Year Without Content: How Would You Change The Patch Cycle?

[Deleted]

So we're in for roughly a year without new content since SoO, it seems.

Personally, this annoys and confuses me. At the start of MoP, we had a few really quick patches. I think it's safe to say that we were all quite happy and optimistic about it. It seemed like Blizzard had managed to keep their promise of faster expansion cycles after all. But here we are a year and a half into the expansions, and we ran out of content six months ago. Basically, half the expansion is without content.

Some might say that there is still content to do, and that's correct. But you've got to admit that an expansion feels like a package of lore and content. One cohesive experience where you adventure through a specific land for a specific amount of time. Everything else feels sort of out of date meanwhile. Considering we pay both for the expansion and a subscription, isn't it fair to expect regular content patches throughout the expansion?

Below, I've attached an image of WoW's patch history that I just put together. On the left side are the old expansions, and on the right side are four hypothetical patch cycles for Warlords of Draenor. Which of all these do you think would work best?

How do you think Blizzard should distribute content across an expansion, in order to minimize situations like this one?

Edit: I messed up the poll - forgot that I had a fifth WoD option. If a moderator can change "Meh" to "WoD #5", I would appreciate that.

[Chickat]

2 is best. End tier only lasts 8 months. * months is acceptable. Anything up to 9 months is acceptable for an end tier. Ideally in a perfect world it would look like this imo.

6.0 launches
Month 4 6.1 off patch
month 7 6.2 raid patch
month 11 6.3 off patch
month 14 6.4 raid patch.
month 20 pre xpac patch
Month 21 7.0
that is if they cant work faster like they said.

What I want.
6.0 drops
month 3 6.1
month 6 6.2
Month 9 6.3
month 11 6.4
month 17 7.0 pre patch
month 18 7.0

[Wrathonia]

I liked all the smaller patches in vanilla. Sure you didn't always get something for what you were doing or it was a balance patch for a class you weren't playing, but they always seemed to be adding something. Even if it was lolsand.

[Darmalus]

Why are all the WoD options weirdly uneven?

Just plan on 2 years and spread the patches out evenly.

[hrugner]

They need to drag out that honeymoon as long as possible. Nothing so regular, a long stretch of nothing then slowly increasing the pace of the patches while decreasing the content with each with the last two patches being about as long as the first one.

[Sul]

I actually like the 12 month last tier. allows my guild to complete the tier and do some heroics plus gives me time to complete things I don't have time to do during the first few patch cycles

[Al Gorefiend]

I actually like the 12 month last tier. allows my guild to complete the tier and do some heroics plus gives me time to complete things I don't have time to do during the first few patch cycles

Agree. I like that Warlords of Draenor is still a while away. Of course, I'm disappointed that Blizzard failed to uphold their promise of faster content, but I don't much want to get sucked into an expansion during the summer anyways.

[ablib]

But here we are a year and a half into the expansions, and we ran out of content six months ago.

If you ran out of content 10 days after Siege of Orgrimmar was released, nothing will satisfy you.

[Wildberry]

I actually like the 12 month last tier. allows my guild to complete the tier and do some heroics plus gives me time to complete things I don't have time to do during the first few patch cycles

If it takes 12 months to complete the tier, raiding might not be for you or your guild. I don't want to sound snarky, but that's the way it is.

OT: The only thing that sticks out as a huge problem, was the time of ToT's release. They pushed it out too quickly in my opinion. Honestly if they would have held on to it for slighter longer, SoO would have come out later as a result, thus making it not a viable contender for "Longest Raid Tier in WoW".

I don't like "Bonus End of Expansion Content" like Halion though, it seems like a waste of development time for something that isn't that great. And God knows development time must be precious at Blizzard, given their "X or a Raid Tier" excuse.

The best thing they could aim for would be:

Expansion Launch: Month 1
Small Story/Content Patch: Month 3
New Raid Tier/PvP Season: Month 6
Small Story/Content Patch: Month 9
New Raid Tier/PvP Season: Month 12
Small Story/Content Patch: Month 15
New Expansion: Month 18

Basically what they wanted to "aim for" for MoP. Only they should be realistic about it and release content accordingly.

[ablib]

If it takes 12 months to complete the tier, raiding might not be for you or your guild. I don't want to sound snarky, but that's the way it is.

No, that's definitely snarky, because that's not the way it is. The 'terrible' guild on my server hasn't even downed Garrosh yet (they're 13/14). However, they're incredibly nice, fun, well intentioned and don't have a negative bone in their body. They raid every week (once in awhile I join, if there is a spot), and they never have a bad time.

They won't down Garrosh (let alone get anything down in Heroic) until the nerfs come, but they're having fun. Raiding IS for them.

[Sylreick]

They ought to extend the second expansion raid tier by a month or two, then do the same for the last tier. It will allow them to settle for a little longer, but then the last tier won't feel like it drags on forever. This is assuming that they can designate a decently generous release date of the expansion following it. Maybe plan some final content, but try to schedule without it. Then if things run too long, drop that content on us to fill a little time (world content, not necessarily dungeon/raid stuff). Voted WoD #2, but #3 could also work.

[Count Zero]

I actually like the 12 month last tier. allows my guild to complete the tier and do some heroics plus gives me time to complete things I don't have time to do during the first few patch cycles

Twice as long as the other tiers is too much. They should have added one or two months to each of the first two tiers in MoP, so that SoO would last 2 or 3 months less (so only 9/10 months instead of a full year). Total time between xpacs is the same so the ultra hardcore are not affected. Only people it would negatively affect are those who tended to just full clear heroic like the final lockout of each raid, giving them an extra month or two each tier with no progression to be had. But that's a pretty niche audience, and even they would get to do heroic farming (to gear up for the next tier) of that final boss, so it's not all bad news.

[Spotnick]

WOTLK would have been perfect if Ulduar had lasted a little bit longer, TOC was released too early. They could have easily added bosses to TOC to make it last a little bit longer too.

We also had Onyxia and Halion added to the mix, I kind of enjoy seeing 1 boss instances added mid-patch.

[Veritus7]

I just think patches should be batshit random and unforeseen by anyone in the community to increase intrigue and mystique.

No, I seriously think they should.

[TheWindWalker]

WoD#2. But spaced differently.

Using Mists as an example:

• September 5.0.4 (T14)
• February 5.1 - Short Filler
• April 5.2 (t15)
• October 5.3 - Short Filler
• January 5.4 (T16)

Warlords coming out in September (at the earliest) is a slap in the face mostly due to the fact that we already had six months of it before finding out. Had it only been three months it would have been annoying but not nearly as bad. T14 was considered too short by just about everyone and T15 was a fairly long raid that could have kept going for quite a while. T16 fails hard on the grounds that it has so very little specific to itself, not the game in general jesus christ people, that it was really only going to keep people interested for about six months as the "not raiding content" was a month or two's worth and that's it. Unlike 5.1/5.3, there's not even previous, but relevant, dailies to keep you interested. Just a halfassed bit of freefarm content that they abandoned almost instantly after the initial nerfs to a droprate in the first week or so.

[Wildberry]

No, that's definitely snarky, because that's not the way it is. The 'terrible' guild on my server hasn't even downed Garrosh yet (they're 13/14). However, they're incredibly nice, fun, well intentioned and don't have a negative bone in their body. They raid every week (once in awhile I join, if there is a spot), and they never have a bad time.

They won't down Garrosh (let alone get anything down in Heroic) until the nerfs come, but they're having fun. Raiding IS for them.

"Having fun and being nice while sharing cupcakes" might be for them, raiding is not.

I would prefer to not have a year of Siege of Boregrimmar so that group of people can "achieve" a Garrosh normal kill....

[devilminion]

No, that's definitely snarky, because that's not the way it is. The 'terrible' guild on my server hasn't even downed Garrosh yet (they're 13/14). However, they're incredibly nice, fun, well intentioned and don't have a negative bone in their body. They raid every week (once in awhile I join, if there is a spot), and they never have a bad time.

They won't down Garrosh (let alone get anything down in Heroic) until the nerfs come, but they're having fun. Raiding IS for them.

you sound exactly like my prev guild in SwC. They killed normal lich king the week before cata hit (rofl). o, just because you and your guild sucks at raiding doesnt mean the other average and above average players need to wait 12 months for new raid tier.

[glowpipe]

they need to use less of the resources you guys pay in to make items for their greedy store. And use the money to make MORE content. New 5 mans. new raids. A new faction. Lot of shit they could have done. But insted. They charge you 15 bucks a month to play the same shit for 1 year. And use all the money to make mounts and pet they sell back to you. Making you pay double for the shit

[Apology]

Option 3 for WoD would be ideal, in my opinion. It keeps all the patches more or less evenly spaced apart time wise, which means there's less burn out and more incentive to stay subscribed (as opposed to the way it is as we speak, for instance). Seems perfect to me.

Looking at the MoP strip in your table, it really puts into perspective how badly spaced the patch cycle has been. Getting patches almost instantly after the last seemed great at the time, but in retrospect it's led to the massive drought we have now. Ideally, they needed to have both 5.0 and 5.2 last another month or two before putting out 5.1 or 5.3. They could have maybe finished all the patches internally in that hypothetical, but not released them instantly and spent the free time preparing WoD (or the patch after next, meaning they could have been done with the current expansion cycle earlier [even if wasnt released] and have been working on WoD a long time before they managed to move everyone off the in-game team to the next-expansion team).

[Mteq]

i'd pick WoD 3. release of 6.1 is too soon after 6.0 and the period from 6.3 to end is to long with WoD 2.

all other options are other degrees of longer/shorter periods between patches but not really even enough.