BFA officially overstays its welcome in about two weeks.

[Big Thanks]

@Omedon

Let me explain you how "this" works:

The launch sales of a WoW expansion are already good enough to make profit for the company.
Stay subbed for a couple more months? Wel...even better! A couple more profits!

1 year passes

It is no longer profitable to keep making new content
After this time....Blizzard no longer gives a crap about this game.
The profits were already made at this point.
Only a minority stay subbed at this point.

1+1=2

TLDR:
Blizzard only needs YOU to buy the expansion and stay subbed a couple months.
If you do more than that? Great, Blizzard happy...but...they dont care about YOU enough to keep making new content after 1.5 year

[Omedon]

There was no will to change anything. Ion and his cronies decided for something and by god it will be that way. Only when numbers were final did they finaly decide to change something.

To this day I hold to the belief that feedback changed nothing about what we saw and when we saw it in regards to essences (the supposed "fix" for azerite) or corruptions. It was all on schedule.

Cloak is capped in September.
3 months for realm connections from now is October.
Prepatch with Halloween in October.
Launch date the Tuesday right after the Day of the Dead.

Seems like both BFA and Shadowlands are right on time.

I actually really like the theme of this timeline, but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around a june presentation of "see you in October."

[razorpax]

yeah fuck it lets cut alpha and beta short

in fact put up prepatch tuesday on the ptr and launch it the next week

then launch shadowlands the month after

its fine the games unfinished and filled with bugs and awful systems and gameplay

but thats fine its not like you could unsub if you didnt like the game heck thats crazy talk instead sit on the forum calling a game company crappy because they are actually testing the new content but hey the testing should have happened faster its not like theres a killer virus going around that caused a national shut down

shadow priests dont need fixed and the covenant system is completely tested and balanced

[rrayy]

Ha ha, expecting blizzard to hold to their goals. Sl is still in alpha after 3 months when alpha is usually 1

That is absolutely wrong. Legion was in Alpha for far more than one month. In fact, for the last couple of expansions Alpha was longer and beta was shorter.

[razorpax]

To this day I hold to the belief that feedback changed nothing about what we say and when we saw it in regards to essences (the supposed "fix" for azerite) or corruptions. It was all on schedule.



I actually really like the theme of this timeline, but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around a june presentation of "see you in October."

the june presentation would have been more like
"prepatch on ptr with beta both in july"

remember the legion announcement?

[klaps_05]

To this day I hold to the belief that feedback changed nothing about what we saw and when we saw it in regards to essences (the supposed "fix" for azerite) or corruptions. It was all on schedule.



I actually really like the theme of this timeline, but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around a june presentation of "see you in October."

Not sure why people have such grandeous expectations of a general Q&A for Shadowlands - they will talk about soulbinds and covenants, probably a bit more info on legendaries, beta starting (which btw means what you have seen so far is more or less set fully in stone and wont be changed). They dont rly need to say more than Q4 release date regarding it.

[Omedon]

Not sure why people have such grandeous expectations of a general Q&A for Shadowlands

A lot of it started because it was initially given two weeks notice, and people took it from there.

[Biomega]

A whole lot of crying, as usual, from people who keep on subbing and preordering new expansions blind - then complain about how Blizzard never learns from their mistakes and doesn't change things.

BFA was a clusterfuck in many respects, but the lame-duck period at the end of an expansion's life cycle isn't exactly new. People rave about WotLK and forget entirely about Ruby Sanctum. It was never fun to have to wait for a dramatic change.

The COVID situation certainly didn't help, as it not only put the screws to Blizz's workforce but also put more people in their gaming chairs playing, and thus more people complain about the game being stuck in limbo.

[Lahis]

There's nothing saying that the pre-patch can't come with the cloak still growing, if the event is staggered, which I presume will "expire" all of our rental powers from BFA, cloak included.

Does the Alpha look any way near release for you?

Expansion Prepatch is not some separate entity from the expansion itself. It IS the expansion in every technical way.

[FossilFree]

I would argue it's even longer, because 8.3 didn't feel like true content patch aside from the raid. We just got old zones with a new coat of paint. That makes the drought feel even longer than it normally would for an end of expansion patch. For me, it feels like I've been doing the same stuff since Mechagon and Nazjatar came out (again, aside from the raid).

[Nevcairiel]

I highly doubt the pre-patch will land as early as you wish for. That would mean many core systems of 9.0 would need to be done a few months earlier then would otherwise be the case, including all class changes - people wouldn't be happy with classes that are going to change once again as its closer to Shadowlands launching.

Its far more likely that they'll invent some other events for the next 3 months. Those "Q2 events" haven't been long pre-announced, they just happened. And the XP buff stays until the pre-patch anyway. We've also had pre-prepatch events before with the odd NPCs showing up here and there, and stuff like that. Its not hard for them to do stuff like that without having to deliver the full 9.0 patch months earlier.

[rrayy]

Does the Alpha look any way near release for you?

Expansion Prepatch is not some separate entity from the expansion itself. It IS the expansion in every technical way.

Wrong. The Pre-Patch is all content NOT in the new world. Which is why it has a separate PTR.

[Mirishka]

Yes, I know, it could easily be argued that BFA has *snip*

So go play other games?

[Nnyco]

Your first final patch?

[Lahis]

Wrong. The Pre-Patch is all content NOT in the new world. Which is why it has a separate PTR.

It will also have all engine updates and class changes and ALL THE CONTENT OF THE NEW CONTINENT. You just can't access it untill they flip the switch server side on the release date.

[Ludvig]

id say that point is long past.

[arkanon]

Shadowlands isn't coming until 2021, so don't expect anything any time soon. #SL2021

[rrayy]

It will also have all engine updates and class changes and ALL THE CONTENT OF THE NEW CONTINENT. You just can't access it untill they flip the switch server side on the release date.

But that won't be available to test and they don't have to add that until the last minute. It won't have the content of the new zones because it won't be tested and won't be needed as that stuff will be on beta.

[Lahis]

But that won't be available to test and they don't have to add that until the last minute. It won't have the content of the new zones because it won't be tested and won't be needed as that stuff will be on beta.

You don'y download anything on the launch day. All data and content included in the expansion are installed on your client with the prepatch.

Prepatch can't come to the game before the expansion is ready.

[Kithelle]

We saw what happened when alpha/beta testing is too short, the result was BFA.

^this

Plus the virus obviously slowed things down EVERYWHERE...so unless people are jerks they should expect things aren't going to go fast as smooth.