Imagineif Emerald nighmare or Highmaul lasted for 9+ months.

[Dracullus]

What about unlocking your covenant tree, soulbinds, legendaries and all that jazz?

Renown just for doing ultra casual stuff (one LFR or Normal clear for legendary recipes, campaign, callings, HC dungeon when you have quests) takes 1-2 week. Full 40 Renown I remind, last Renown with player power is 30 something.

Legendary is only problem if it drops with specific world boss, so there is choice to wait 3 weeks for bis or make second one.

Relics drops often and you have specific sources. Also most important is to find right ones, power differences between ilvls are not big.

Overall I would say geting barely minimum to raid heroic takes ~1.5 week of active play. For sure you rolfstomp open world at this point.

[TheFirstOnes]

Highmaul is amazing tho

[Kralljin]

just looking for conspiration behind something expected...

Yes, assuming that management pushes for a release of a product within a certain quarter is a conspiracy.

its like saying christmas is on 24th bcs shops want to increase their revenue before end of Q4, ignoring that christmas would be on 24th even without any shops involved...

No, that is a stupid comparison.

You however assume that toy / video game companies selling new toys in November / December is just coincidental and has absolutely nothing to do with the practice of handing out gifts to loved ones around christmas, except this time, the customers aren't the ones to receive gifts but the shareholders.

i mean... dont overcomplicate shit just to complain about blizz management, it makes you look bitter...

And defending anything this company presents and deflecting anything with "It's actually a complete coincidence" makes you look naive shill.
Two can play that game.

And i find it hilarious to call something like this an overcomplication, it's called "looking at the calender".

btw, as an accountant, i cant see manager in blizz deciding "huh we will have TBCC in Q2 so lets push to release retail patch there too so we have NOTHING to release in Q3"... you do know they care about WHOLE YEAR not just Q2, right?

Hey, the expectations of these quarterly reports is that they continue to built upon in itself, growth is the keyword here.
It's also possible that they plan other releases such as Diablo Immortal or D2: Ressurected for Q3, which are also scheduled for 2021.

Putting aside that you also have to view the entire company (Activision Blizzard) in that context, i have no idea how Q2 looked for Activision / King, maybe they want Blizzard to prop up that report for them.
After all, i don't think 9.1 was scheduled for Q3 originally.

[justandulas]

agreed if blizz didn't lose those raid test days due to build instability id say june/july maybe august at a push

June is completely off the table. they will not have 9.1 overshadowed by TBC in any way shape or form. People will try to make the apples/oranges comparison of "but they dropped naxx with SL release" and forget that SL was 2 months late, and naxx was the end of classic NOT the start of it. The start matters a hell of alot more financially than the final raid tier. Blizz will not undercut TBC by dropping 9.1 in June, and they won't overshadow 9.1 by dropping it close to TBC and it being stuck in the shadow of TBC.

July-August is realistic, but if it was July we'd expect they'd have been further along than they are by now. Then again, from what we've seen of 9.1, it isn't exactly an "all time" patch in terms of size, scope, and things to do. It kinda seems on the smaller side of the X.1 spectrum, IMO. Maybe july is realistic, but early august is the smart money for 9.1.

[thunderdragon2]

June is completely off the table. they will not have 9.1 overshadowed by TBC in any way shape or form. People will try to make the apples/oranges comparison of "but they dropped naxx with SL release" and forget that SL was 2 months late, and naxx was the end of classic NOT the start of it. The start matters a hell of alot more financially than the final raid tier. Blizz will not undercut TBC by dropping 9.1 in June, and they won't overshadow 9.1 by dropping it close to TBC and it being stuck in the shadow of TBC.

July-August is realistic, but if it was July we'd expect they'd have been further along than they are by now. Then again, from what we've seen of 9.1, it isn't exactly an "all time" patch in terms of size, scope, and things to do. It kinda seems on the smaller side of the X.1 spectrum, IMO. Maybe july is realistic, but early august is the smart money for 9.1.

completely agree and i think you missed what i said so ill repeat it, it could have been ready by end of June if they didn't lose multiple days of raid testing due to unstable builds, if that didn't happen, that doesn't mean they would have released it on June. I just really hope they don't rush this due to player boredom and players doing other things

[Doffen]

Renown just for doing ultra casual stuff (one LFR or Normal clear for legendary recipes, campaign, callings, HC dungeon when you have quests) takes 1-2 week. Full 40 Renown I remind, last Renown with player power is 30 something.

Legendary is only problem if it drops with specific world boss, so there is choice to wait 3 weeks for bis or make second one.

Relics drops often and you have specific sources. Also most important is to find right ones, power differences between ilvls are not big.

Overall I would say geting barely minimum to raid heroic takes ~1.5 week of active play. For sure you rolfstomp open world at this point.

I used 40 hours /played on druid from ding 60 to get 40 renown(did /played just after to check, 1 day and 16 hours @60) and I wasnt even trying. If you go for it, 10-15 hours played tops, if doing it over two resets probably would make it faster in /played hours.

[Soon-TM]

0% chance it would be June. July is even optimistic

Tbh 9.1 could technically be released by the end of June, since PTR cycles usually are 2-3 months long. That being said, it is a VERY optimistic hypothesis, and it would frankly raise some doubts about QA.

[Malania]

Black Temple launched May 2007, Sunwell launched March 2008. This isn't the first time raiders have had to wait for another tier.

[thunderdragon2]

Especially the raid testing was extremely well in time when the Patch already hit the PTR. Heroic is now somewhat done, there are only a few things to do and Mythic.
The biggest point is still the balancing, as Tazavesh is available now, too.

30th June is absolutely realistic with the state of the PTR as of now.

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Are you guys just mumbling the shit from other stupid people on the internet? Or are you actually looking at the state of the PTR? 7 weeks from now is absolutely realistic.

thats weird as ive kept a close eye on the 9.1 patch notes and raid testing announcements and all i've seen is hc testing some of which was candled due to build instability and a 1-2 wings of lfr testing so im not sure where you got "only mythic raid testing is left" from

[mysticx]

I'll go one further: I say 9 months is too much for any raid tier, even the best content gets tiresome after that long...

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I mean with WoD by the time June rolled around you were discussing the 3rd tier. But.. thier was that whole year at the end thing with no content.. although I am sure SL will have the same if not worse.

[Razion]

Personally I loved Emerald Nightmare. I preferred it much more to Nighthold. And while Nighthold was still pretty fun, I wish we had had more time in EN and later ToV between NH coming out.

EN apparently only lasted a little while, which seems crazy now. I found EN engaging, I was certainly having fun in Legion with all the class revamps - I had one of everything raid-ready then, but yeah - EN, and ToV before NH, could have been spread more before NH and when possible I would've been happy to raid EN more, and been happy to have had more opportunity to raid ToV before NH more. NH I didn't get to experience much as it was, but I'd gladly have traded what time I was raiding then in NH for more time in EN and ToV.

Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry I liked. Apparently we had very little time in Highmaul as well, but a little more in Foundry. While the raids were fun enough if they had been spread out on a healthy expansion, overall across the health of WoD people were dropping very quickly so had the raids not released as fast as they had maybe people would have left even faster.

Comparatively in Legion, the population problem didn't seem to be there. So, 9+ months of EN, maybe would've worked. Highmaul, because of WoD but not the raid, probably wouldn't have.

[Zantera]

SL has its issues but as a PVEer I do think OP has a point. This current tier with Castle Nathria is definitely more enjoyable than Uldir, Emerald Nightmare or worst of all, Wotlk-Naxx.

[Nnyco]

You should compare it more to NH or BRF, EN and HM was one of these weird pre-tier raids.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Every major content patch that goes above half a year overstays its welcome. Heck people already get bored 3 months in.

Blizzard really need to sit down and think hard about how they expedite their deliveries - it keeps eventually biting them in the ass every time again.

IMO, they should really consider delivering smaller but more frequent update chunks. Make raids of 8 bosses and new zones smaller, but deliver new ones every 4 months.

No they shouldn't do frequent smaller updates, I hate when mmos do that, its an issue because of the current global situation the world is in and well some fare better then others and in general games take longer. I want it out to but.... I'm not ignoring reality thats around me.

[froschhure]

Yes, content. We had a raid, dungeons, Torghast, 3 legendaries or more to gather (different specs/situations), reputations, anima.. you name it.

I don´t think it is enough to hold on for much longer than 5/6 months, I totally agree there.. but, so far, that might be it. We are 5 real months into the expansion, anyway.

please do not forget the polished maps without transition, the main capital of afterlands, designed like an airport, yet unavailable for flight + Whole Season of No rewards from anywhere oh and please don't forget it is also capped and timegated

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aaameizing

[infinitemeridian]

1. Highmaul is an actually good raid, Nathria is one of the worst they've released since then
2. CN is more like a NH / BoD equivalent, not an "entry-level" raid.

[erifwodahs]

It has been 5 months.
4,5 you could argue, if you do not count the first 15 days as most people were still leveling...

9.1 is coming out in July, probably mid/end of it (Because Ashes alpha is coming out in July and it is clear that Blizzard is using releases for numbers counter attacks).

Even if it comes in august, that is 8 months / 8,5.

23 of November. We have had SL for 6 months and 3 weeks now. Well, even if you don't count pre-raid its over 6months as raid opened 8th or 9th of december.