New date may not be til spring...

[majinbebi]

Cataclysm released december 7th? Raids came around January I believe. Don't see the issue with this year.

This is not true.

[arkanon]

Priceless if anyone thought somebody would go to jail for that. The clue is in the American justice system. Lawyers would class action the hell out of a company if they could over a compromised release date...yet never did so far

Oh trust me, they did. And not just one person. To be fair, it was mostly people from Europe talking about how watertight their consumer laws are and that "heads would roll, jail time is a very real likelihood". I just assumed they were trolling, but it was more than one individual, and they committed to it and honestly seemed to think this was a reality.

I guess thats why everyone from CDPR is in jail following the delays to CP2077. Little known fact - thats why Duke Nukem Forever took SO long to make - all the devs kept getting sent #StraightToJail each time they delayed it.

- - - Updated - - -

What companies do you guys work for that gets an entire month off of work for the holidays?

This is called a Strawman argument - no one claimed to be getting a month off. Blizzard themselves have said they dont want to release a product right before xmas and force staff to work through the holiday season.

For the record, ill be taking between 3 and 5 weeks off, depending on workload.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Again, whos saying that? If by your own admission no one is saying it, why are you trying to counter an argument no one is making?

People on this forum, they just want rental power system gone and not any actual thinking behind such a statement. Its not a strawman.

[Laqweeta]

Release it when it's ready. Not before.

This - the "soon(tm)" Blizzard had before has been long gone and forgotten. Release a finish product, we DO NOT need another BfA.

[Selastan]

Nah, its really not. The basics are there, but leveling was completely broken, like, COMPLETELY broken. Characters getting phased out for 12+ hour completely unable to quest AT ALL - character basically benched for a day. XP was still all over the place as of a week ago - from doing just main quests getting you to max level, they changed it so you had to 100% each zone to get to max level without grinding and doing dungeons etc.

Class balance isnt just "a bit off" as some suggest - the gap from top to bottom was over 40%, and on some encounters it was 150%. They are still doing major reworks of some classes, and although not quite "reworks", other specs were undergoing fundamental changes to resource systems etc as of a couple weeks ago. Remembering that the game was due out in a few days, to still be doing those kind of Alpha change right before a scheduled release is quite concerning.

This concern is obviously alleviated somewhat by their (correct) decision to delay it, but it shows how massively behind they are. The real issue as I personally see it is the balancing has become far too difficult for them. Every time they try to adjust X for Y spec, it is impacting Z spec as well. All the nobs, which used to be class specific at worst, spec specific at best, and now all tied together and linked, and every time they make a change it has a ripple effect.

So it' just bugfixes and numbers tuning. They aren't making any new assets or designing new content, I don't see why it won't be early December AT THE LATEST.

[Omedon]

I thought blizzard stated that the expansion will still be a 2020 release?

They did. I'd be utterly floored if they did not deliver on that front. To commit to 2020 at the onset says to me they knew precisely what they needed to do with a good guess how long it would take, and it was a few weeks' worth.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I got from that statement.

[Luxeley]

December isn't out of the question, not in the slightest. Cataclysm was released in the 2nd week of December in 2009. And, I don't see how November is out of the question as well. Excellent job at completely disregarding facts, relevant trends and past tendencies.

[FelPlague]

With the recent new 6 month promo scam wouldn't be surprised if it is spring.

"6 month promo scam" h...how is it a scam?

[Dystemper]

Blizzard clearly said in the delay announcement it would still be in 2020 and have not changed anything yet. There is zero news supporting the theory that it will be a longer delay to next year. These posts feel so entitled. It's barely 3 weeks since the delay announcement and there are multiple threads complaining that the new release date hasn't been announced yet.

Movies give release dates and get delayed up to a year later. Dune 2020, new mutants etc

[FelPlague]

According to the ingame calender, the first Shadowlands dungeon event is on february 3rd, so id say january 5th release.

it originally said december 13th, but they removed it, because they did not want people to have a date, so removing all stuff from the calender to febuary leaves them open to add whenever.

[Mozu]

This is called a Strawman argument - no one claimed to be getting a month off. Blizzard themselves have said they dont want to release a product right before xmas and force staff to work through the holiday season.

For the record, ill be taking between 3 and 5 weeks off, depending on workload.

The only way "there will be no staff during the holidays" makes sense is if they are getting that amount of time off. Reminder: The post I originally quoted said all of December is off the table because of "the holidays."

The forums and their blatant misuse of pointing out what they believe are logical fallacies instead of actually arguing the intended point being made, which is more than obvious given the context. It's always entertaining.

Furthermore, Blizzard themselves have had multiple late November-Early December releases, and I can't find a source of them saying anything to the contrary. Regardless, history shows they are willing to do it regardless of what they have stated publicly.

Congrats on the time off. You're in the minority.

[pepine]

Movies give release dates and get delayed up to a year later. Dune 2020, new mutants etc

Considering this 6 month joke of a "promo" and the fact Beta is still undergoing huge class changes among other things I reckon January-February 2021 for Shadowlands.

It's 100% not coming out next month or December.

[Adam Jensen]

Yeah i find it extremely confusing that someone would take one thing Blizzard says as gospel, and entirely dismiss the fact they also said it would come out in October. People are free to believe as they choose, i just find it very strange.

Again, not taking anything as gospel.

I just see no reason to believe a random forum poster, who could say "SL won't be released until 2040" with just as much evidence.

Yes, Blizzard said "October release" and then amended their statement to say "before the end of 2020." I get that. But I'm not going to fall for mad speculation on any new changes to the release date until it comes from some official source. Maybe it won't be released until January, but I have no reason to believe that until told otherwise. Blizzard's made mistakes which harms the trust we can have in them but I think they're a bit more trustworthy than the random speculations of random forum goers.

[FelPlague]

You sure can't. But not every rental power needs to tie into class abilities. You don't need Legendaries, Conduits, AND covenant powers.

This expansion would have been just fine (and would have launched on time) if they didn't stack power on power on power. Exponentially difficult tuning, when a legendary buffs an ability for a specific spec, which also gets power from a conduit, and is already seeing serious power due to covenant abilities.

Covenant abilities should have been the end of it. Covenant abilities + Legendaries at the MOST.

The soulbinds were WAY too much. There's no chance they're fixing this. Also, pruning isn't a bad thing. Mage didn't need fire blast as frost. Sin rogue didn't need SnD. They were pruned for valid reasons. They needed new talent options that were interesting. Mage needed RoP to not be the only choice in the tier forever. Plenty of classes dealing with the same issues. Bandaids for gunshot wounds.

So what you are saying if there was only 1 borrowed power everyone woudl be fine with them and there would be no problems? man no wonder azerite was such a success!

[arkanon]

People on this forum, they just want rental power system gone and not any actual thinking behind such a statement. Its not a strawman.

No, this is a redirect and avoidance. Your statement in favor of 'rental powers' was "they cant just add new abilities every expansion!" but as I pointed out, and you have since admitted, no one is saying they should. As such, you are attacking an argument no one is making, to make your argument seem stronger than it is. That is called a strawman argument.

[FelPlague]

April 2021. Because 6 month transmog SCAM.

how is it a scam?

[rhorle]

This is called a Strawman argument - no one claimed to be getting a month off. Blizzard themselves have said they dont want to release a product right before xmas and force staff to work through the holiday season. For the record, ill be taking between 3 and 5 weeks off, depending on workload.

The last time this came up was last Christmas. And blizzard didn't use the excuse of not wanting employees to work but stated that they didn't want to release the new raid during xmas in order to allow people time to spend with their families instead of feeling the need to play. Staff wouldn't really need to work through the holidays that already wouldn't be working (server techs, "emergency" staff etc).

The week of xmas? Sure. But there is still plenty of time for the expansion to be released and give employees a break.

[Jester Joe]

So it' just bugfixes and numbers tuning. They aren't making any new assets or designing new content, I don't see why it won't be early December AT THE LATEST.

I'm a bit surprised considering the other poster missed this considering how insistent they are on how it's more than just bugs, but Blizzard flat out said end game content wasn't where they want it to be.

The Maw itself was cited as a huge issue, as they wanted it to feel barren and hopeless basically for immersion but for gameplay, it left little to nothing to do there and it was a major part of the end game.

I'd have to dig up the article but hopefully that rings a bell or two for some. Granted, it's definitely not a "from scratch" type of deal, and if Blizzard still says 2020 after they already delayed it I see no reason why to doubt them.

[arkanon]

Again, not taking anything as gospel.

I just see no reason to believe a random forum poster, who could say "SL won't be released until 2040" with just as much evidence.

Yes, Blizzard said "October release" and then amended their statement to say "before the end of 2020."

First, arguing from extremes and attempting to discredit the argument by using ridiculous dates like "2040" does nothing good for your argument at all.

Secondly, they didnt say "October release" and then amend their statement to say "before the end of 2020". They said "before the end of 2020" and then updated it to the specific release date of October 27th, 2020", and then missed that date, and have provided no update at all since then, other than falling back to their safety net of "before the end of 2020".

[FelPlague]

Considering this 6 month joke of a "promo" and the fact Beta is still undergoing huge class changes among other things I reckon January-February 2021 for Shadowlands.

It's 100% not coming out next month or December.

its coming out next month or december, too bad you are wrong.
Also idk if you know but

a month or 2 is plenty of time for class changes
we are always 2-3 weeks behind the internal builds
class changes will continue to go from launch all the way to mythic launch week, one of the biggest class change weeks is the week between heroic and mythic.