Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Lets say hypothetically that the Prequel book releases on the date (November 22nd 2022) well then if we add the usual 100-115 days it would place it as a March release date.

Either way, the timeline seems to push this expansion into Q1 2023.

[Lady Atia]

If you go by history, excluding the usual final tier, then pretty much all raid tiers lasted 4.5 to 5.5 months since well, Mists of Pandaria, the only exclusion ever was Eternal Place.

Terrace/Moguvault lasted 160 days (5.5 months)
Blackrock Foundry lasted 141 days (4.5 months)
Emerald Nightmare lasted 119 days (4 months)
Nighthold lasted 154 days (5 months)
Tomb of Sargeras lasted 162 days ( 5.5 months)
Uldir lasted 139 days (4.5 months)
BoD lasted 168 days (5.5 months)
Palace lasted 197 days (6.5 months)

You can also look at normal/heroic clear rates on warcraftlogs. About 90% of all logged kills on heroic happen within the first four months. That holds true for Nathria, Sanctum, Eternal Palace, and likely any other ride you will check. Why? Because people usually are decked out in gear somewhere between month 3-4 (esp. with m+). Then you farm the final boss for a few instances, and you're done.

If you now have a blizzard dev stating that "6-8 months is the ideal duration", then that's a pretty bad and sad statement - it's practically not supported by any data, wether it's past raid duration or actual clear rates.

6-8 months are the ideal duration because that's what most casual mythic guilds need to get cutting edge and farm a few mounts. They shouldn't make seasons shorter just because "heroic" guilds are done with the raid after 4 months. But than again, I'm all for making mythic more accessable for everyone. If you raid, you should clear mythic, imo.

[AngerFork]

If the hard coded nature of guilds limits what they can do with them, they could replicate guild features into communities and then just fold guilds into communities and effectively remove them.

I like this idea a lot. This would bring far more eyes to the communities feature which would likely bypass a lot of the current issues the guild interface has (limited membership, cross faction, cross server, cross game, etc). There's a few small pieces to figure out, but most of those could be worked around pretty easy. Perhaps for the Hall of Fame, you could build a team consisting of 25-30 Battle.Net accounts rather than have it at a guild level. Not sure...regardless, I'd totally be on board with this idea.

S4 will last 3 months imo, max.

Unlikely IMO, especially given that most pre-patches tend to go 4-6 weeks (Source: https://www.wowhead.com/news/specula...e-patch-317888). Doing only a 3 month S4 would be even shorter & weirder given that 1 or so of those months would almost certainly involve Evokers getting into this new experimental raid scene.

I do think it'll be shorter than most seasons, but 3 months is just too short IMO...especially if Blizz takes more time to get player feedback to have a sturdier launch this time.

[Skildar]

8 months seems too long to me whatever the situation. Below this it will depend on what other content they are able to deliver during that time.

If they play it like they did during Legion, where mid tier you are served a new zone with new stories to enjoy then I'm seeing no issue. If they do it like they've planned Shadowlands then there is very little chances that I will enjoy myself after 3months of play each season.

[Nymrohd]

8 months seems too long to me whatever the situation. Below this it will depend on what other content they are able to deliver during that time.

If they play it like they did during Legion, where mid tier you are served a new zone with new stories to enjoy then I'm seeing no issue. If they do it like they've planned Shadowlands then there is very little chances that I will enjoy myself after 3months of play each season.

The clockwork 11 week patch cycle of Legion is probably the goal right? I could see it growing by a week or two but beyond that you start to feel the burnout.

[rhorle]

It's not even three months yet for S3

It went live on March 1st. So it is a few days short of 3 months. It is a good bet s3 will end at the end of June or mid July. Horde Hall of Fame has been filled for a while. Alliance is no where near being filled so it can't really be accounted for unless Blizzard does major nerfs. Could Season 3 go to August or something? Sure. The thing we all have to remember though is that nothing is set in stone even when Blizzard says what a season typically lasts.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

The Post-Launch support is definitely more important than whats' in at launch.

The release date is whatever to me, people clinging to a quicker release for their own self-interest isn't really a problem to me. It's just kind of funny especially with the way things have been for the past 4 years.

[Skildar]

The clockwork 11 week patch cycle of Legion is probably the goal right? I could see it growing by a week or two but beyond that you start to feel the burnout.

To me this would be a healthy goal even if it is stretched to 13 weeks.

I would say though that most likely the first 0.5 patch would probably not need to be big and with new zones as we're still discovering a new landmass. Some follow up quests chains like they did in patch 9.1 is fine, they could accompany this with a couple of extra raid bosses like they did with ToV and CotS as well. A nice addition like the horde-alliance assault or on smaller scale naga assault, a couple new reputations and hardcore challenges and we're cooking with gas.

[huth]

If you now have a blizzard dev stating that "6-8 months is the ideal duration", then that's a pretty bad and sad statement - it's practically not supported by any data, wether it's past raid duration or actual clear rates.

You're confusing "ideal" with "what we used in the past".

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Well, none of us are mind readers. So it is unclear what context he was talking about. Either way, the product needs a better cycle from what we experienced in this expansion.

[Khaza-R]

Later this summer definitely suggests August or Sept imo.

That being said, Blizzard's release schedules for retail and classic are kind of bizarre lately so who knows. Seems like something got shifted they are having to abruptly shuffle things around.

[Dracullus]

You're confusing "ideal" with "what we used in the past".

Well 7 or 8 month long season is far from ideal. It sounds like dev said 6-8 are intended because they screw it twice in SL with 7 months Nathria and 8 months Sanctum.

5.5 month from Legion were perfect, especially since we had big patch -> 11 weeks -> season -> 11 weeks -> big patch schedule. Now they have two awesome ideas that would make 'Legion' schedule even better - bonus "drought" season and completely changing M+ rotation from season to season.

[Luck4]

Later this summer definitely suggests August or Sept imo.

That being said, Blizzard's release schedules for retail and classic are kind of bizarre lately so who knows. Seems like something got shifted they are having to abruptly shuffle things around.

I think Season 4 starts in September and runs until Dragonflight is ready to launch. I don't think they'll hold back the Dragonflight launch because Season 4 has been out for only 3-4 months, and if something bad happens Season 4 could last for the usual 7-8 months with Dragonflight releasing on Q2 2023.

One thing feels certain, Blizzard is preparing everything to release Dragonflight in 2023, not 2022.

No signs of pre-order, alpha or beta yet, is another hint.

[Revamp Man]

If they are encrypting a lot of things now then the story/leveling won't need public testing. Without complex systems, the "borrowed power" there isn't that much that needs testing. Testing talents and the things that need to be tested could happen relatively quickly if Blizzard wants. Relatively is the key word though since they've dragged their heels on 9.2.5 even though it was not feature heavy.

Season 4 can end any time and Season 3 is likely ending in a few a weeks.

- - - Updated - - -



I forget what expansion it was but I remember them still actively testing on beta while releasing the prepatch as an "earlier build".

it was SL actually lol

[wowrefugee]

Big day is tomorrow. Can't wait to go back to just being a player and not browsing forums. General Discussion on the official forums is absolutely garbage.

I'm still holding out for surprise Darkfallen AR with the texture in my profile pic being part of their heritage armor.

[Kiria]

Big day is tomorrow. Can't wait to go back to just being a player and not browsing forums. General Discussion on the official forums is absolutely garbage.

I'm still holding out for surprise Darkfallen AR with the texture in my profile pic being part of their heritage armor.

If you're EU I've met some amazing people on that forum!

[Valysar]

What are the chances of having pre-orders today?

[Dracullus]

What are the chances of having pre-orders today?

Hard to tell. Sounds obvious to start it today, but implementing patch and dealing with wave of preorders could be too scary for them. During BfA preorder was 2 weeks after 7.3.5 if I remember correctly (but patch week was BIG mess).

[Nyel]

Not even then. S3 started on March 1st. Even a 6 month S3 would already put us at the beginning of September, which wouldn't even give us 3 months for S4.

People just keep getting their dates wrong and deluding themself that a 2022 release is even remotely possible.

Yeah that's exactly my point. There are 0 indicators or arguments for a 2022 release. Basically everything is hinting at a release in Q1/23 (heck even Q2/23 isn't out of question). At no point was a 2022 release something likely, it was mostly based on a lot of copium. 6 weeks of nothing after the announcement, I think the schedule is clear.

[Blayze]

FWIW it seems like some WoW devs are being a bit cryptic and teasing on Twitter about today's patch.

Don't they always do that? "You'll never guess what I've been working on," "I'm excited for you to learn about this thing specifically," etc, and it turns out to be another battle pet or something.