BFA officially overstays its welcome in about two weeks.

[MrLachyG]

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.

no. Beta still hasn't happened and that will take at the very least 3-4 months. do you really want another BfA? because by rushing things and releasing them when they are untested and buggy then that is what you will get.

[Pigglix]

something tells me beta will be way shorter than alpha, for 1 simple reason: "all" the beefy changes are being made on alpha, so when beta launches, will be just a matter of tunning numbers of abilities and bosses/testing affixes.

IMO, dont expect major changes/feedback to be listened on beta regarding classes, they are doing this on alpha. That's why i think alpha will be way longer than beta.

So i would say, alpha still on july, beta on august, pre patch 1 week after the cloak cap.

Pre patch then would take 2-3 weeks i think, sl launches at mid oct or by end oct or earlier nov.

[Lucetia]

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.

Except Brack already announced SL is coming in Novembers. Pre-patch comes a month before which means pre-patch is October, expansion is November.

[msdos]

Somewhere inside BFA there is a soul and somewhere something almost was executed well, but all of it fell just short. I feel like Blizzard ruined BFA themselves with their antics. You had a nice framework for a game, then somewhere along the line they decided to go HAM on borrowed abilities inside raids (Crucible of Storms syndrome).

I still think BFA is better than WoD. BFA tried to do some.. things. While WoD was just a deflated husk that was frankly laughable, the selfie patch was a joke, it can't ever be lived down.

My honest opinion, BFA isn't that bad on its own, but Blizzard's metrics or business antics, whatever you want to call them, ruined the entire expansion. Their attitude and design with alt accessibility killed their expansion.

[Vellithe]

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

The crappy parts of BfA are a result of hardheadedness, not lack of testing. There was enough testing and enough forum posts saying "this sucks", they just got ignored, because the devs thought they knew better than the players, which has been a recurring trend for a while now.

Tbh, BfA would have been considerably better had they just scrapped the whole of Azerite pieces. Like, just make them all normal pieces, with stats. In fact, most of the problems with current wow could be solved by simply not doing something, rather than taking the effort to do it. Classes would be in a considerably better spot if they just reverted the Legion changes. Hell, just reverting the very recent GCD change would have made a lot of classes feel better to play.

If there's one good thing about Shadowlands is that reality is finally knocking up on their doors and the devs are being forced to realize that their "artistic vision" should be kept far away from gameplay.

[rrayy]

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.

Did I say launch day? They can add the new zones content from beta anytime they want without having to do it with the pre-oatch. IT is not on PTR because it isn't being tested and can be downloaded to your client from Beta without the pre-patch. So it is a complete myth to say the pre-patch can't come until the expansion is ready because they still test the new expansion even after the pre-patch goes live and can strill make any changes they want.

- - - Updated - - -

something tells me beta will be way shorter than alpha, for 1 simple reason: "all" the beefy changes are being made on alpha, so when beta launches, will be just a matter of tunning numbers of abilities and bosses/testing affixes.

IMO, dont expect major changes/feedback to be listened on beta regarding classes, they are doing this on alpha. That's why i think alpha will be way longer than beta.

So i would say, alpha still on july, beta on august, pre patch 1 week after the cloak cap.

Pre patch then would take 2-3 weeks i think, sl launches at mid oct or by end oct or earlier nov.

That was teh way it was in Legion. It used to be that when they started Beta almost nothing was available to test. Legion and onward everything is available by the time beta starts Alpha phase is becoming much longer while Beta phase is much shorter.

[Tiev]

^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.

The virus hasn't slowed things EVERYWHERE. Especially tech companies. The company I work for is breaking its own records. Everyone in the company being able to work from home + being a company in either the delivery business or electronic entertainment is a winning combination in this current world. I dont believe blizzard has slowed down at all save for maybe the first few weeks of transition.

[Doffen]

Except Brack already announced SL is coming in Novembers. Pre-patch comes a month before which means pre-patch is October, expansion is November.

Did he? Must have missed that then

I got money on November so thats cool. It couldn't be any other month to be honest. And BfA may overstay its welcome for months. I would love it to be over already but I don't want another BfA. Luckily there are other things to do!

https://gizmoblaze.com/2020/06/29/bl...change-in-wow/

This was it?

[Super Kami Dende]

Jesus Christ. Just Play something else. You guys sounds like crack addicts needing a fix.

[Hellobolis]

i kinda like the last patch lasting ~twice as long as the other patches.

lets you finish up stuff like alts or raid mounts without being in a rush, lets you slow down or take a break for a while to recover from burnout. it's just nice to have a 3-6 month break from the games usual routine every 2 years.