Shadowlands in 2021

[Musta]

It says in the ToS of the pre-order 31 december 2020. Stop making this threads.

[munkeyinorbit]

Yikes at some ppl in this thread. They literally said 2020 release. Why is this even a topic?

Because there are rumours it could be delayed. Please actually read a thread before commenting.

- - - Updated - - -

It says in the ToS of the pre-order 31 december 2020. Stop making this threads.

Stop acting like release dates, even ones in contracts, never change.

[cptaylor38]

"World of Warcraft®: Shadowlands expansion available on or before December 31, 2020"

You understand what that means for them if they don't release it? That would be a legal disaster to Blizzard. And all directors would be fired by the stackholders while you count from 10 to 1 at New Year's Eve. Period.
Be sure that this expansion will be release in the worst case scenario on 31st December even if they only have the zone of Bastion available to play lol

Again, I'm pretty sure they're just throwing out some extremely far out date as a worst case, but even they expect it to be out way sooner.

I'm really not a positive polly, I'm just going based on what I've seen, and there really isn't anything groundbreaking outside of the level squish, which they've already sort of done multiple times with stat squishes.

[Onikaroshi]

Ok its not a enumeration...but there is a correlation and dependence on the things listed

You are saying there is a comma here?

"The difference between Apples, and oranges"

How in the world????

(ill stop this conmversation or ill be banned)

It's called an oxford comma, it's used in lists, but generally not a list of two like that.

More like, "The difference between Apples, Bananas, and Oranges" and isn't required at all, both that, and "Apples, Bananas and Oranges" are correct.

[arkanon]

It's called an oxford comma, it's used in lists, but generally not a list of two like that.

More like, "The difference between Apples, Bananas, and Oranges" and isn't required at all, both that, and "Apples, Bananas and Oranges" are correct.

How amusing.

[Onikaroshi]

How amusing.

No one proof reads forum posts /shrug.

Technically the whole sentence is a run on.

[Gibsonz]

What sort of legal disaster do you think is going to happen? Let's assume that nobody tells the guy in charge that release date is not going to happen and they haven't completed the release build and there are no release candidates. Let's draw a long bow and assume that nobody is doing their jobs. What are the legal consequences of this?

as starter lets say 1M players bought the pre-order. It says you will get that product till 31st December and If you don't have the product you can be reimbursed.
still let stay no1 will take legal actions against Activision because of that. All gaming community will know that. It'll be a economical (reimbursements), financial (all Q4 predictions year to year will be far off without the pre-orders) and public relations nightmare (a new expansion that didnt commit with a official release date mandatory by law for a pre-order). Activision Stock market value will reflect that and we are not talking about WoW Tokens for dino mounts.

[huth]

as starter lets say 1M players bought the pre-order. It says you will get that product till 31st December and If you don't have the product you can be reimbursed.
still let stay no1 will take legal actions against Activision because of that. All gaming community will know that. It'll be a economical (reimbursements), financial (all Q4 predictions year to year will be far off without the pre-orders) and public relations nightmare (a new expansion that didnt commit with a official release date mandatory by law for a pre-order). Activision Stock market value will reflect that and we are not talking about WoW Tokens for dino mounts.

It's a potential financial disaster that can easily be avoided by being conservative with the pre-order date, in essence. Since doing so doesn't have any significant cost, there's no good reason not to do it. Cost-Benefit is clearly in favour.

[Sorrowseer]

Because there are rumours it could be delayed. Please actually read a thread before commenting.

- - - Updated - - -



Stop acting like release dates, even ones in contracts, never change.

True, though when have Blizzard missed an expansion by end of X date? Have they taken ages? Hell fucking yeah they have, SoO yolo! But have they missed a date? ...

[munkeyinorbit]

as starter lets say 1M players bought the pre-order. It says you will get that product till 31st December and If you don't have the product you can be reimbursed.
still let stay no1 will take legal actions against Activision because of that. All gaming community will know that. It'll be a economical (reimbursements), financial (all Q4 predictions year to year will be far off without the pre-orders) and public relations nightmare (a new expansion that didnt commit with a official release date mandatory by law for a pre-order). Activision Stock market value will reflect that and we are not talking about WoW Tokens for dino mounts.

So there will be no legal ramifications at all. I'm glad you agree. There will be some financial hit to the share price as missing the deadline as rumoured indicates bigger problems then less than 1 percent wanting refunds. (Let's face it. Users will complain but almost nobody will quit over it). But I am glad that you changed your mind.

[huth]

True, though when have Blizzard missed an expansion by end of X date? Have they taken ages? Hell fucking yeah they have, SoO yolo! But have they missed a date? ...

Not a preorder date in this format. They are always being over-conservative on them. BC was delayed, but that was the actual release date, not the pre-order date.

[Nnyco]

Because there are rumours it could be delayed. Please actually read a thread before commenting.

If these rumors are made up by idiots like OP then they have near to zero value.

[huth]

So there will be no legal ramifications at all. I'm glad you agree. There will be some financial hit to the share price as missing the deadline as rumoured indicates bigger problems then less than 1 percent wanting refunds. (Let's face it. Users will complain but almost nobody will quit over it). But I am glad that you changed your mind.

Which for a company is generally much worse than legal repercussions.

[Sondrelk]

If Blizzard says the expansion is going to be released the latest 31st of December you can be damn sure they have scheduled the development to be ready for release by mid-November, likely even October given pretty much teh entire month of December would mean a disastrous launch.

[munkeyinorbit]

True, though when have Blizzard missed an expansion by end of X date? Have they taken ages? Hell fucking yeah they have, SoO yolo! But have they missed a date? ...

When stated blizzard has not missed dates but before the law changes they have pushed release dates. Blizzard has been known to say release dates were coming soon. Look at BC as an example

Blizzard has never been in this situation before. . They have somehow produced an xpansion worse than WoD (the fact that there is a significant portion of the community thinks this is telling). The worse thing that makes it worse is that WoD was just light on non raid content but mechanically was pretty solid. BFA has lots to do but there are systems in place that almost noone likes and the classes are broken. When blizzard announces that they are focusing on classes, something that could be done in a patch, and is greeted with cheers tells you a lot. We have experts stating that the game looks rushed while also being in a state that is behind where BFA was at the same time, and we have threads being made on a daily basis on how lackluster the expansion is. This is Blizzards cash cow. They use it to fund development. Can they really afford another failure? This info, admittedly biased a bit, is worrying. And now we have rumours that it will be delayed to 2021.

[Moose184]

I doubt they are going to have over a year and a half of no content again

[munkeyinorbit]

Which for a company is generally much worse than legal repercussions.

No it isn't. Why do you think corporations have such huge legal teams? Because being taken to court is cheap? Google has been fined billions. Microsoft almost got broken up in the late 90s. Cigerete companies had huge class action lawsuits against them. Court rulings are generally punitive and can bankrupt or break up companies.

Bad financial news for a quarter is not great but share prices recover and are generally an indication of future performance. A delay will only delay revenue but it will still come.

[Sondrelk]

When stated blizzard has not missed dates but before the law changes they have pushed release dates. Blizzard has been known to say release dates were coming soon. Look at BC as an example

Blizzard has never been in this situation before. . They have somehow produced an xpansion worse than WoD (the fact that there is a significant portion of the community thinks this is telling). The worse thing that makes it worse is that WoD was just light on non raid content but mechanically was pretty solid. BFA has lots to do but there are systems in place that almost noone likes and the classes are broken. When blizzard announces that they are focusing on classes, something that could be done in a patch, and is greeted with cheers tells you a lot. We have experts stating that the game looks rushed while also being in a state that is behind where BFA was at the same time, and we have threads being made on a daily basis on how lackluster the expansion is. This is Blizzards cash cow. They use it to fund development. Can they really afford another failure? This info, admittedly biased a bit, is worrying. And now we have rumours that it will be delayed to 2021.

How far along experts think the content is when it is shown compared to when it releases is only in the most casual of relationships.

The 8.3 PTR launched with named loot from Ny'alotha along with an almost complete dungeon journal.
All the stars seemed to have aligned for the patch to drop around now, but instead it got delayed by quite a bit.

On the flipside i am pretty confident we have had patches that looked far behind, and which has released before people expected it regardless.
Even BfA seemed like it would need a month or two longer in the oven, but instead we got it when we did.

There is also the fact that some sources have talked about Revandreth being almsot done as well, this coupled with the demo obviously being cut down to the important polished bits and the lack of large new features outside Torghast means that even if Shadowlands is behind compared to other expansion it could still easily release teh same time as other expansions.

[Redroniksre]

It will launch in the August - October window (November at latest) like it usually would. People coming up with conspiracy theories because they haven't shown us every single inch of the zones and gone super in depth are kind of amusing to say the least. They have always put December 31st dates as placeholders for the year they are going to release in, for every product.

[Sondrelk]

It will launch in the August - October window (November at latest) like it usually would. People coming up with conspiracy theories because they haven't shown us every single inch of the zones and gone super in depth are kind of amusing to say the least. They have always put December 31st dates as placeholders for the year they are going to release in, for every product.

I am pretty sure they have usually put the release date earlier actually. But usually at the end of September, so end of Q3. 31st of December is of course end of Q4, so looking at it that way it is not a big change overall considering Blizzard might simply be intending to give themselves more breathing room in case something is not done and they need the positive PR.