Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

i have to honestly ask if anybody actually believes that the delays only affect the patches themselves up to and including current development and do not cause a delay in 10.0

Yes, they only affect the patches when they just shelve 9.3. Instead of developing yet another content patch for Shadowlands they can spare several months of work for that and simply work on 10.0. Content patches don't produce any revenue, expansions do. To make Shadowlands last +6 months or longer than the usual 2 year expansion cycle means a lot of lost money. And if the Blizzard right now is about something, it's money money money.

The thing is, we don't know if they even started working on 9.3 - I guess not. Most things right before the delays happened were maybe concept arts and theories what they could do. Not much actual work was put into it, that's why not having 9.3 is way better for the situation of the game than to have 9.3 and delay an expansion launch by a considerable amount of time.

You have to figure in the long wait for 9.1 which drove away a ton of people already. And then you have to think about if people would come back to Shadowlands in 1 year just to play 9.3. What gets you more excited, yet another Shadowlands content patch mid 2022 or an expansion launch later in 2022? It's undoubtly the latter.

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would it though??

25 months from 8.0 to 9.0 with the last end being effected by multiple delays

7 months from 9.0 to 9.1
7 months from 9.1 to 9.2
7 months from 9.2 to 9.3
then you figure alpha for 10.0 about 2 months into 9.3 at best which would be early 2023 then we get at least 5 more months of testing which would end up in late july and then add on a few weeks for prepatch and you get august or september

i mean i understand that in the past the first patch was out faster but we also got like 10 months of the final patch at minimum and suggesting the late 9.1 launch means we wont get 9.3 means you believe that they suffered such delays that they have to scrap the last patch while also at the same time not being behind in 10.0 creation.

also at the launch of bfa we had as much story for what would be the 8.3 patch as we did for nagas in 7.0 and it wasnt expansded until 9.1.5

Just remove 9.3 from the equation and everything is pointing towards an expansion launch in Q3/Q4 2022. They're even back on schedule if they don't have 9.3.

There are two possible schedules:

9.1: (late) June 21
6 months
9.2: December 21 (raid release January 22)
10 months
10.0: October / November 22

9.1: (late) June 21
6 months
9.2: December 21 (raid release January 22)
6 months
9.3: June 22
10 months
10.0: April / May 23 - this timeframe causes a major conflict as WotLK Classic will launch March-May 23. There's just no room for a retail expansion.

You say that about BfA, but honestly the Light v. Void storyline has been showcased just as much as the Old God stuff was in BfA. Let's not forget we have an entire half of a zone dedicated to the Light along with a dungeon boss. The expansion srot of began with Turalyon being made king regent.

If BfA could get away with ditching faction war completely halfway through and substituting a different expansions ending then why can't Shadowlands?

I mean with BfA it was always obvious how the expansion is going to start and end. We knew about the faction war bullsh*t and we knew about N'zoth. But guys like you and me just didn't want to believe that they waste N'zoth in BfA, yet they did - but the signs for that happening were there. Uldir was the first direct sign, so was Stormsong Valley. The Azshara raid just sealed the deal. But the faction war storyline was the thing that started it all in BfA, so that somehow had to be involved.

Shadowlands is all about the Shadowlands and the Jailer. There's no major other plot going on. All of that Light vs Void stuff makes sense, but not in Shadowlands. Do you really want another expansion were the storyline is separated in half and both stories are awful? I don't want that. And how would the Jailer even fit into that? I mean we know already that he's an incredibly bland villain, but now Light / Void taking over? That would remove even more spotlight from the Jailer storyline and I think he really suffered enought already.

(I saw you answered that already)

[Varodoc]

9.1: (late) June 21
6 months
9.2: December 21 (raid release January 22)
10 months
10.0: October / November

Please let it be this, nothing in this expansion has interested me. I want it to end as soon as possible.

[Kiivar86]

It's completely out of nowhere. And Final Fantasy XIV is doing basically exactly that. This would be hilarious honestly, but in a very, very negative way, especially so shortly right around FFXIV did it.

No more so than Pandaria was, really.

And I saw people comparing Shadowlands with Shadowbringers (no idea how accurate that is though) so it wouldn't be the first time. Though FFXIV doesn't have a monopoly on such story ideas.

[Revamp Man]

I guess that's why people believe there will be no 9.2...because ditching 9.3 buys them time for 10.0.
The discussion in general is absolutely moot because we don't know how far 10.0 already progressed or how the schedule for SL was planned. Absolutely everything stated in this thread are assumptions which are basically fuelled by opinions. And you know that opinions are like b...holes, everybody has one.
And no, none of you makes better assumptions/has a superior opinion than anyone else.

Ditching 9.3 doesn’t buy anything for 10.0 because it’s a different team

[Sondrelk]

Ditching 9.3 doesn’t buy anything for 10.0 because it’s a different team

Has anyone ever produced tangible proof that there are actually two separate teams working on WoW or for that matter that if there was that there still would be?

All signs point to WoW being created on a conveyor belt principle, you have different teams that work independently on different aspects of the game concurrently, not different teams working on completely separate projects.

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Ditching a patch mid-development is wasted time for sure, but there is nothing that would prevent Blizzard from cutting a patch shorter or even just ditching it at the concert art stage.

[Nyel]

All signs point to WoW being created on a conveyor belt principle, you have different teams that work independently on different aspects of the game concurrently, not different teams working on completely separate projects.

Pretty much this.

They have a pool of employees working for retail. Let's say they have 100 people working on retail, 50 might work on content patches and 50 work on the development of the new expansion. If there is no content patch in development those 50 people just support the ones working on the expansion.

The manpower they'd use for 9.3 is basically the same which would work on 10.0 sooner or later.

[Makabreska]

Well, Sylvi P1 arena defo brings back LK vibes.

[Nyel]

Phase 3 takes place on the Arbiter's platform, a location that all players have been before during the leveling campaign quests! However, the skybox appears to be very different this time.

Surprise surprise, how unexpected!

[Sondrelk]

Phase 3 takes place on the Arbiter's platform, a location that all players have been before during the leveling campaign quests! However, the skybox appears to be very different this time.

Surprise surprise, how unexpected!

Wouldnt really be suprprising to anyone that knew it was an area in the raid.



On a somewhat unrelated note though, I happened ot find the first prediction post I made on this thread and I was surprisingly close so far, specifically in calling the legendary armor being the raid themed set in a Maw raid, as well as the Jailer "winning" by getting what he wants.

Now obviously I do remember thinking back then that Kel'thuzad would be the final boss of the 9.1 raid, and that Sylvanas would be saved for a later one. But I feel that is a small detail in the grand scheme.

Now all that remains is finding out how close I was with my initial prediction of 9.2 being Drust themed and the final zone and raid taking place on Azeroth.

[Nyel]

Wouldnt really be suprprising to anyone that knew it was an area in the raid.



On a somewhat unrelated note though, I happened ot find the first prediction post I made on this thread and I was surprisingly close so far, specifically in calling the legendary armor being the raid themed set in a Maw raid, as well as the Jailer "winning" by getting what he wants.

Now obviously I do remember thinking back then that Kel'thuzad would be the final boss of the 9.1 raid, and that Sylvanas would be saved for a later one. But I feel that is a small detail in the grand scheme.

Now all that remains is finding out how close I was with my initial prediction of 9.2 being Drust themed and the final zone and raid taking place on Azeroth.

Months ago I expected a raid in Oribos directly or at least partially with more than just one boss phase. The platform made it obvious from the start that it's a boss arena. Guess one phase of the Sylvanas fight there is better than nothing in the end.

[huth]

Has anyone ever produced tangible proof that there are actually two separate teams working on WoW or for that matter that if there was that there still would be?

All signs point to WoW being created on a conveyor belt principle, you have different teams that work independently on different aspects of the game concurrently, not different teams working on completely separate projects.

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Ditching a patch mid-development is wasted time for sure, but there is nothing that would prevent Blizzard from cutting a patch shorter or even just ditching it at the concert art stage.

It wouldn't, but the problem is that 9.3 would already be past that stage now, as would 10.0. It's simply to late to do that. What you seem to miss is that at this point, both are already in active development.

Conveyor belt fits well, but you're forgetting that when a piece moves to the next station, the previous one starts working on the next piece already. They don't just sit around and idle.

They have a pool of employees working for retail. Let's say they have 100 people working on retail, 50 might work on content patches and 50 work on the development of the new expansion. If there is no content patch in development those 50 people just support the ones working on the expansion.

No, they can't. You cannot accelerate a project by adding more people to it, especially when it is already late. Dropping 9.3 might make 10.1 come sooner, but at this point, it's to late to shore up 10.0.

[Dracullus]

Has anyone ever produced tangible proof that there are actually two separate teams working on WoW or for that matter that if there was that there still would be?

All signs point to WoW being created on a conveyor belt principle, you have different teams that work independently on different aspects of the game concurrently, not different teams working on completely separate projects.

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Ditching a patch mid-development is wasted time for sure, but there is nothing that would prevent Blizzard from cutting a patch shorter or even just ditching it at the concert art stage.

In some interview dev once told that expansion production has many bottlenecks, so it's simple impossible to cut some patch and release expansion earlier - even with increased manpower. I can't give you source, but I heard it somewhere around Legion release. I don't know if it was said directly, but clearly at some point WoD was planned as 1 year expansion - and exactly then they decided to cut 6.3 and Farahlon or Shattrah raid.

Now let's think about if this apply to current situation. Key question is that: if people working currently on 10.0 were affected by same thing that caused 9.1 delay or not?

If yes, whole expansion is delayed, so extra patch gives them extra 5-6-7 months - and they can take resources from 9.3, barebones things that must happen in major patch are right now are raid, new M+ affix and some intro questline, so they have always lot to strip.

If they (current 10.0 team) were/are not affected, expansion is scheduled to launch in 2022. So they will have to combine 9.2/9.3, cause at some point most devs must shift their work to Alpha/Beta.

We just don't have that key information. Also it's not black & white, maybe final decision has not yet been made.

[Sondrelk]

It wouldn't, but the problem is that 9.3 would already be past that stage now, as would 10.0. It's simply to late to do that. What you seem to miss is that at this point, both are already in active development.

Conveyor belt fits well, but you're forgetting that when a piece moves to the next station, the previous one starts working on the next piece already. They don't just sit around and idle.



No, they can't. You cannot accelerate a project by adding more people to it, especially when it is already late. Dropping 9.3 might make 10.1 come sooner, but at this point, it's to late to shore up 10.0.

I imagine 9.3 is likely in the rough world design phase at the moment where they are still figuring out rough positioning.

Not that they can stop completely on a conveyor belt, but you can decide to skip parts. For instance if you wanted to make the zone smaller to need less time spent on fine details, or move the quest and gameplay designers to skimp the details.

As for the patch that would be close to impossible to stop at this point then I would imagine that the quest designers are working on 9.1.5 at least, if not 9.2. And if I am still right on how expansion patches are designed then 9.2 is the patch that would have been the easiest to scrap for the narrative.


Regardless we will have to see how it all pans out. It's clear that something has to give given the timeframes we are working with for the patches. Whether that means 9.2 and/or 9.3 are lighter on content or whether we are looking at a longer expansion cycle is up in the air still, and hopefully we get something definite from the developers on that front.

[Nyel]

Again, where would Blizzard fit 9.3 and 10.0 into the schedule to make it work? There's just no place for it.

They cannot delay 10.0 until early 2023. As I said, WotLK is coming out in Q1/2 2023 and that's the biggest Classic release they have available. So 10.0 has to come out either at the latest in Q4/22 or later than Q2/2023. And the latter sounds incredibly unlikely if not outright impossible.

[Revamp Man]

Again, where would Blizzard fit 9.3 and 10.0 into the schedule to make it work? There's just no place for it.

They cannot delay 10.0 until early 2023. As I said, WotLK is coming out in Q1/2 2023 and that's the biggest Classic release they have available. So 10.0 has to come out either at the latest in Q4/22 or later than Q2/2023. And the latter sounds incredibly unlikely if not outright impossible.

i already showed a way it can work
you simply have the patches last about 7 months each
also the argument that patches generate no revenue is wrong because the patches get more subs and more token sales for the new crafted gear

the argument isnt patch OR expansion in terms of what they can produce
its patch plus expansion OR expansion only

we also have no clue about the wrath launch schedule or anything like that beyond educated guesses based on the past which is what is being used to estimate the 9.3 launch but you argue that it wont happen

[Nightmare Queen]

Please let it be this, nothing in this expansion has interested me. I want it to end as soon as possible.

Agreed. This expansion was a huge letdown for me, and the Covenants seem really cut and dried

[TheFirstOnes]

Phase 3 takes place on the Arbiter's platform, a location that all players have been before during the leveling campaign quests! However, the skybox appears to be very different this time.

Surprise surprise, how unexpected!

Damn bro...

Almost like everyone knew this.

[Revamp Man]

It wouldn't, but the problem is that 9.3 would already be past that stage now, as would 10.0. It's simply to late to do that. What you seem to miss is that at this point, both are already in active development.

Conveyor belt fits well, but you're forgetting that when a piece moves to the next station, the previous one starts working on the next piece already. They don't just sit around and idle.



No, they can't. You cannot accelerate a project by adding more people to it, especially when it is already late. Dropping 9.3 might make 10.1 come sooner, but at this point, it's to late to shore up 10.0.

blizz even came out years ago and said that legion was being worked on when 6.1 hit i think
i know that theres some mention of them saying WoD and legion were being developed side by side

the people who think "well if they just take the people who would be working on 9.3 and toss them at 10.0 it will speed it up" dont stop to think that making the background systems work and lets say something as simple as the art assets isnt as simple as that because they have to play catch up with the 10.0 team which slows everyone down heck it was an argument back when we were told "the WoW team is bigger than ever" that the reason content was so slow was because they had to train the new guys.

[Nyel]

i already showed a way it can work
you simply have the patches last about 7 months each
also the argument that patches generate no revenue is wrong because the patches get more subs and more token sales for the new crafted gear

the argument isnt patch OR expansion in terms of what they can produce
its patch plus expansion OR expansion only

we also have no clue about the wrath launch schedule or anything like that beyond educated guesses based on the past which is what is being used to estimate the 9.3 launch but you argue that it wont happen

You showed it, but your schedule simply doesn't work on a management / financial basis - theoretically yes, why not. But in reality? Oof. You're delaying the expansion release for almost a year, you really think Blizzard is going to pass on $300 million (that's usually the additional revenue in expansion release quarters) and just have it 6-12 months later? Anyone who thinks this must be joking.

And we pretty much know exactly when the WotLK Classic launch will happen: in Q1/Q2 2023. They shortened Classic to 22 months, TBC originally lasted 22 months as well. So the release window for WotLK is around March/April 2023, as I already said.

Having no 9.3 will undoubtly accelerate the production of 10.0. I don't say 10.0 will magically come 6 months earlier, but more manpower means they get more things done faster. Wasting resources on a potential 9.3 will inevitably delay the release of 10.0 (as if the release schedule for a 9.2 + 9.3 wouldn't do that already). Shadowlands will either be similar to WoD's schedule or we're going to have an awfully long Shadowlands dragging retail down for two more years and bleeding a massive amount of subs / MAUs (as we've seen in the last year, during the pandemic Blizzard lost a considerable amount of players where others gained massive amounts of new ones).

I mean, we don't know it really. I have no clue as has no one else here. I guess later this year we'll know the future of Shadowlands and how it's going to end (pretty sure Ion will step out and directly say that 9.2 is the last patch if it indeed is, like they did with 6.2).

[Revamp Man]

You showed it, but your schedule simply doesn't work on a management / financial basis - theoretically yes, why not. But in reality? Oof. You're delaying the expansion release for almost a year, you really think Blizzard is going to pass on $300 million (that's usually the additional revenue in expansion release quarters) and just have it 6-12 months later? Anyone who thinks this must be joking.

And we pretty much know exactly when the WotLK Classic launch will happen: in Q1/Q2 2023. They shortened Classic to 22 months, TBC originally lasted 22 months as well. So the release window for WotLK is around March/April 2023, as I already said.

Having no 9.3 will undoubtly accelerate the production of 10.0. I don't say 10.0 will magically come 6 months earlier, but more manpower means they get more things done faster. Wasting resources on a potential 9.3 will inevitably delay the release of 10.0 (as if the release schedule for a 9.2 + 9.3 wouldn't do that already). Shadowlands will either be similar to WoD's schedule or we're going to have an awfully long Shadowlands dragging retail down for two more years and bleeding a massive amount of subs / MAUs (as we've seen in the last year, during the pandemic Blizzard lost a considerable amount of players where others gained massive amounts of new ones).

I mean, we don't know it really. I have no clue as has no one else here. I guess later this year we'll know the future of Shadowlands and how it's going to end (pretty sure Ion will step out and directly say that 9.2 is the last patch if it indeed is, like they did with 6.2).

Even the mau argument doesn’t work

You have a super long 9.2 where you’ll lose subs half way through this lose more mau count over the patch release Which bumps the number up

Also classic experienced delays just like every other game recently unless we assume the naxx release was at the scheduled time and untouched.

If we go by what blizz has done in the past then 10.0 is already being worked on.

So from a management and financial perspective stringing players along for an extra couple shareholder meetings and then dropping the game a few months before the holiday season and then the first patch during the holidays makes more sense than losing players and revenue to rush a game especially when they already learned that lesson.

9.1 launch in 3 weeks
9.2 launch in February
9.3 launch in September
10.0 launch in August

This gives the expansion a lifetime of 32 months which is only 5 months more than the BfA to SL release where only the tail end was effected by the pandemic changes which was a big deal according to the devs and means that current content development is still being effected.

People talk about being ok with waiting for a better game but then they convince themselves that the game will launch super fast

Is a lack of 9.3 possible??? No more than a lack of 8.3

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Again this is no different than “oh there’s no 8.3 coming here look at my proof”

Until blizz says something this is just pessimism for the sake of it