World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Releases This Year - Pre-Orders Now Available

[chiddie]

So is it a test how dedicated the fanbase is? New Year's Eve party vs Wow expansion launch.

Imho mid December will be the logic deadline.

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Eh, your free time is not supposed to decrease as you age. That's the primary benefit of the pandemic: People are waking up to that fact.

Sure, if you want certain commitments like i.e. kids, pets, a company or even just a garden, then that takes time. But that's all free choice. Beyond that you should be left with freedom after your 40 hours per week.

Disease is another story of course, but that is not necessarily related to age, more often to bad luck or bad choices (though higher age does allow for more of both).

Unless you work somewhere in between 15 minutes from where you live AND assuming you are alone and do nothing but work and play videogames, yes, spare time stays roughly the same.

But I don’t think THAT many people are in this condition.

[Vasilisa]

Imho mid December will be the logic deadline.

True, I'm just assuming the worst case scenario that doesn't involve expansion delay.

[Lolites]

they only developing 4 new dungeons compared to 8 at the start of most expansions

thats incorrect, 8 dungeons will be there, 4 of them will be available in all mods and the other for in all but m+, but all 8 will be there...
and sure, adapting 4 dungeons to m= is some work but they have to do that anyway with the 4 "old" dungeons...

[loras]

Imho mid December will be the logic deadline.

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Unless you work somewhere in between 15 minutes from where you live AND assuming you are alone and do nothing but work and play videogames, yes, spare time stays roughly the same.

But I don’t think THAT many people are in this condition.

Why, did you live within 15 minutes from your school?
Perhaps you overeetimate how much time most kids have.

For the rest it's just tired old saying: "You make time!".
If you want to do something, make time for it, if not then don't say you have too little free time, you just chose to spend time you do have differently.

And as i said: I get it, plenty of other, better things to do. But that's your choice, own it.

[Ryzeth]

I mean even if beta started tomorrow it would be rushed for most expansions. We still have another patch in sl with that weird s4 thing.

I have to assume they are cutting corners hard. This might explain why dragon flight is launching with the least amount of dungeons and relying on retreads. I wouldn't really be shocked if like wrath they bring in an old raid tier to pad out the content...

I will wait to see beta but unless they just abandoned shadowlands I can't see how they could be on schedule.

I mean they mentioned that they started working on Legion halfway through WoD because of how much WoD flopped, and Legion was (mostly) a decent expansion, which was in beta for only 4 months before releasing. Makes sense they'd do the same with DF/SL since SL wasn't particularly stellar in a lot of people's eyes. December 30th is still "this year" - people are acting like it's releasing in like August.

[panda040]

Ok but, why did they cover Alexstraza's belly?

[Gnomesized]

So they moved the minimum system spec up to a 4 core 4th gen Intel core CPU for Dragonflight.

I have a 6 core 1st gen Intel core I7 CPU, currently runs WoW perfectly with my 1080TI video card... will Dragonflight just not run at all (are they really indicating that Dragonflight will be using the new advanced vector instructions that were only added in the 4th gen core chips?) or is that more of a "minimum recommended" spec than an absolute requirement?

Is anyone able to run Shadowlands on a CPU that's below the current minimum spec CPU of "Intel Core i5-3450 or AMD FX 8300" for example?

Thanks.

[Myradin]

IIRC if they delay past the release date they gave, they have to offer full refunds, no questions asked. If they committed to this its because they believed they can deliver.

Now, what comes out of it is very much debatable. But this is a tough promise to break.

Even if they do offer full refunds so what? Most the people would just end up re-buying it anyway.

I doubt they'd lose many people to because they pushed it back a few months.

[Swnem]

I mean... the thing IS bare bones. So, i guess it makes some sense.
We are extremely lucky they even decided to make a new class.

But, there are no more islands/warfront/visions/torghast. No new skills for every class. No mission table. So, that is a bunch of dev time cut. There are only 4 zones as well (plus a starter zone, which if it's anything like DH's is extremely short). So... it's shadow lands light in content. Which mind you, does not mean it's a bad thing. But, it's not fixing anything major either. The talents are meh and the professions are meh. Aside from the new class, this is probably the most bare bones expansion ever. But, you know... i would prefer a new class over boring extra content every expansion.

[Cayde69]

To all the people acting like they probably have the expansion really far along already.

Did you not see the expansion reveal? Tell me, how much information and how much of the expansion did they actually show us? They gave us next to nothing in terms of what the game is going to look like.

So when people are in here talking about it being rushed, you need to use your thinking cap and look at this for more than a second.

They are either going to have a ‘planned’ delay or this could be an actual disaster in terms of it not being ready for launch at all.

We don’t know anything about alpha yet, don’t even think about beta, they have shown us next to nothing at all, and now they say it’s going to come out this year.

If you knew blizzard you would know they hype every single moment of their progression. Like when classic was being released they hype the hell out of alpha, they hype the hell out of beta, they hype the hell out of raid testing, you see their progress all along.

And you’re going to sit here and think that now blizzard is turning the tide and randomly going to keep quiet about this massive progress they have made on their new expansion and now are choosing to be mysteriously quiet about it?

Please

[Traveler Voltin]

idiots. this will be rushed trash.
wtf happened to taking your time with one?

[rrayy]

Far too soon. There's no indication alpha has started yet, and I would be extremely concerned with a beta period that lasts less than 4-5 months. I know they want to exit Shadowlands as quickly as possible, but the answer for that isn't launching another buggy, unfinished expansion.

There is an internal alpha going on.

[RobertMugabe]

To all the people acting like they probably have the expansion really far along already.

Did you not see the expansion reveal? Tell me, how much information and how much of the expansion did they actually show us? They gave us next to nothing in terms of what the game is going to look like.

So when people are in here talking about it being rushed, you need to use your thinking cap and look at this for more than a second.

They are either going to have a ‘planned’ delay or this could be an actual disaster in terms of it not being ready for launch at all.

We don’t know anything about alpha yet, don’t even think about beta, they have shown us next to nothing at all, and now they say it’s going to come out this year.

If you knew blizzard you would know they hype every single moment of their progression. Like when classic was being released they hype the hell out of alpha, they hype the hell out of beta, they hype the hell out of raid testing, you see their progress all along.

And you’re going to sit here and think that now blizzard is turning the tide and randomly going to keep quiet about this massive progress they have made on their new expansion and now are choosing to be mysteriously quiet about it?

Please

When the Legion Alpha first launched, pretty much everything besides Suramar was more or less done and available for testing within weeks. Same with BfA, except for the Azerite system and Boralus. Likewise, SL was also mostly finishes right away besides the covenant system.

In each of these cases they've also shown little about the story, the content etc. but instead talked a lot about those systems they were implementing. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if alpha launched very soon and all of the content gets unlocked within the next month or two.

It's not like any alpha/beta so far has lead to massive changes or new large additions anyways. All of the designs and things they make are pretty much decided and made before being publicly available. Alphas/Betas are meant for fixing bugs and tuning stuff, it's not a process where the community assists Blizzard to make stuff.

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There is an internal alpha going on.

Yeah, there have been encrypted 10.0 builds available on their public CDN for months now

[Cayde69]

When the Legion Alpha first launched, pretty much everything besides Suramar was more or less done and available for testing within weeks. Same with BfA, except for the Azerite system and Boralus. Likewise, SL was also mostly finishes right away besides the covenant system.

In each of these cases they've also shown little about the story, the content etc. but instead talked a lot about those systems they were implementing. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if alpha launched very soon and all of the content gets unlocked within the next month or two.

And for legion it took ~6 months of alpha testing to enter the beta testing. Just because they have the assets and the world finished doesn’t mean it’s ‘finished’ shit needs tested.

Also I wouldn’t be ‘aiming’ for a BFA release. That’s not something you should be aiming for at all. BfA was rushed too and they completely ignored any and all issues the systems had during beta. If dragonflight ends up like BfA then it IS rushed and that’s not a good thing.

[rrayy]

To all the people acting like they probably have the expansion really far along already.

Did you not see the expansion reveal? Tell me, how much information and how much of the expansion did they actually show us? They gave us next to nothing in terms of what the game is going to look like.

So when people are in here talking about it being rushed, you need to use your thinking cap and look at this for more than a second.

They are either going to have a ‘planned’ delay or this could be an actual disaster in terms of it not being ready for launch at all.

We don’t know anything about alpha yet, don’t even think about beta, they have shown us next to nothing at all, and now they say it’s going to come out this year.

If you knew blizzard you would know they hype every single moment of their progression. Like when classic was being released they hype the hell out of alpha, they hype the hell out of beta, they hype the hell out of raid testing, you see their progress all along.

And you’re going to sit here and think that now blizzard is turning the tide and randomly going to keep quiet about this massive progress they have made on their new expansion and now are choosing to be mysteriously quiet about it?



Please

they have shown next to nothing, but you are making grand declarations as facts anyway?

1. You have no clue where they are in development.

2. he reveal is usually done in November the year before the release at BLizzcon. The announcement was 5 months after that since they did not have a Blizzcon. So they should be 5 months further along than they normally are
.
3. They usually show off what they have with the playable demo, not during the announcement itself. Since there was no Blizzcon, there was zero reason to have a playable demo.

4.And this goes back to #1, your either or proposition is not guaranteed. You can every easily have the 3rd option which is a release like the others.

5. There is not set rule for how long Alpha and beta last. YOu can easily have a short alpha and go right into beta. It is all one big testing process and the terms are basically to represent where they are in testing. A 6 month testing process is 6 months whether alpha is 1 month and beta 5 months, or alpha is 3 months and beta is 6 months. It is all fluid.

You don't have any answers, so stop acting like you have all of them.

[Tiwack]

idiots. this will be rushed trash.
wtf happened to taking your time with one?

Obviously the beancounters are in charge and don't care/understand their own product/audience.

[rrayy]

In each of these cases they've also shown little about the story, the content etc. but instead talked a lot about those systems they were implementing. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if alpha launched very soon and all of the content gets unlocked within the next month or two.

Also note that at Blizzcon they would have a playable demo, which was how they were "showing what they have so far". There was no Blizzcon this time, so there was no playable demo.

[Swnem]

Everyone is upset its "rushed" with zero evidence to that, yet no one bats an eye at the fact they're raising the price $10 and giving less than any other expansion ever?

Yup. I noticed that too.

[Cayde69]

they have shown next to nothing, but you are making grand declarations as facts anyway?

1. You have no clue where they are in development.

2. he reveal is usually done in November the year before the release at BLizzcon. The announcement was 5 months after that since they did not have a Blizzcon. So they should be 5 months further along than they normally are
.
3. They usually show off what they have with the playable demo, not during the announcement itself. Since there was no Blizzcon, there was zero reason to have a playable demo.

4.And this goes back to #1, your either or proposition is not guaranteed. You can every easily have the 3rd option which is a release like the others.

5. There is not set rule for how long Alpha and beta last. YOu can easily have a short alpha and go right into beta. It is all one big testing process and the terms are basically to represent where they are in testing. A 6 month testing process is 6 months whether alpha is 1 month and beta 5 months, or alpha is 3 months and beta is 6 months. It is all fluid.

You don't have any answers, so stop acting like you have all of them.

Okay clearly, I don’t have any answers. I’m telling you what I think. If you believe I was making a conclusion set in stone then you may need to work on your critical thinking skills.

Based on how blizzard handles expansions, through the examples I just gave, this is the conclusion I came to. I was saying this because people are all acting like they could be light years ahead of schedule or way ahead of where we think they are, and I listed reasons why this wouldn’t make any sense considering how blizzard normally handles expansions.

If you want to believe blizzard is doing an unprecedented move of just randomly keeping quiet about everything involved in the expansion, you go right ahead.

[rrayy]

Okay clearly, I don’t have any answers. I’m telling you what I think. If you believe I was making a conclusion set in stone then you may need to work on your critical thinking skills.

Based on how blizzard handles expansions, through the examples I just gave, this is the conclusion I came to. I was saying this because people are all acting like they could be light years ahead of schedule or way ahead of where we think they are, and I listed reasons why this wouldn’t make any sense considering how blizzard normally handles expansions.

If you want to believe blizzard is doing an unprecedented move of just randomly keeping quiet about everything involved in the expansion, you go right ahead.

Please, you were literally talking down to people who think the expansion is far along,implied they were wrong and then staed how things really are. ANd now you just did it again. You are literally implying that you are right and everyone that disagrees with you is wrong,

These are different times. As I stated before, there was no BLizzcon and therefore they could not have a palyable demo to "show you what they have so far". I also told you, which you ignored, the fact that they normally announce these things at Blizzcon in November, which did not happen this time. Until alpha starts, all yuo got was the playable demo and the announcement.

The people who think they are far ahead on development have an opinion that is just as valid as yours. Stop acting like theirs does not count and that only yours does.