Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Skildar]

It's a good thing that they cancelled this Blizzcon, last year it was great but the announcement for WoW WS saga played a huge part in it. Though now the WS saga just has to play itself and we will for sure have Blizzcon for each expansion announcement.

Except for this last one, the last Blizzcon that was a huge show for me was the one where they release Cho'gall on Heroes of the Storm... it's been a while

[milkmustache]

Actually, as far as Blizzcon 2023 was concerned, no one gave a shit about anything beyond World of Warcraft 10th expansion and Classic+ speculation.

I could probably pull up at least 100 posts from just this forum begging to get it over with the Overwatch new hero and the Hearthsone expansion (lol) and Rumble (lol).

They have nothing to talk about for Blizzcon 2024. No one really cares about a Hearthstone expansion or a new Overwatch hero or just a WoW patch. They will return in 2025 with Midnight deep-dive and also the Midnight cinematic trailer.

This is undoubtedly the case. Blizzcon 23 was a homerun for WoW. The other things don't seem to have a fraction of the pull at the moment, so it'd be a huge loss for them I assume.

Blizzcon will be back in 2025 to showcase Midnight along with either Mists Classic (if they go that route, which who knows) or the successor of Season of Discovery.

[Ersula]

Well, they're committing to getting to the 1 year Cycle to sell boxes every year.

If that's what they were doing then there would be a Blizzcon this year, and midnight coming out second-half of 2025 instead of first-half 2026... Honestly my worse fear is them giving us expansions that could be 1 year long but stretched out to 2, like WoD.

This is undoubtedly the case. Blizzcon 23 was a homerun for WoW. The other things don't seem to have a fraction of the pull at the moment, so it'd be a huge loss for them I assume.

I hate that this is true. The actual WoW presentation was the worst they've ever had. They showed very little of what they had to present & that TWW cinematic might be the shortest they've done since TBC.

[doledippers]

i fully expect them to hold a blizzcon in 2025 to reveal midnight and the new hidden game

im honestly not sure what theyll do. if we assume that the war within launches in august / september , thatll mean Midnight is slated to launch in February or March of 2026, only 4ish months after a usual blizzcon. That's obviously not enough time to do an alpha / beta. Unless they wanna host a blizzcon in the spring / early summer of 2025, maybe

[Raetary]

i guess the last blizzcon wasn't as successful as they thought it would be.

Well yeah, they didn't even sell out last year.
And aside from wow, all their announcements fell flat.

They likely don't have anything to show that's worth a Blizzcon.
And we know its always a net loss for them, so when they can't even sell out their tickets anymore and don't have anything to market, then its not worth planning one.

[Dracullus]

i fully expect them to hold a blizzcon in 2025 to reveal midnight and the new hidden game

Probably too soon for new game unless they use stuff from survival one like with Titan->Overwatch. About Midnight, I'm not sure, if we keep DF schedule (~22 months) sure why not, if they cut it to 20 or lower, November sounds too late.

Well, they're committing to getting to the 1 year Cycle to sell boxes every year.

Ah, bullshit claims as always. Welcome back.

[Reive]

Probably too soon for new game unless they use stuff from survival one like with Titan->Overwatch. About Midnight, I'm not sure, if we keep DF schedule (~22 months) sure why not, if they cut it to 20 or lower, November sounds too late.

for midnight they could do features reveal+alpha announcement and it would not be too late

[Ersula]

Probably too soon for new game unless they use stuff from survival one like with Titan->Overwatch. About Midnight, I'm not sure, if we keep DF schedule (~22 months) sure why not, if they cut it to 20 or lower, November sounds too late.

Yeah but Dragonflight's announcement to release was even shorter than that, so it's possible. They said they "hoped" The Last Titan comes out before 2028. TWW 3rd quarter 2024, Midnight 2nd quarter 2026, TLT 4th quarter 2027 would be consistent with that. Each expansion lasting 20 months.

[milkmustache]

I hate that this is true. The actual WoW presentation was the worst they've ever had. They showed very little of what they had to present & that TWW cinematic might be the shortest they've done since TBC.

Definitely, but things with the Saga seem to be growing as they go. All of the stuff we're learning as we go along seems to reveal it's pretty fleshed out and Blizzcon/the cinematic may have been kicked in motion slightly too early, so we only got a peak.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I don't think there's any growing here I think they're trying to shrink which fair enough it makes sense for maximized profit incentives.

[Ersula]

I don't think there's any growing here I think they're trying to shrink which fair enough it makes sense for maximized profit incentives.

Has WoW honestly grown since Cataclysm? If you consider whatever we lost in WoD got put into Legion, it's been basically the same amount of content. It's new content but it's all been a very standard business plan.

"Shrinking the product for maximum profit incentives" has been what they've been doing the entirety of the Activision era.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Has WoW honestly grown since Cataclysm? If you consider whatever we lost in WoD got put into Legion, it's been basically the same amount of content. It's new content but it's all been a very standard business plan.

"Shrinking the product for maximum profit incentives" has been what they've been doing the entirety of the Activision era.

Well, seems like the monkey paw curled and Microsoft just took up the existing plans and added a bit more acceleration.

[Dracullus]

Yeah but Dragonflight's announcement to release was even shorter than that, so it's possible. They said they "hoped" The Last Titan comes out before 2028. TWW 3rd quarter 2024, Midnight 2nd quarter 2026, TLT 4th quarter 2027 would be consistent with that. Each expansion lasting 20 months.

Midnight reveal to testing period could be even shorter of course, preparations for Alpha wouldn't spoil us anything. That's why I said it would be fine if TWW will last 20-22 months.

[Nymrohd]

They likely have no new games to show. Do a Blizzcon to do what, reveal patch content for their games? At best they have the Vessel of Hatred for D4 and goodwill for D4 depends entirely on S4 pulling a miracle.

They will probably do their presentations on a Microsoft/Xbox event.

[Ersula]

Well, seems like the monkey paw curled and Microsoft just took up the existing plans and added a bit more acceleration.

I don't believe Microsoft is as evil a company as Activision was under Bobby Kotick

Skipping a Blizzcon is pretty normal for Blizzard. I think Blizzcon 2023 even exceeded expectations because they knew they weren't going to sell out post-covid, heaps of bad press & a long blizzcon hiatus. And I think (hope) the slightly-shorter expansion cadence is to show Microsoft WoW is a valuable entity by itself.

[Nymrohd]

i fully expect them to hold a blizzcon in 2025 to reveal midnight and the new hidden game

Will that hidden game even get out? And how likely is it for it to be another mobile game like Rumble?

[justwatching]

I don't believe Microsoft is as evil a company as Activision was under Bobby Kotick

They are all the same. Not evil just looking to maximize on their investment.

Anyway its not surprising. They have nothing to announce for Classic or Retail, OW is dead and D4 will have an expansion release right before.

[Ersula]

They are all the same. Not evil just looking to maximize on their investment.

I agree with your point but I also believe Bobby Kotick Activision was an entity of metaphysical evil.

[dadori]

Blizzard is basically world of warcraft company now only

[Xilurm]

They likely have no new games to show. Do a Blizzcon to do what, reveal patch content for their games? At best they have the Vessel of Hatred for D4 and goodwill for D4 depends entirely on S4 pulling a miracle.

They will probably do their presentations on a Microsoft/Xbox event.

Remember "Geek is..."?

Back in the day they used to do reveal trailers that showed some gameplay and stuff in in-game graphics, while also showing the content for the last patch for the current expansion. Then when the next Blizzcon came around, just a month or two before the expansion, they revealed the CGI cinematic. Good stuff.

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Blizzard is basically world of warcraft company now only

Maybe that's for the best? Blizzard used to do one game at a time. But when Activision got their mitts as deep as they did, they gave Blizzard more projects. They went for quantity over quality. They should just focus on one quality product at a time imo. Make sure to hire people with passion for what they're working on too, unlike the D4 devs.