How will they announce 10.0 now?

[Mace]

Any ideas.. there is no blizzcon this year, expansion announcements usually need a really big circus, pump up the hype, let people be very expectant, , then deliver for maximum effect.


They wisely avoid gaming conventions because afterall, it's not a new game, and expansions do not shine anywhere near brand new games or tech - unless you are doing something really new, like an epic shift or new beginning - i know they did that for legion expansion, SWTOR did that for their KotFE relaunch - but they had commercials for that even. FFXIV did that on the reborn game..

You'd have to have a very powerful expansion you expect to draw back a lot of old gamers and attract new ones alike.. I doubt this new expansions has it.


Most other MMOs that aren't anywhere near as popular as wow, tend to have some quiet statement release or the more popular ones would do a podcast.. is this what wow has finally come too?

If you ask me, I would make a documentary that has a bunch of invited fans, to include video of the new expansion - you can either do it in a conference room or just a pre-recorded video, then a tour with your guests checking out the new content models or whatever is playable. Do some panels like you would do at blizzcon, but instead more like a video interview style.. and then do a community live Q&A at the end.


How would you do it?

[YogSoggoth]

They'll just post it on Youtube. The buy-out generated enough gossip for people to start checking about all this. Especially considering Kotick's departure from Activision. In this particular moment they don't really need to announce it with a bang, folks will tend to notice it on their own, considering all the news circulating around Blizzard.

[Puri]

I say that completely depends on how far they are in the development.

If we can expect the release in (late) summer we will probably get some some big reveals Microsoft has in store for their Blizzard IPs, then I expect some online announcment for the future of Wow, especially about the next xpac.

If they expect a release in winter and with Microsoft being a big supporter und contributor to the Gamescom I think it is fully possible they are going to give wow a big panel there, and announcing a new xpac would be a big selling point then - but that means withholding that big xpac hype almost for until september.

[Mace]

They'll just post it on Youtube. The buy-out generated enough gossip for people to start checking about all this. Especially considering Kotick's departure from Activision. In this particular moment they don't really need to announce it with a bang, folks will tend to notice it on their own, considering all the news circulating around Blizzard.

Which also makes me wonder, isn’t now the best time to announce it?


Or wait a while for a more polished state. Let the buzz die down a bit? A lot of people who would not have bothered looking at an expansion announcement would now be. Looking in

[MoanaLisa]

They wisely avoid gaming conventions because afterall, it's not a new game, and expansions do not shine anywhere near brand new games or tech - unless you are doing something really new, like an epic shift or new beginning - i know they did that for legion expansion, SWTOR did that for their KotFE relaunch - but they had commercials for that even.

Legion was announced at GamesCon in Europe. They can announce anywhere they please. People will show up.

[Gaidax]

They can always announce it as some sort of mini-event or some venue. They don't need Blizzcon and it won't be a first they do it that way.

[Khaza-R]

I think you have backwards. Expansion announcements generated interest in BlizzCon and not the other way around.

I expect it to just be revealed in a live stream. Probably with a bunch of other updates about the game moving forward.

[Seiklis]

Yea, the fact this won't be done till next year probably means they'll just do a livestream in February

If it was done now, I think they'd wait till E3 but since it's not, they'll just do a teaser with a announcement date kinda like what ESO just did.

[AngerFork]

I'm guessing we'll get a YouTube livestream maybe mid-March. That'll give the Microsoft news & Patch 9.2 both some time to breathe before revealing 10.0. Really, there's not much of a reason for Blizz to reveal it any other way at this point.

I would not be surprised to start seeing more Microsoft/Blizzard news pieces throughout the year as both companies work toward ensuring the acquisition is as smooth as possible.

[Mace]

I'm guessing we'll get a YouTube livestream maybe mid-March. That'll give the Microsoft news & Patch 9.2 both some time to breathe before revealing 10.0. Really, there's not much of a reason for Blizz to reveal it any other way at this point.

I would not be surprised to start seeing more Microsoft/Blizzard news pieces throughout the year as both companies work toward ensuring the acquisition is as smooth as possible.

I thought about that tbh, the breathing space, but on the flip s ide, the merger buzz puts blizzard in a lot more people's mind, people who wouldn't ordinarily check game news or stopped a long time ago after moving on, might be interested just enough if they had a big expansion announcement with it.

But then, it's already done, and if they were going to announce it, it would have come yesterday or should come in the next few days.

So March after it's died down, seems a bit more likely.

[czarek]

Dunno but im hunger for it

[kranur]

Depends on where they stand with it. If they're ready for a beta before summer I guess they'll just to a live stream, if not, they'll just wait till August and announce at gamescom and start beta right after the announcement.

With 9.2 not having a date set yet, the latter is quite likely at this point.

[Nyel]

PAX East is in April, they could do it there. But that would inevitably delay the 10.0 launch until next year.

[AngerFork]

I thought about that tbh, the breathing space, but on the flip s ide, the merger buzz puts blizzard in a lot more people's mind, people who wouldn't ordinarily check game news or stopped a long time ago after moving on, might be interested just enough if they had a big expansion announcement with it.

But then, it's already done, and if they were going to announce it, it would have come yesterday or should come in the next few days.

So March after it's died down, seems a bit more likely.

For sure, the merger does a lot to put Blizz in everyone's mind again & likely in a more positive light than we've seen in a while. But this is also somewhat how PR works. If you announce everything at once, you then don't have much exciting to share for a while & you get somewhat forgotten for a while. If you spread the news around a bit, it means that you can constantly get more attention as needed. It's why the NFL is consistently generating headlines all year even though they only play for around 5 months a year.

Spreading it out to March gives them three different spots of strong news for WoW that generate excitement for Q1, which will almost certainly help give 9.2 a boost. Add in a pre-order bonus and/or "tech alpha" for Q2, a release date announced at some point during Q3 & the actual expansion/pre-patch released in Q4...you've given spots of WoW news for a bunch of the year to boost headlines and/or the initial reception to 10.0.

[Maell]

Most likely they'll announce something in March. Blizz said they were cancelling Blizzconline but each individual teams would still make their announcements. The announcements will come around the time that Blizzconline would have taken place (late February). Since 9.2 is a bit delayed the announcement will be delayed as well.
I reckon 2-3 weeks after Mythic week of the new raid, since most likely the end cinematic will have story tidbits that will leads us to the new expansion, so announcing anything before that won't make much sense.

[kizcrew]

They'll post it on youtube like with Eternity's End or they'll do a livestream.

[Hastis]

They gonna announce something like whats next panel wow livestream

[Mask]

I want to see an expansion launch with no announcement at all. Servers will go down with extended maintenance on Tuesday, everyone will wonder why they are down so long, and then when you log in that evening there will be a pop up box asking if you want to buy the new expansion that just dropped.

[Maell]

I want to see an expansion launch with no announcement at all. Servers will go down with extended maintenance on Tuesday, everyone will wonder why they are down so long, and then when you log in that evening there will be a pop up box asking if you want to buy the new expansion that just dropped.

They would not do away with all that pre-order cash inflow.

[kizcrew]

I want to see an expansion launch with no announcement at all. Servers will go down with extended maintenance on Tuesday, everyone will wonder why they are down so long, and then when you log in that evening there will be a pop up box asking if you want to buy the new expansion that just dropped.

And then the page crashes cause everybody wants to buy the expansion at the same time, and nobody gets to play.