Coronavirus and Shadowlands?

[healerxd]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

Until companies get closed down across the board this will not be an issue. And that is a last resort, since the damage to the economy would be unfathomable. Even if it came to that I'm pretty sure they would start with the companies that operate with cube farms, which the Blizzard HQ didn't look like iirc.

Also them caughing up an alpha already would be early either way. They had so incredibly little to show at Bliccon, the project is clearly in the very early stages. Considering this to be late is kinda nonsensical, they would do well to use the most of their self-imposed deadline.

[Xorzor]

If they delayed it, could it be an advantage for us? More time to work on the expansion's content, etc.

Yes, I know this is Acti-Blizzard we're talking about it.

[czarek]

Yeah totally coronavirus... push all delays because of it xD

[THEORACLE64]

Until companies get closed down across the board this will not be an issue. And that is a last resort, since the damage to the economy would be unfathomable. Even if it came to that I'm pretty sure they would start with the companies that operate with cube farms, which the Blizzard HQ didn't look like iirc.

Also them caughing up an alpha already would be early either way. They had so incredibly little to show at Bliccon, the project is clearly in the very early stages. Considering this to be late is kinda nonsensical, they would do well to use the most of their self-imposed deadline.

Even if their offices were closed down they would still be able to work from home, so it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

[Dracullus]

I honestly don't understand at all people that hate BfA but at the same time want next expansion ASAP. You realize that rushing 8.0 was cause of like 90% problems in BfA?

Virus or not virus, it should be released when it's done, end of story.

[Wheeler]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

An EXCUSE to delay?

If anything, they'd probably absolutely WELCOME a delay - and based off of the state of BFA at launch, we should hope for the same.

[taishar68]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

I don't think a health concern as sweeping as this counts as a leveraged excuse. It is having a real impact on the world and if it gets delayed who gives a shit? If SL gets delayed and someone thinks Blizzard is using the virus to somehow mask incompetence, I feel sorry for them.

[Devilyaki]

Thought this was going to be about how it was feeding the jailer too ..

[Raven]

Even if their offices were closed down they would still be able to work from home, so it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

Yeah no they wouldnt be able to work from home, maybe some like animators, art and graphics people but a big part wouldnt be able to.

[Lolites]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

they dont need EXCUSE to delay it, they can say "were behind shedule and delaying it" and it would be enough, WHY would they make up reasons when they dont need any?!

[Kathranis]

Even if their offices were closed down they would still be able to work from home, so it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

It's pretty unlikely that they have access to the necessary proprietary tools outside of the office.

[derpkitteh]

idk about shadowlands, but i think it probably kills the chances of them letting the blood plague run rampant on classic for a little while.

i had hoped they'd do that for nostalgia's sake, but now it'd be seen as insensitive or some horseshit.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Even if their offices were closed down they would still be able to work from home, so it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

Suddenly setting up a remote access for home office for 250+ (only for WoW afaik) people isn't exactly trivial, especially if they use specialized hard- and software (drawing tablets, beefy PCs for rendering, tools with limited licenses/locked dongles, etc), though the degree of impact would obviously vary on a case by case basis. I would be inclined to acknowledge that they may lose a couple of weeks of effective productivity.

[Adoxe]

Why the hell would they delay a virtual product when the idea is for people to stay at home. Alpha ain't a real life convention, they don't need to delay it.

[Stardrift]

If they delayed it, could it be an advantage for us? More time to work on the expansion's content, etc.

Yes, I know this is Acti-Blizzard we're talking about it.

Bold of you to assume they'd continue working on it if there was a delay

[Zarvel]

Suddenly setting up a remote access for home office for 250+ (only for WoW afaik) people isn't exactly trivial, especially if they use specialized hard- and software (drawing tablets, beefy PCs for rendering, tools with limited licenses/locked dongles, etc), though the degree of impact would obviously vary on a case by case basis. I would be inclined to acknowledge that they may lose a couple of weeks of effective productivity.

If EA's doing it across all their offices(aside from Australia and India) starting this week until April 2nd, I don't see why one of their competitors like Blizzard cannot do the same.
Server related stuff can be done remotely anyway, which includes pushing alpha-ready builds to their public CDN services. It all comes down to how alpha-ready their builds actually are. If they want a proper launch this calendar year, they need that alpha out asap for public testing and public feedback to come rolling in. The sooner, the better, from a business standpoint. Last thing you'd want is a delay in the calendar year the expansion was promised to release in, which will later make them liable to be sued for false advertising, with pre-sales involved. Even with the corona virus, there's only so much sympathy they'll receive for a push in the calendar year for the release date.

[Zmagoslav]

It would be asinine to asume the outbreak won't affect the development at all.

I don't know about the US, but overhere all IT companies are telling their workers to work from home until told otherwise.
Even if access to resources is already set-up people will still require time to set up their home-offices.

"Work from home" sounds nice on paper, but it really isn't.
For one you simply cannot expect the productivity to remain at the same level. The number of distractors is just too high for that... and that is before we factor in that kids won't be at school during working hours.

[Toxuvox]

Until companies get closed down across the board this will not be an issue. And that is a last resort, since the damage to the economy would be unfathomable. Even if it came to that I'm pretty sure they would start with the companies that operate with cube farms, which the Blizzard HQ didn't look like iirc.

Also them caughing up an alpha already would be early either way. They had so incredibly little to show at Bliccon, the project is clearly in the very early stages. Considering this to be late is kinda nonsensical, they would do well to use the most of their self-imposed deadline.

I don't think Shadowlands is, as you put it, "very early stages" at all. Whats much more likely is that Blizz are playing their cards much closer to their chest, especially in light of the critical feedback over the last 3 expansions. I'd take an educated guess (based on how Blizz plans expansion releases), and say the release build is probably 80 to 90 percent there, with systems tweaking required based on Alpha and Beta build feedback.

[Eldarius]

I honestly doubt it will have much of an effect on Shadowlands in all honesty. I'd imagine Blizzard have really high levels of tech for their staff that enable remote working.