Should Blizzard Skip 9.3?

[Cosmic Janitor]

I don't see a 2023 release date as being anywhere near viable. If there was then someone would have to answer to the shareholders. You do not want to get between a rich man and his yacht.

Depends, if they release something like OW1.5 and D4 without making it bomb, then the shareholders don't give a shit that the WoWell has dried up. They only care that you do make money, not how.

[Coolface330]

Blizzard shouldn't be rushing out content just to release content. Literally against their mantra "release it when its done."

But Warcraft Reforged was released with no reimbursements, so I doubt that they care....

Make good content. Get an audience. And build on that. Frickin' Rocket Science.

[kamuimac]

Ff14 went up over last 8 years and WoW went down. Generally a line trending up is better than a line trending down, but what do I know.

dont forget they had to fight with "time invested into wow " factor.

aka it took them 8 years to convince people who invested better part of last 15 years of their lives in wow to abandon all what they build and start new mmorpg from scratch .

its massive achievement - nobody ever in industry make it and they made it possible.

well tbh it wasnt them - it was wow that went to garbage enough that people abandoned 15+ years invest - many people had 1000+ days played and abandoned it all to play FF14

its tremendous achievenet in 8 years.

infuture people in business universitieds will analise thise case - how blizzard run their company's biggest franchise into grave.

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Blizzard shouldn't be rushing out content just to release content. Literally against their mantra "release it when its done."

But Warcraft Reforged was released with no reimbursements, so I doubt that they care....

Make good content. Get an audience. And build on that. Frickin' Rocket Science.

they cant rush somethis which they dont have or what they dont work on .

without doubt they already swapped all aviable resources to work in 10.0 because only new expansion has chance to bring people back to game.

new raid ? jsut lol who cares about this elitest stuff.

[Watchers]

they already did

[TheFirstOnes]

I doubt a 9.3 ever existed to begin with, and IF it did, it got merged with the other patches.

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This entire expac feels like it was planned for 2 patches:

Part 1 feels like Infinity War, and Part 2 feels like Endgame.

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Hell, it even works akin to that way too. With 9.1 being the covenants getting their shit together and Zovaal returning to his FP, to part 2 being out counter attack with the covenants, with MAYBE Life helping us now cause of the WQ’s stuff with Elune. Leading to the forces of Death and Life battling to save the great Cosmic Cycle from Zovaal’s malevolent grasp.

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Since the WQ and Elune represent the balance and the cycle of Life and Death, would be cool to see someone like “An’she” or some others pop in too to aid us. Like I said, if they introduce the Plane of Life, I would be fine with it just being the place where the Pantheon of Life meet up. Not every cosmic realm needs to have a plot, if it’s not needed of course. The games plot is about War, not needless exploration.

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They also have to be saving Baine up for something. No way they ain’t.

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Imagine Elune and the WQ battling together against the Mawsworn at Zereth Mortis. Would be cool asf

[Redwyrm]

I think the turning point in WoWs popularity (or whatever you want to call it) was when the philosophy from Blizzard changed to "we don't expect players to be continuously subbed for the duration of an expansion" That's just an excuse to release minimal content. What happened to the Blizzard who knew how to create good Skinner Box mechanics and steady progression based systems that kept you hooked?

The carrot has fallen off the stick and Blizzard seems fine with that.

[Ersula]

Much less if they actually had planned SL to end with 9.2

They typically plan to have a filler tier; I would guess Battle for Ardenweald & all the Elune stuff was going to be a raid tier if necessary.

There obviously isn't going to be a 9.3, unless they're planning on delaying the next expansion to 2023, which would piss off their investors. For them to have a 9.3 during Shadowlands means they're planning 3 whole major patches, 9.2, 9.3 & 10.0, all within the span of 1 year: That's ridiculous. Major patches have a lifespan of 22 weeks minimum

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I think the turning point in WoWs popularity (or whatever you want to call it) was when the philosophy from Blizzard changed to "we don't expect players to be continuously subbed for the duration of an expansion" That's just an excuse to release minimal content. What happened to the Blizzard who knew how to create good Skinner Box mechanics and steady progression based systems that kept you hooked?

The carrot has fallen off the stick and Blizzard seems fine with that.

Did you miss Covid or the lawsuits? The layoffs before that? You just noticed something off about this content cycle, really?

[Wilian]

I really hope they skip 9.3 and just decide to cut their losses with this xpac... it would be a win-win for everyone <3

I don't view less content for same money a win-win under any circumstance.

[Redwyrm]

They typically plan to have a filler tier; I would guess Battle for Ardenweald & all the Elune stuff was going to be a raid tier if necessary.

There obviously isn't going to be a 9.3, unless they're planning on delaying the next expansion to 2023, which would piss off their investors. For them to have a 9.3 during Shadowlands means they're planning 3 whole major patches, 9.2, 9.3 & 10.0, all within the span of 1 year: That's ridiculous. Major patches have a lifespan of 22 weeks minimum

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Did you miss Covid or the lawsuits? The layoffs before that? You just noticed something off about this content cycle, really?

This content cycle? Yes, and the content cycle before this and the one before that going back way before Covid or the lawsuits. Covid and the lawsuits are just the last wheel falling off an already broken down car.

[Nyel]

We are looking at a February / March 2022 release for 9.2. That would bring 9.3 to August / September and 10.0 to June / July 2023. Y’all think this will happen? lol

[Varodoc]

Imagine thinking Blizzard would make an expansion last almost 3 years when their main source of revenue are expansion pre-orders...

9.2 = Last patch = March/April 2022

10.0 = December 2022 OR January 2023

It won't matter if the expansion is rushed, people here don't understand that all Blizzard cares about is having nice record sales at Day 1 so that they can brag to Activision about it.

[Ersula]

Should they? Hell no. It's not going to get 10.0 out faster, we're past the point where they can be like "oh, yeah, expansion announcement and beta in 2021 yet." It just means a longer drought of nothingness, we learned that lesson from WoD.

Will they? Shrug.

This is such a weird thing to say when 9.2 isn't even announced yet. 10.0 Alpha would be starting within 6 months, & you're proposing they have *other* major patches being developed at the same time. There will be a 9.2, and even then the content drought would be relatively short. But 9.3 just doesn't make sense. Why develop 9.3 when you can just develop 10.0?

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This content cycle? Yes, and the content cycle before this and the one before that going back way before Covid or the lawsuits. Covid and the lawsuits are just the last wheel falling off an already broken down car.

BFA had 4 major patches.

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Has there ever been the slightest hint how many patches SL was supposed to have in the first place?

They plan 4 raid tiers, one being a "filler" tier they can abandon if they're stretched for time. Because releasing an expansion every 2 years is a higher priority than anything else.

[Raven]

Yes and no.

Yes 9.3 as a patch will be skipped but the planed 9.3 features and story will be added to 9.2 patch.

[kranur]

Where did the idea that a 9.3 will happen came from?
9.2 will bring the 3rd tier of the expansion, which is the numbet of tiers most of the expansions had.

[Ersula]

Where did the idea that a 9.3 will happen came from?
9.2 will bring the 3rd tier of the expansion, which is the numbet of tiers most of the expansions had.

BFA babies. Or WoD boomers. BFA had 4 tiers & they look at WoD as being a failed expansion because it only went up to X.2: Forgetting that Legion & Warlords of Draenor's first content tier didn't start till X.1, while Shadowlands had a full raid tear right at launch.

[Nyel]

BFA babies. Or WoD boomers. BFA had 4 tiers & they look at WoD as being a failed expansion because it only went up to X.2: Forgetting that Legion & Warlords of Draenor's first content tier didn't start till X.1, while Shadowlands had a full raid tear right at launch.

This really comes down to how tiers are defined. As long as we had tier sets, Highmaul & Blackrock Foundry / Emerald Nightmare & Nighthold were considered one tier. In BfA they removed tier sets, but technically only BoD, EP and Nyalotha would have been counted as tiers. Entry raids weren't counted as tier raids previously. No idea where Castle Nathria fits into that, either they skipped the entry tier in Shadowlands or they're going to skip one tier in the middle.

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They typically plan to have a filler tier; I would guess Battle for Ardenweald & all the Elune stuff was going to be a raid tier if necessary.

Filler tier is the first tier and not something in the middle. Eternal Palace can't be filler because it was the reason Nyalotha happened. The same with Tomb of Sargeras and Argus.

[Amnaught]

Would you rather Blizzard delay 10.0 until 2023, or have 9.2 as the last patch in the beg of 2022 with a 10-11 month content draught leading to 10.0. Or you could have 9.2 in Jan, 9.3 in August, and 10.0 in May/June 2023.

I would rather they just give us a decent last patch with no bullshit systems. Let us play that for nearly a year, and have the team full speed ahead making 10.0 good. Get 9.2 out and start Alpha asap, pref in the Spring of 2022, that way we have plenty of time for feedback to be "hopefully" listened to.

I honestly believe they already cut patch 9.1.

As in all of the system stuff from the original 9.1 plus the zone and story of 9.2 are what we got in 9.1.

Meaning 9.2 is sveryrhing they had planned for 9.3.

Much better than cutting out the middle patch like WoD did.....

[Loveliest]

As things are going, im not sure if there is anyone in charge who can still properly coordinate where they should go. 9.1.5 is nowhere in sight and i see guilds dying left and right. Seems no one really cares to at least make an attempt to, I don't know, nerf some bosses or whatever. In what world do they think ppl will still play if they have the exact same prospects for months.

[Raven]

As things are going, im not sure if there is anyone in charge who can still properly coordinate where they should go. 9.1.5 is nowhere in sight and i see guilds dying left and right. Seems no one really cares to at least make an attempt to, I don't know, nerf some bosses or whatever. In what world do they think ppl will still play if they have the exact same prospects for months.

What do you mean 9.1.5 is nowhere insight?
Nov 2 is release day for 9.1.5.

[ohwell]

They typically plan to have a filler tier; I would guess Battle for Ardenweald & all the Elune stuff was going to be a raid tier if necessary.

There obviously isn't going to be a 9.3, unless they're planning on delaying the next expansion to 2023, which would piss off their investors. For them to have a 9.3 during Shadowlands means they're planning 3 whole major patches, 9.2, 9.3 & 10.0, all within the span of 1 year: That's ridiculous. Major patches have a lifespan of 22 weeks minimum

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Did you miss Covid or the lawsuits? The layoffs before that? You just noticed something off about this content cycle, really?

Covid should have easily been adjusted around by that May at the latest. Many jobs completely unaccustomed to it adjusted to working from home and their industry could easily have done that.

The layoffs were not dev based and mostly PR/Community engagement jobs, so swing and a miss there as well.

The lawsuits are involving stuff that shouldn't even impact the current people working there as the staff there today is CLEARLY evidenced in both the ridiculous changes on the PTR as well as the accounts from devs tweeting about why they're making those changes(them making false claims that it's "residue" from the trash aka people like Alex A even though more than likely they had nothing to do with it). If the lawsuit made you stop working as a dev there, you're a problem and should be fired because you're being disingenuous to the actual work environment you fostered over the past 5-10 years doing a 180 in the opposite direction of oppression.

Now there is ONE thing you neglected to mention that did actually have an impact and that was the wildfires during covid which struck a lot of the area around the offices. However, it's no excuse in the long scheme of things and should have had recovery.