I on Hazzikostas - there will be NO 8.3.5

[Dracullus]

So now we're acting like lack of one .5 patch (compared to Legion, because other expacs didn't share Legion/BfA patch structure) is suddenly "massive cut" and "abandoning expansion"?

Blizzard, just start the alpha, we are reaching new low every week on this forum.

AHAHAHAHA surprise surprise, no 8.3.5. I find this quite hilarious honestly, but it's expected. Shadowlands needs so much work to be released this year that this is really no surprise.

Dude, you really want to act triumphant after you done like bazyllion posts and threads that 8.3 won't be a thing and Azshara will be last boss? I mean, have your fun, but your kinda making clown of yourself, at least in my eyes.

It's like saying "tomorrow will be shitty" every day, and when eventually it is, saying - "HA! TOLD YA!"

[sam86]

They're definitely writing off BFA now. It does suck for the next 10 months, but it only means great things for Shadowlands. Blizz wrote off WoD to make Legion better

they also left MoP for over a year and what u got was WoD
so that doesn't work either

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So now we're acting like lack of one .5 patch (compared to Legion, because other expacs didn't share Legion/BfA patch structure) is suddenly "massive cut" and "abandoning expansion"?

Blizzard, just start the alpha, we are reaching new low every week on this forum.

it may sound ironic but i feel that they are rushing Shadowlands and i don't like that
exp that had more develop time still ended crap with lot of cut like WoD and BFA (also in BFA, they did say the disaster PR statement that they were not working as hard as legion on it or something similar)
MoP had over a year and we still got WoD, which probably crumbled under too much ambition, so by all means give shadowlands even 2 years of development, just not another WoD or BFA quality of exps

[Mirishka]

"Over 9000" Spam posts yes. everyone can have even 100k...

Speaking of useless spam...

[Dracullus]

it may sound ironic but i feel that they are rushing Shadowlands and i don't like that
exp that had more develop time still ended crap with lot of cut like WoD and BFA (also in BFA, they did say the disaster PR statement that they were not working as hard as legion on it or something similar)
MoP had over a year and we still got WoD, which probably crumbled under too much ambition, so by all means give shadowlands even 2 years of development, just not another WoD or BFA quality of exps

To know if they are rushing Shadowlands or not, we need at least two dates: start of Alpha and release. We don't have neither, so I find pointless even discussing that right now.

If they release Alpha February-March, I will be optimistic, since SL launch is clearly Fall 2020 - most likely October or November.

And I never heard devs saying they are not working as hard as in Legion. Must have been away for week or something and miss drama #4325. BfA is worse expac than Legion, but I would'nt say it's lower effort - 90% problems are consquence of rushed launch. I don't think even Azerite would be a problem if they had time to redesign all specs for BfA.

[Schizoide]

So now we're acting like lack of one .5 patch (compared to Legion, because other expacs didn't share Legion/BfA patch structure) is suddenly "massive cut" and "abandoning expansion"?

Not 8.3.5 alone; 8.3 itself is severely low effort. No dungeons, no new zones, just a raid and a bunch of daily quests in old zones. And it's the buggiest patch in recent memory.

[Aeula]

Well thank god we won't see anymore BfA story.

Now we just have to worry about the no doubt worse Shadowlands story.

[Unholyground]

You are not making a logical argument. You need to support it with, well, anything at all.

My feeling is they aren't making 8.3.5 because they're short on resources and need to focus on Shadowlands.

Exactly this, it is pretty obvious they want Shadowlands to not suck like BfA.

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Not 8.3.5 alone; 8.3 itself is severely low effort. No dungeons, no new zones, just a raid and a bunch of daily quests in old zones. And it's the buggiest patch in recent memory.

Yep because Activision fired all their quality assurance workers last year, they literally have no one to internally test the game anymore.

[oplawlz]

From the study's quote.

Blizzard CEO first blamed the "churn" (players leaving) for the lack of new patches.
And on patch 5.0 they tried patches every 3 months...and 2.5 MILLION players still left...
So the study arrived to the conclusion that "lack of content" is not to blame...or is the biggest factor.

That evidence is fundamentally flawed. The quality of content is just as important as the quantity. Adding a selfie patch every 3 months and failing to retain players doesn't prove anything.

[Khaza-R]

Not 8.3.5 alone; 8.3 itself is severely low effort. No dungeons, no new zones, just a raid and a bunch of daily quests in old zones. And it's the buggiest patch in recent memory.

While I agree with you, I not sure I really blame them either. Argus and Nazjatar weren't exactly well received so I am not surprised Ny'alotha lacks its own unique zone.

[Vorkreist]

Makes sense to stop wasting resources on this dumpster fire as soon as possible.

[Dracullus]

Not 8.3.5 alone; 8.3 itself is severely low effort. No dungeons, no new zones, just a raid and a bunch of daily quests in old zones. And it's the buggiest patch in recent memory.

I don't know how even discuss with people like you. First you overblown stuff out of proportion (8.3 most bugged patch in history - sure buddy), then you "forgot" to mention like half of content (2 instanced scenarios with 5 bosses each, lot of narrative content compared to usual patch, new races), new gearing system, that "bunch of dailies" is filling two big zones with daily content (which is nothing special, as always world stuff is filler content) and "just raid" is biggest we had in like 5 years.

This patch easily could give 4-5 months of casual playing. Of course only if don't restrict yourself to running around two zones and killing some tentacle mobs. After that for remaining time until SL I'll just take long break, which is healthy for game like WoW.

[rrayy]

Vague statement with nothing to back it up. Nice.

Nothign vague about it.I brought facts.

[Alvito]

There has always been content droughts, always will be. If MoP didn't prove a disaster with its 14 months of drought, BfA won't either.

This one might end up being one of the shorter in any case. If guilds can't stick through it, others will form.

Looking from afar guilds dying and others rising up is fine. For the people I. Those guilds and raids it sucks. Less and less rise up too, which is also part of the problem. Pointing out other lulls in content doesn't prove that it is okay or good to have them. I have been in a car accident totaling my car, that doesn't mean I want another one.

[rrayy]

Yep because Activision fired all their quality assurance workers last year, they literally have no one to internally test the game anymore.

Literally nobody in connection with the game development of WoW was fired. This is utterly false.

[Unholyground]

Literally nobody in connection with the game development of WoW was fired. This is utterly false.

No it isn't all of Blizzards QA were let go, look it up. You cannot blame the dev team they really do try their best.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Looking from afar guilds dying and others rising up is fine. For the people I. Those guilds and raids it sucks. Less and less rise up too, which is also part of the problem. Pointing out other lulls in content doesn't prove that it is okay or good to have them. I have been in a car accident totaling my car, that doesn't mean I want another one.

If you've been in a car accident, why compare it to the lull of content delivered in a game that you can just put down and walk away from unscathed when it's not offering anything...?

I didn't make the claim nor am I trying to prove that it's a "good thing", but it's a fact. It not being "OK" is a matter of opinion, since we know they'd splurt out content in an endless stream for favorable MAUs if they could do so.

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No it isn't all of Blizzards QA wereb let go, look it up.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattper.../#4b03b9c176f5

"Activision Blizzard will lay off 8% of its staff of 9,600 employees, the video game company announced Tuesday during its fourth-quarter earnings call at market close. The nearly 800 employees will come from nondevelopment and administrative-related parts of the business."


The development team had people added. Look it up yourself, is my suggestion.

[Jamie081]

8.3 is a very low effort patch by Blizzard's standards so I'm not surprised that they're focusing on Shadowlands. Also judging by how little was shown for Shadowlands, the rest of this year is probably going to be tough for the devs.

Here's hoping they pull through and give us another WoD -> Legion jump in quality and quantity.

[rrayy]

No it isn't all of Blizzards QA were let go, look it up. You cannot blame the dev team they really do try their best.

They don''t have anything to do with development of WoW and that includes testing of said game. Stop with the dishonesty.

[Unholyground]

The development team had people added. Look it up yourself, is my suggestion.

Yes but their QA team was for all Blizzard games they did not hire QA testers for WoW specifically just devs who cannot possibly find every bug themselves. The PTR is only good for so much.

[Queen of Hamsters]

8.3 is a very low effort patch by Blizzard's standards so I'm not surprised that they're focusing on Shadowlands. Also judging by how little was shown for Shadowlands, the rest of this year is probably going to be tough for the devs.

Here's hoping they pull through and give us another WoD -> Legion jump in quality and quantity.

Well it does show similarities, what with them having new people added to their team over the course of BfA.

Not that I'm suggesting that BfA is even close to WoD-level standards, since I remember history. BfA has just not been in any way close to Legion in terms of effort put into the content that's been pushed out.

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Yes but their QA team was for all Blizzard games they did not hire QA testers for WoW specifically just devs who cannot possibly find every bug themselves. The PTR is only good for so much.

Where exactly have you read that they fired QA workers specifically and to such a debilitating extent? Not that I don't believe it since I'm sure they're part of the crowd, but they had QA staff for WoD and how much did that help exactly? Not at all. And BfA is, regardless of selective memory put to use, a bigger effort all around than WoD was.

And check their hiring lists, they hire QA staff still.