Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Varodoc]

Why exactly is it taking 4 years to release a shitty mobile game with most of the stuff recycled from D3?

[Lahis]

I have no idea, are mobile games not hit by the recent Chinese laws? I mean Fortnite just stopped it’s release in China due to their new laws and the limitation of playtime to 3 hours per week.

Those hard limitations only apply to underage children.
Any adult who is willing to sacrifice their Social Credit Score is more than welcome to play games.
Besides, those restrictions too are a recent thing. They wouldn't have been a factor years ago when Immortal was greenlit.

[Nyel]

Why exactly is it taking 4 years to release a shitty mobile game with most of the stuff recycled from D3?

That’s another point I do not understand. Diablo Immortal was announced in 2018. That means they worked the entire 2019, 2020 and 2021 on this game. What the hell are they producing there? It’s taking longer to produce than a WoW expansions, lol.

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Those hard limitations only apply to underage children.
Any adult who is willing to sacrifice their Social Credit Score is more than welcome to play games.
Besides, those restrictions too are a recent thing. They wouldn't have been a factor years ago when Immortal was greenlit.

Yeah, but I am talking about recent financial expectations from a game like Diablo Immortal when I say that.

[Ersula]

WoD > Legion took 14 months between 6.2 release and Legion release.

There are not 14 months left between now and January 2023. They don't have the time to make a decent patch 9.2 and balls-to-the-walls amazing expansion for 10.0 during 2022. Either the expansion launches deep into 2023 or is unfinished trainwreck.

But do you remember the reason for that drought? At that point Blizzard wanted to move to cheaper 1 year expansion cycles but pretty late Activision demanded they stick to 2 year releases, to correspond with the movie release. Throwing everything into chaos. And they're still being held to that same 2 year precedent.

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Even if 9.3 has no substantial raid tier the delay would be half a year, at least.

Well they have a whole year. And if Shadowlands third tier is just broken up into two parts for the sake of getting 9.2 out faster & artificially shortening the drought: That's very possible. But yes, I feel we're going to get one more full tier & then a new expansion in 2022: Just like in 2020

[Dracullus]

Anyone was like "Jen Oneal leaving Blizzard.. who? *click* aaaaahh, this one. Damn Mike, you work fast."

[Edoll]

Maybe Blizzard is planning a paid version of WOTLK Classic.

[Ersula]

Maybe Blizzard is planning a paid version of WOTLK Classic.

They absolutely are but that's still about a year away.

I wonder if they'll introduce Everquest style Progression servers after that: The way that makes the most sense is Classic will just be Vanilla, TBC & Wrath: When they reach the end of Wrath, they'll let people stay in wrath or transfer to a Retail Progression server: It'll be a retail version of Cata, but on a server where only Cataclysm content is accessible.

& they'll have two rotations of classic going at any given time: Probably one "mastery" & the other "no changes"

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Maybe Blizzard is planning a paid version of WOTLK Classic.

Ehhhh, as much as I enjoyed playing TBC again and as much as I'm looking forward to playing WotLK again, I definitely wouldn't pay to play them. My personal preference.


I really hope they don't do this.

[Ersula]

Ehhhh, as much as I enjoyed playing TBC again and as much as I'm looking forward to playing WotLK again, I definitely wouldn't pay to play them. My personal preference.


I really hope they don't do this.

But you already pay to play it. Did Edoll mean a subscription or blizzard making people pay for the box, again?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

But you already pay to play it. Did Edoll mean a subscription or blizzard making people pay for the box, again?

I took it as paying separately, not coming with your active retail WoW sub.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If they do classic wotlk it will be as the same as BC and classic. Sub to wow you get all of it.

[EbaumsTipster]

If 10.0 isn't released in 2022 then they will have to do a huge prepatch. Maybe the world revamp is part of that?

[Edoll]

I took it as paying separately, not coming with your active retail WoW sub.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. An upfront payment or even a bigger, more appealing boost like BC has.

[huth]

But do you remember the reason for that drought? At that point Blizzard wanted to move to cheaper 1 year expansion cycles but pretty late Activision demanded they stick to 2 year releases, to correspond with the movie release. Throwing everything into chaos. And they're still being held to that same 2 year precedent.

Where did you get that nonsense from? If anything, ActiBlizz would have demanded the 1 year releases, but based on how things worked out, it's pretty clear Blizz was never able to hit that 1 year goal to begin with.

Seems your memory isn't really all that reliable, either.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Where did you get that nonsense from? If anything, ActiBlizz would have demanded the 1 year releases, but based on how things worked out, it's pretty clear Blizz was never able to hit that 1 year goal to begin with.

Seems your memory isn't really all that reliable, either.

They or rather Blizz seemed to want to aim for yearly expansions........not that the community was yelling about that(And shouldn't, its not feasible or quality producing).

[AngerFork]

They or rather Blizz seemed to want to aim for yearly expansions........not that the community was yelling about that(And shouldn't, its not feasible or quality producing).

Totally disagree about it not being feasible or quality. If anything, I feel yearly expansion releases could fix a decent amount of the current Blizz issues, provided the team can make that deadline & adjust the cost somewhat due to the increased frequency. Just think of how different the game looks with yearly expansions with a minor content patch at the halfway mark.

BfA is still probably Zandalar & Kul'Tiras, maybe with 2 zones instead of 3. Nazjatar is almost certainly split into it's own expansion. Possibly Ny'alotha as well, giving it more room to breathe rather than just being a half baked sendoff for N'Zoth. Argus likely becomes it's own expansion. Overbaked systems aren't really necessary to keep
people playing as something new is coming in 6 months. Hated themes don't feel like they last forever when there's always something new on the horizon.

I very much think smaller, cheaper, yearly expansions could help WoW a ton if the logistics can be figured out.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Totally disagree about it not being feasible or quality. If anything, I feel yearly expansion releases could fix a decent amount of the current Blizz issues, provided the team can make that deadline & adjust the cost somewhat due to the increased frequency. Just think of how different the game looks with yearly expansions with a minor content patch at the halfway mark.

BfA is still probably Zandalar & Kul'Tiras, maybe with 2 zones instead of 3. Nazjatar is almost certainly split into it's own expansion. Possibly Ny'alotha as well, giving it more room to breathe rather than just being a half baked sendoff for N'Zoth. Argus likely becomes it's own expansion. Overbaked systems aren't really necessary to keep
people playing as something new is coming in 6 months. Hated themes don't feel like they last forever when there's always something new on the horizon.

I very much think smaller, cheaper, yearly expansions could help WoW a ton if the logistics can be figured out.

Edit: Cause I suck at quoting.


No you can go away with that nonsense. No yearly expansions, that stuff just is cramming in more work to get out the door quicker. Wod attempted to do that but that didn't exactly work(I liked the expansion for what it is but it was short in terms of big content patches).

[Draedarr]

Totally disagree about it not being feasible or quality. If anything, I feel yearly expansion releases could fix a decent amount of the current Blizz issues, provided the team can make that deadline & adjust the cost somewhat due to the increased frequency. Just think of how different the game looks with yearly expansions with a minor content patch at the halfway mark.

BfA is still probably Zandalar & Kul'Tiras, maybe with 2 zones instead of 3. Nazjatar is almost certainly split into it's own expansion. Possibly Ny'alotha as well, giving it more room to breathe rather than just being a half baked sendoff for N'Zoth. Argus likely becomes it's own expansion. Overbaked systems aren't really necessary to keep
people playing as something new is coming in 6 months. Hated themes don't feel like they last forever when there's always something new on the horizon.

I very much think smaller, cheaper, yearly expansions could help WoW a ton if the logistics can be figured out.

They would need to make adjustments in the departments for that, and maybe split the teams/workflow better, but i think it could be done. (not that i think it should) because it would get like Call of Duty, a new game every year that a lot of people are starting to get tired of.

[Edoll]

I’d actually prefer longer expansions with more updates. If we’re going to explore something new, I want to go all in. Blizzard has more time to perfect the expansions systems, we can get more used to them, borrowed power needs to stop but if it lasted longer, I think, it would feel less like borrowed power and more like an overhaul.

The Shadowlands are infinite and with a five or six patch cycle we could really see more of the facets and double down in the covenant identity. It would be really cool to see what the RPG elements of aligning with different factions and choosing new sub-specs for class led could be if Blizzard took the time to push it to its limits.

[Draedarr]

Yes, if they planned better, we could be getting patches in a good rate and not having content droughts, i myself don't like the idea of yearly expansions because of getting tired (like in CoD, last one i bought was BO2, didn't even bother to get the others, as it was all the same again).