When will they release chains of domination?

[Osmeric]

idk why people want shadowlands to be doomed so badly

I think they view it as a matter of justice. The viewpoint could be that the devs have committed a serious wrong, and it is necessary they suffer the consequences.

[tomten]

My mythic guild has been raiding together since vanilla and I’ve never seen an expac fall off as fast as SL. Even wod and bfa held our raiders together the entire expac, but we may not make it to 9.1 if it’s still 2-4 months off

Its never ever coming in 2 months... July/August is early and we should be happy if thats the case... I'm more realistic towards sept/oct at this point.
Check the facts, the game was delayed before even releasing, so add 1-2 months just for that alone to whatever timeline you have...
There's no PTR, there's no info. And you think it will just release in 2-4 months like this? Really?

[Soon-TM]

really? bcs i play daily and im far from done... people might not like some of the content, but that doesnt mean there is no content.

By that measure, you could say that there was a lot of content in WoD as well, because you could always grind apexis crystals, do mythic HFC and arena. Now tell me how many people were actually interested in that !@#$.

[mrgreenthump]

I have a feeling TBC beta is out sooner than we expected due to 9.1 being delayed from original schedule. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they launched D2R before WoW 9.1.

[Zorachus]

I don't see the next expansion coming out sooner than the typical 2+ year release schedule. WoW expansions are released like every 24 to 28 months, they've said since BC they want to get it to 18 months, but never once have.

So them somehow getting the new expansion out sooner, than Summer / Fall 2022 is just not gonna happen.

[Soon-TM]

I'm really curious about what might be the reason for all these delays. Sure, covid is certainly a thing in the entire world, and must have turned many things in Irvine upside down... But I don't buy that it is the only reason.

[Beastiel]

Right now it's currently scheduled to be released August 3rd.

[bash the fash]

It's literally been all over the place.

E-sports/live events which is basically marketing.

https://screenrant.com/blizzard-fire...et-gift-cards/

3 months of pay.
1 year of continued full health benefits, not cheap for any company, especially for 190 employees.
And the laughable $200 gift card of Blizzard balance. (I personally think they should just give these employees free copies of games over the next 3 years or something like this. $200 is too paltry, even with the other benefits, it just feels weird, it costs them nothing to give out some Blizz balance, it also costs them nothing to let these employees have free copies of whatever games they want to play.)

Bro if given the choice between "being employed in the middle of a record economic low and pandemic" and getting 3 months of pay (no indication of how much this actually is for most of them), "health benefits" (no idea what this covers or for how many of them, they might be giving them the option to sell their kidneys to pay for COBRA and calling it "health benefits" lol) and a 200 dollar gift card, I'd bet most people would prefer the former.

[Wangming]

idk where you're getting that there will be no 9.3 though-if anything, it will just be a longer expansion. i can't imagine they'd ever cancel a major content patch again after warlords and the farahlon catastrophe.

Well we simply don't have the time. If we look at how long mid expansion raid tiers last (6 months), how long the final raid tier lasts (10 months) and how long an expansion lasts (24 months), the math doesn't add up. SL would end 20 months from now. So the final raid patch would have to arrive 10 months from now. 9.1 isn't on the PTR. The question is, are they really willing to extend Shadowlands by at least half a year in favor of 10.0 and all those sweet day-one expansion sales that seem to increase with every release? I say no, you say yes. One of us is bound to be correct.

[Nyel]

I think they view it as a matter of justice. The viewpoint could be that the devs have committed a serious wrong, and it is necessary they suffer the consequences.

Shadowlands was doomed from the start because it was the third iteration of Legion systems attached with a more tedious approach to force players to spend more time in game for the same tasks. Then you have a busted loot system, the Anima scarcity, the heavy timegating and the fact that Blizzard barely learned their lessons after the dumpster fire that BfA was... so something needs to happen. WoW retail needs to reach a new low to be able to rise again akin to WoD > Legion. Without that they will just cook another version of Legion with the next expansion and the cycle of mediocrity will continue.

The thing is... Shadowlands in my opinion had a really good start. But you can see that they rushed the release and weren’t ready. 9.0.5 clearly wasn’t planned and took them some time to release, but the longer Shadowlands goes on, the more you see the cracks in its foundation.

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that's absolutely true, not tryna suggest there's no in-between or overlap of folks. sorry if that came across-you're def right that the playerbase isn't a monolith.
idk where you're getting that there will be no 9.3 though-if anything, it will just be a longer expansion. i can't imagine they'd ever cancel a major content patch again after warlords and the farahlon catastrophe.

Delaying the release of a new expansion by +6 months to focus on an additional content patch is just not going to happen. Expansions sales are driving Blizzard‘s revenue, they won’t sacrifice this just to have more free content.

[glowpipe]

The thing is. we don't know anything about this patch and we never had anything like this before so we can't really look at the past releases to try to guestimate a date.
We know that most of the systems that came in 9.0.5 was coming with 9.1, but they released it to us early. This means they been working on 9.1 for some time. Usualy we get a semi finished patch on ptr and we help them test shit as they are making it. Now, we might get a more fleshed out patch in the ptr and that might come much closer to release candidate then before.

But there are also other shit that might have gone wrong, something they had to scrap and start over with for an example. So its impossible to tell.
All we know is that they can't wait much longer or they won't have a playerbase anymore

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Delaying the release of a new expansion by +6 months to focus on an additional content patch is just not going to happen. Expansions sales are driving Blizzard‘s revenue, they won’t sacrifice this just to have more free content.

If anything. They scrap SL and get out 10.0 sooner for the initial sale explosion, which has been making them more money the first week then the rest of the entire expansion in subs. To keep subs they need to make content, and that has to be free as you say

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I have a feeling TBC beta is out sooner than we expected due to 9.1 being delayed from original schedule. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they launched D2R before WoW 9.1.

tbc is an entirely different team and the two have no interaction with eachother. They are completely seperate from eachother.

[Osmeric]

The thing is... Shadowlands in my opinion had a really good start. But you can see that they rushed the release and weren’t ready. 9.0.5 clearly wasn’t planned and took them some time to release, but the longer Shadowlands goes on, the more you see the cracks in its foundation.

To me, the fundamentally broken nature of Shadowlands was clear from the start. So much struck me as wrong. My experience was as if they had attached a giant fun vacuum to the game and sucked out anything enjoyable. This is why my playing ground to a halt in early-mid December. Everything I've seen since then reinforces the decision to stop.

I don't think the problem is the expansion was rushed; I think it was misconceived. And so much was wrong that I don't see them being able to fix it. The fail is baked in at this point. For that reason, I have no concern about when 9.1 will be released. Early or late, it won't make a difference to me.

It's a shame, because I came into the expansion willing to enjoy it. If only they had not made a product for which I found that to be impossible.

[mrgreenthump]

tbc is an entirely different team and the two have no interaction with eachother. They are completely seperate from eachother.

It is, but many of the best and most vocal players play both games. So don't think we see PTR for 9.1 before beta for TBC is nearing it's end. Which may mean August is optimistic even.

[justandulas]

Its never ever coming in 2 months... July/August is early and we should be happy if thats the case... I'm more realistic towards sept/oct at this point.
Check the facts, the game was delayed before even releasing, so add 1-2 months just for that alone to whatever timeline you have...
There's no PTR, there's no info. And you think it will just release in 2-4 months like this? Really?

No, that was my point. My guild has been raiding since vanilla together and the long wait for 9.1, and general state of SL in general, could be the final nail in the coffin for my mythic guild

August and sept will be too late to save SL. They need to work nights, double shifts, or hire more staff or whatever they have to do to put 9.1 out in July at the latest

[Aleksej89]

Not Soon™
Second quarter of 2021 if we are lucky but i would not hold my breath.

[Terminatrix]

no ptr news or any news if i were to guess id sayjune or july at the minimum

[tomten]

August and sept will be too late to save SL. They need to work nights, double shifts, or hire more staff or whatever they have to do to put 9.1 out in July at the latest

They are actively firing people, not hiring or giving overtime. If anything, they are more focused on TBC classic, because thats what will truly spike sub numbers in a way 9.1 could only dream off.

Personally, i'm very cool with an sep/oct release because a summer raid? Even in corona times thats a stretch, i dont wanna sit inside when its 25-30c and sun outside.
Now? Its winter and minus celsius outside and I have about 8 hours of sunlight per day, couldn't be better time to release the raid right now for me... but shit is what it is :/

[Wangming]

They are actively firing people, not hiring or giving overtime. If anything, they are more focused on TBC classic, because thats what will truly spike sub numbers in a way 9.1 could only dream off.

Personally, i'm very cool with an sep/oct release because a summer raid? Even in corona times thats a stretch, i dont wanna sit inside when its 25-30c and sun outside.
Now? Its winter and minus celsius outside and I have about 8 hours of sunlight per day, couldn't be better time to release the raid right now for me... but shit is what it is :/

Well if they won't release 9.1 by June, a Fall/winter release would make the most sense to ensure WoW has relatively fresh content when End of Dragons and Endwalker come out. After all if 9.1 comes out in July or later, there won't be enough time left for another raid patch this year.

[Huntaer]

This is weird. So we will play the same content for 7-8 months?! They used to reset the season every 3-4 months or so.

We AlL haVe BeEn WoRkINg HoME dUE tO CoRoNa

[Osmeric]

or hire more staff or whatever they have to do to put 9.1 out in July at the latest

Hiring staff would not work. Due to the need for training and familiarizing them with the product and processes, they would be deadweight until long after July.