Historically, Blizzard has in one way or another countered the release of new MMORPGs by deploying new content or by announcing something. On August 28, 2012, the pre-expansion patch of Mists of Pandaria, 5.0.4, was released to counter the launch of Guild Wars 2 on the same day. And patch 4.3.0, “Hour of Twilight”, launched on November 29, 2011, close to the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Next week, on April 4, The Elder Scrolls Online will be launched worldwide. Those with 5-day Early Access will however be able to access the game servers on Sunday, March 30th at 7:00 AM EDT. We know from Chris G. Robinson, Senior Art Director at Blizzard, that a new Artcraft blog post showing the new female Dranei character model will be made available the first week of April (supposedly 1-6 April). I'm wondering if this solely will be the counter to The Elder Scrolls Online launch, or if there is more that's going to be revealed next week; some have speculated that beta may start by April 4, though nearer PAX East (starts April 11) seems more likely.
What do you think, is the Arcraft next week Blizzard's way of depluming Bethesda's/ZeniMax's first entry into the MMO realm, or is there more coming?