Still no release date announcement

[Tiberria]

There is apparently a huge forest fire that has broken out in Irvine this morning, with like half the city being under mandatory evacuation, with mandatory evacuation zone extending to like 5 miles from Blizzard's main office. Assuming most of their developers are working at home still, a lot probably live in the evacuation zone and could be taken offline for awhile. Wonder if this impacts/pushes back the release date.

[Collected]

Christmas week is good for us players, but in no way will Blizzard release an expansion close to Christmas. People (=employees) being at home doesn't mean they're working.

December 8 is the most plausible date for an expansion (Cataclysm was launched at the exact same time frame 10 years ago) launch this year as 15 is already too close to Christmas if there occur any bigger issues. It's still possible though, I just don't think it will happen. It's too stressful to only have one week before Christmas holidays.

Close to Christmas, yes. But what about after Christmas? Dec 28th/29th for example. I could buy into that as I'm already booked to be off work that week.

[Eapoe]

I’m counting on some kind of extra raid being released in BfA if it gets pushed back much further. Nothing crazy with 8-12 bosses, but something small like 1-3 bosses in a big room. Something along the lines of Obsidian/Ruby Dragon Shrines.
Blizzard could easily play it off as some entity escaping from the SL that we have to take care of before we depart.
The only reason I make this statement is because I would hope Blizzard put something in to keep people playing during a long lull in things to do.

[Huntermyth]

I’m counting on some kind of extra raid being released in BfA if it gets pushed back much further. Nothing crazy with 8-12 bosses, but something small like 1-3 bosses in a big room. Something along the lines of Obsidian/Ruby Dragon Shrines.
Blizzard could easily play it off as some entity escaping from the SL that we have to take care of before we depart.
The only reason I make this statement is because I would hope Blizzard put something in to keep people playing during a long lull in things to do.

it is kind of late for that imo, with the removal of corruption abilities and level squish we hit like wet noodles.

edit : correction of referal, was ability pruning but it is quite the opposite actually

[THEORACLE64]

I’m counting on some kind of extra raid being released in BfA if it gets pushed back much further. Nothing crazy with 8-12 bosses, but something small like 1-3 bosses in a big room. Something along the lines of Obsidian/Ruby Dragon Shrines.
Blizzard could easily play it off as some entity escaping from the SL that we have to take care of before we depart.
The only reason I make this statement is because I would hope Blizzard put something in to keep people playing during a long lull in things to do.

Lol, not happening. BfA production has ended.

[Eapoe]

it is kind of late for that imo, with all those ability pruning and/or item level squish we hit like wet noodles.

Easy enough fix to tune around

[Zyky]

I’m counting on some kind of extra raid being released in BfA if it gets pushed back much further. Nothing crazy with 8-12 bosses, but something small like 1-3 bosses in a big room. Something along the lines of Obsidian/Ruby Dragon Shrines.
Blizzard could easily play it off as some entity escaping from the SL that we have to take care of before we depart.
The only reason I make this statement is because I would hope Blizzard put something in to keep people playing during a long lull in things to do.

It'll never happen. Other expansions had final tiers that lasted significantly longer than this tier and they never got "small extra raids".

[Synical123]

I’m counting on some kind of extra raid being released in BfA if it gets pushed back much further. Nothing crazy with 8-12 bosses, but something small like 1-3 bosses in a big room. Something along the lines of Obsidian/Ruby Dragon Shrines.
Blizzard could easily play it off as some entity escaping from the SL that we have to take care of before we depart.
The only reason I make this statement is because I would hope Blizzard put something in to keep people playing during a long lull in things to do.

Yeah sorry that’s not how content production really works at all. Designing raids takes a long time they aren’t just constructed in less than a couple months.

Honestly at this point I’m sure we are stuck with BfA until year end or early December with a broken release. Honestly blizzard has dropped about every ball they could have.

[razorpax]

Yeah sorry that’s not how content production really works at all. Designing raids takes a long time they aren’t just constructed in less than a couple months.

Honestly at this point I’m sure we are stuck with BfA until year end or early December with a broken release. Honestly blizzard has dropped about every ball they could have.

The delay works
8th of December due to the covenant campaign and blizzconline

[ClassicPeon]

The delay works
8th of December due to the covenant campaign and blizzconline

I'm guessing 24/25th of november because of the nvidia leak

[Fluffernut]

There is a fast-moving fire in Irvine, where Blizz HQ is located and quite a few of the employees live. I am guessing they have bigger issues right now than a release announcement.

[arkanon]

Yeah sorry that’s not how content production really works at all. Designing raids takes a long time they aren’t just constructed in less than a couple months.

Honestly at this point I’m sure we are stuck with BfA until year end or early December with a broken release. Honestly blizzard has dropped about every ball they could have.

I honestly think they just tried to juggle too many balls to begin with. Concerns were raised at almost every stage of development, and it was always the same concern "how the hell are they going to balance this?". Turns out, those concerns were well founded.

I went into beta fully expecting to be saying "see! I told you so, it's nowhere NEAR as bad as you all said!" But that was not what happened, my initial response was actually "holy shit, it's worse!!".

Balance is just one issue obviously, they have quite a few other concerning issues to deal with. But I agree they absolutely dropped the ball. I won't try to argue they didn't listen to the feedback, because maybe they did, but the feedback does seem to have been on point. I think they bit off more they could chew with all the new systems, and instead of spitting some out, they have decided to just keep chewing and hope it all eventually works out.

[rrayy]

There is a fast-moving fire in Irvine, where Blizz HQ is located and quite a few of the employees live. I am guessing they have bigger issues right now than a release announcement.

I can assure you that Blizzard HQ is far enough into the city where they are not in any danger of the fires.

[Fluffernut]

Phew! Your assurance just calms all my fears and concerns for my friends!

[Cumbersome]

pre event blue quests ? some immediately, some after a certain stage of questline.

very spoilery spoilers about the event quests, follow link on your own risk

spoiler alter: some quests will have you kill things, others will have you pick up things
they all take place in the completely novel environment of icecrown

lol at "spoilers"

[razorpax]

I'm guessing 24/25th of november because of the nvidia leak

Not really a leak though

- - - Updated - - -

Phew! Your assurance just calms all my fears and concerns for my friends!

Well the evacuation order should do that

He only mentioned HQ however if even two blizzard houses are in the evac zone that’s over like half of the employees because it’s what 20 to a home now

[passingthrew]

They really dug themselves a hole, that is for sure. At this point scrap all the garbage and release in Jan, feb

[Nyel]

Close to Christmas, yes. But what about after Christmas? Dec 28th/29th for example. I could buy into that as I'm already booked to be off work that week.

That's maybe worse than shortly before Christmas. New Year's Eve is another worldwide holiday, most people ain't working or playing then. It's either on or before 15 December or 2021.

And no, it will not be November, everything points against a release next month.

[arkanon]

Anyone have an idea of when the daily's will be released?

Do you believe that if that information was publicly available, it would be posted on: The in game launcher, Blizzards main page, MMO-C main page, WoWhead main page, and readily available with a quick google?

Or do you genuinely believe someone on this fansite has insider knowledge about release dates?

[Collected]

That's maybe worse than shortly before Christmas. New Year's Eve is another worldwide holiday, most people ain't working or playing then. It's either on or before 15 December or 2021.

And no, it will not be November, everything points against a release next month.

We're in a pandemic. NYE 2020 is going to be one of the most dull and uneventful nights in recent memory. Yes, Jan 1st is a public holiday in most places but that falls on the Friday which would be at the end of release week. One would hope the major issues have calmed down by then.

Next month is looking unlikely. They've not given us a date yet? Why if they know it's releasing in less than 4 weeks. And they'll want at least 4 weeks for the pre-expansion event. 2 weeks to go through the content and then another couple of weeks to allow people to farm the catch up gear on all their alts etc.

For me it's either week 1 or 2 in December or the final week in December.