Mists of Pandaria Internal Alpha, NAO Invitational, Method vs Dragon Soul

[Deleted]

By far the most likely release date for MoP still is, and always has been: November 2012.All that is happening is that all the loony theories of a "Q2" or "summer" are slowly losing ground as the evidence keep stacking up that MoP still is, and always have been, on roughly the same time track as all previous expansions.LOL at the nutjobs above who still think a Q2 is possible.In one ring-corner: Those who say MoP will be out well before November (Q2 or Q3).Arguments: 1. "OMG surely Blizz can't expect us to play 4.3 for an enire year!? Surely they have learnt from BT and ICC by now???"2. "The playable stuff from MoP at last Blizzcon looked AMAZING! Surely this time they are well ahead of schedule!?"3. They must get it out or SWTOR will take all the players!!!In the other ring corner: MoP is going to be out in Q4 just as always.Refuting the arguments of the Q2/Q3 crowd:1. Yes they can. People will still come back when MoP is released, no matter if they have to wait 11 or 14 months.2. That happened all the previous times as well. It means nothing about how the totality of the MoP is on schedule, and secondly, it means less about when Blizz WANT it to be out.3. Yeah, see what happened.Arguments:A. Some time before the holiday season is STILL the best timing of the year. There is no way Blizz shareholders to allow a huge drop in MoP box sales, nor risk the bad press from an expansion that sells considerably worse than previous expansions. Perception is everything. If they lose some subscribers now, it won't be a bid deal in mainstream media compared to failed sales of MoP.B. Check the dates of EVERYTHING that has been leaking or announced for MoP, from registration of the trademark and up to the current situation of no beta in sight for several months. It is precisely on the same track as the old expansions, give or take a month.C. Blizz have D3 and SC expansion to fill the buzz of spring and summer, and they don't want to have to do everything at once. If ever there was a case FOR a Q4 release of an expansion, it is this time.Conclusion, all the talk of "this time the expansion is more imminent than everyone expects!!!!" is the kind of talk we have heard EVERY SINGLE TIME. It will not turn out to be true this time either, primarily because it wouldn't make sense for Blizz to release it any other time than Q4 (probably November).

Use some darn paragraphs if you want people to read what you're posting.
It will be fun to see what happens to the people in development/marketing teams when Wow loses two-three millions of subscriptions by November-i'm sure they'll be happy they were able to fool us into thinking MoP will be released in Q2,yy

[pzijderv]

Yeah but how many did Blizzard sucker into being stuck with their subs for that long? See a lot of people won´t have the option to leave.

how did they "sucker" anyone into the pass? it was just an option for me as far as i know, nothing was promised other then a year wow, beta mop acces, D3 and the mount. do explain the "sucker" part.

[Deleted]

They don't even have to do that. They've already got over a million suckers who are stuck paying for the game even if they don't want to play it. It only needs 1.5m subscribers to remain profitable, right?

Are you guys smoking crack?Would any company ever throw away a chunk much greater than the 50% of their revenues just so they can hold a "THIS IS HOW WE MOTHRFUCKING ROLL!!!11one!" stance?

[Deleted]

Yeah but how many did Blizzard sucker into being stuck with their subs for that long? See a lot of people won´t have the option to leave.

dont you read mmoc at all? it was in the news around 1.000.000 people....and active subscribers are around 10 times that much....

Considering the massive leaks that happened during Cata's F&F alpha, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard decided to skip that phase this time. If so, we could expect a release date around August.

Blizzard will never skip a F&F alpha....
But even if they would theyd have no time to release before december...

People thinking a nov release date are smoking crack.. There's no way gonna have dragon soul last all of spring/summer/fall .. Especially since the raid itself is smaller than even ICC. I expect prob a august release but that cutting it.

Yes it will last that long cause theres D3 and SC2:Addon 1 before MoP will be release so see you in December MoP

[bluspacecow]

I don't care about beta, I don't care about the mount and I don't care about D3. I won't miss any of them, only my money.
inb4 deal with signing up for such a deal - I wasn't aware that my financial situation should suck this hard at the moment.

Give Billing a Call :

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/contact
http://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/contact

From posts from SFA blues on the Customer Services forums Blizzard would much rather take away the benefits of the annual pass then turn away a potential customer.

IE They would rather take the mount off you , take away the free D3 and take away your beta spot in the MoP beta.... Then look into collection agencies to recover the remaining payments in the 12 month contract.

I'm sure that if you give Billing a call and you talk to them about your financial situation they'll be willing to take you off the Annual Pass.

[Bound4Earth]

So ehh, any way of getting out of this annual pass crap?

Just stop or cancel your subscription. You automatically lose all bonuses tied to the annual pass, but I imagine that a lot of people will do this. Annual pass sounded like a great idea when people thought Diablo would be release Early Q1 with MoP to follow about 6 months later, but with how slow they're moving I expect another big drop in subs before any games release this year.

I mean how can the second 1/3rd of a game take so damn long, they released Starcraft and the expansion for SC both within a year of each other and the expansion had as much content as the original game. Oh yeah that's right they had a full dev team working on one game. Now they try to juggle their development team between four games and never focus on one game. That explains why the Diablo III beta is still so broken after all this time and nowhere near release. I wish they never dissolved Blizzard North and lost most of the devs from that team. Diablo III would have been done 1-2 years ago, minimum.

At their current pace we'll get Starcraft 2 the full game released completely after 8 years with the expansion taking another 4 years for finish for a total of 12 years. It only took then maybe 3-4 years to completely develop the original Starcraft from the ground up and this time they're only copy pasting the original with better graphics and a few new very minor additions. Diablo III was announced in 2008 so they were playing with ideas a minimum for 1-2 years prior which makes a 4 year + development cycle for the game alone with the expansion taking another 2 years at this rate for a total of 6 years...How is that acceptable by any means.

Don't get me wrong I liked SC2 I just liked it better the first time I played it as Starcraft. I hope that doesn't happen with Diablo III. From what I've seen it offers the same exact experience that Torchlight. I'm hoping Blizzard has something bigger then real life money on in game items.

TLDR: I hope their skeleton development teams start gaining members so we can actually see Blizzard make some progress this year, especially with the complete and utter lack of attention and focus on WoW.

[Deleted]

Yeah but how many did Blizzard sucker into being stuck with their subs for that long? See a lot of people won´t have the option to leave.

I get a guaranteed MoP Beta access and a £30-40 game for free just for continuing to play WoW for another year.

The only so-called "suckers" here are those who continue to play WoW, buy D3 and didn't get the annual pass, really.

[atl4ntis]

something where you could log in and use new pandas stuff has been up for a while now, stop giving hype information like lol internal alpha. Jeez mmo-champ must suffer bleeding visits since wow is bleeding subs aswell.

[Eggwolls]

Just stop or cancel your subscription.

You can't cancel your subscription if you have opted into annual pass. You basically signed a contract when you signed up for it and it's not going to be broken easily. You have to contact Blizzard and give a reason that is on their list of criteria. I don't know any exact reasons off the top of my head. Some guy made a pretty decent blog about how annoying it was to cancel it though.

[Ophelos]

"Mists of Pandaria Internal Alpha Started" is misleading, since alpha stage of a game is the very start of a working title. An blizzard is much more into the dev stage, (clearing showing how far they were at blizzcon). It should be "blizzard is working on Mists of Pandaria Internal beta", so they can show the press.

[Deleted]

And thats why we had Annual Pass.

[komgcn]

Very nice movie, I really enjoyed it.Thank you Method, great job.

[TheEaterofSouls]

Blizzard doesn't need to follow the exact same beta/alpha time you know. Maybe we'll get open beta in may and then it'll get released in august. There is absolutely no set time-frame for the games development process. For all we know it could have been well underway behind our backs. But on the internet conspiracies like these are expected. :/ (It could be over half finished for all we know at this point.) And FYI you will get D3 and beta. Even if D3 doesnt come out til fall.

[Khadgerler]

Very nice movie, I really enjoyed it.Thank you Method, great job.

Great movie method...also enjoyed it.

[Deleted]

Dwarf with mug of beer totally looks like Gérard Depardieu.

[Crofford]

This is why I, personally, stopped playing WoW.

Paying my sub for more than six months with NO NEW CONTENT just wasn't, in my opinion, worth it. Especially when the content was progressively less and less.

I wish only good times to those of you who remain subbed and are enjoying the game. The content patches just weren't worth more than $100 to me any more.

[Idletime]

I didn't get why people bought into the Annual Pass. Most of you were after the mount (which you got), some felt they were going to be playing WoW anyhow (which most of you are, and obviously don't remember what the end of an expansion looks like, it's pretty damned dull), and some were after the free D3, which all added up was a zero sum game for allowing them to nail your credit card once per month.

As a person that's dealt with people who break contracts only to have them end up in collection, let this be a really good lesson for the future. If you are asked to sign up for something and commit to an annual or multi-year payment schedule for a consumer item or service, tell them NO EFFING WAY.

I personally thought the name itself was misleading, as I always felt they should have requested full payment up front rather than the opportunity to pay over time since this was going to lead to a ton of bad feelings when they didn't make good on the Q1 delivery of D3 and they were going to starve the WoW playing public for content over the next year until they released MoP. Sure you get Beta Access. Get ready to be pissed off when you're bored out of your skull with that and they wipe your realms a few times.

TL;DR: Caveat Emptor, never trust this or any gaming company when you think you know they will deliver on your schedule and not theirs.

[rickastlee]

so sad for the annual subscribers... i hope you have a lot of alts you wanna level while you wait for the Q4 release on a related note: GW2 closed beta footage looks amazing and anticipating this was the biggest reason I thought buying the annual pass lacked major foresight.

[Queen of Hamsters]

-_-'...It is really tiresome seeing adolescent know-it-alls going on about how they pity those that signed up for the annual pass, how we got "suckered" into it and how we should let this be a lesson...I have gone into contracts with breeders for dogs worth 2000 euro with breeding rights worth about 10k-15k euro per litter with average litter size accounted for, I've entered into contracts for insurance, house/apartment, cars and so on...Most adult people that signed for the annual pass, have entered contracts before without a problem at all, contracts concerning a lot more than game time. Do I really have anything to learn from someone too stupid/raged at this game/bad at economics to see that the annual pass was a good deal to some people when they try to give me a lecture? No...of course not. The very thought is just way too hilarious to fathom.Did some people sign the annual pass without giving it much thought? Sure, but they weren't suckered...they had the rules written in front of them and still signed without thinking. That's not Blizzard's fault. Just as it ain't their fault when some people grow bored/fail so hard at the game that they grow angry at it.

What's next, Blizzard getting blamed for people in general living beyond their assets?I signed up for this pass after carefully reading it (yes, actually reading it! HURR!) and simply realizing that it would benefit me. I have not felt regret even once, and despite this being the end of yet another expansion I'm enjoying myself enough to stay subscribed, just like I did at the end of WOTLK. Simple.Thinking.And.Knowing.What.You.Want is all that goes into my decision to sign that annual pass.

I'm sure the same can be said for most adults that signed, and those that are the exceptions...well, they should learn a thing or two, that's true. But again, it ain't Blizzard's fault in any way. Now, time to keep playing and shuffling and leveling and raiding and doing all the fun stuff that's fun in the game still. .

[Idletime]

Never said it was Blizz's fault Rorcanna, you made my point exactly. You're obviously someone happy with the contract, and happy with the purchase, and not part of the 14-21 year olds that are so dumb they can't read terms and requirements. Read the text of what you sign, and think ahead. I deal in contracts on a daily basis and the dumbest thing I've ever heard was "I didn't read it before signing" and even dumber are the people that didn't comprehend it. The point is, I like reading stories where people didn't read, because I hope that it teaches them for life down the road. If you live in the USA, we honor contracts here, so don't expect anyone to let you out of them.