potential give people more time to play. I'm not sure it'll get delayed to winter but having it come like a month late isn't that big a deal and probably works out better for them anyway.

I mean, I hope that's part of what they do but yeah, definitely needs more work and polish.

It could be a loss to delay it. Blizzard is essentially gambling on their improvements to the game they get from delaying outweighing the disgruntled fans and bad press they get.

If they succeed they will be hailed as great game developers as they were willing to take a financial hit for the quality of the game, (even if that isnt necessarily true). But if they fail they will be lambasted as having wasted time and forced players to spend more time in BfA, or worse still being accused of spreading the content thin with artificial delays.

[kaid]

Yeah the Maw is weird but IDK if they have enough time to redesign the Maw without getting it pushed back to 2021. I think the Maw is probably always meant to be 9.1 content, like Karasang was in MoP.

I don't think they will totally remake the zone but clearly they need to improve it somehow and incentivize people a bit better. The last patch or two has added stuff to make it more worth doing but I think it needs at least a few more upgrades. Right now it just is weird. You do all this stuff and then start to invade the maw and its like yawn what am I doing here and why do I care. There is very little reason outside some rep stuff you need to get to set foot in there. It is just in a very very strange place at the moment and its one of the things a lot of the big streamers have been sending up redflags about. Also the leveling experience for alts currently is in a very strange place with some very odd gating and ability to level wrong and make it hard to even get to max level if you don't do t he story line option. They can VERY much use another month or two for polishing passes.

[letssee]

so can we assume, and yea i know assuming anyhing at this point when everything has changed is not worth anything, but at least one could try to expect that if they were to follow the prepatch, at a maximum as its been in previous expacs, 4 weeks after the 13th would be the 10th of november. if its longer then we would have the longest prepatch ever?

[Sondrelk]

so can we assume, and yea i know assuming anyhing at this point when everything has changed is not worth anything, but at least one could try to expect that if they were to follow the prepatch, at a maximum as its been in previous expacs, 4 weeks after the 13th would be the 10th of november. if its longer then we would have the longest prepatch ever?

The longest pre-patch is Cataclysm at 8 weeks, which was divided into 3 phases of 2 weeks of system changes, 2 weeks of pre-sundering events and finally 4 weeks of post-sundering events.

I doubt SL will manage to break the 8-week record.

[gunner_recall]

It could be a loss to delay it. Blizzard is essentially gambling on their improvements to the game they get from delaying outweighing the disgruntled fans and bad press they get.

If they succeed they will be hailed as great game developers as they were willing to take a financial hit for the quality of the game, (even if that isnt necessarily true). But if they fail they will be lambasted as having wasted time and forced players to spend more time in BfA, or worse still being accused of spreading the content thin with artificial delays.

Yeah, it can definitely come back and bite them on the ass but given what we KNOW they can deliver, I think it's a good move on their part and it's going to work out.

[Dracullus]

It would help a lot if they let us get some 8.3 stuff during long pre-patch. PVP season is rather out of picture, but why won't keep rank 4 essences (maybe some alternative source for PVP one?), Brutosaur (this especially), rewards for 12xM+15, Ahead of curve?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

You know what I'm gonna change my guess from November 20th to "Sometime in December."

Because it's obvious that Blizz overlaps their dates with FF14 now, and they confirmed their 5.4 patch will drop in December.

(For context, FF14 is dropping 5.3.5 on the 13th as well they announced this week.)

[Gorsameth]

It could be a loss to delay it. Blizzard is essentially gambling on their improvements to the game they get from delaying outweighing the disgruntled fans and bad press they get.

If they succeed they will be hailed as great game developers as they were willing to take a financial hit for the quality of the game, (even if that isnt necessarily true). But if they fail they will be lambasted as having wasted time and forced players to spend more time in BfA, or worse still being accused of spreading the content thin with artificial delays.

Lets be real, not a single soul is who was planning to play Shadowlands past the first week will skip it because of this delay.

[Raetary]

Holy shit, they actually delayed the game.

This year is full of surprises.

[Zexaniro]

I remember getting unanimously dragged on here for saying it's dropping Nov/Dec, feel wholly vindicated!

- - - Updated - - -

The longest pre-patch is Cataclysm at 8 weeks, which was divided into 3 phases of 2 weeks of system changes, 2 weeks of pre-sundering events and finally 4 weeks of post-sundering events.

I doubt SL will manage to break the 8-week record.

please. they couldn't even give a new SL release date which means it's at least two months away