Is a 2year development time per expansion holding Blizzard back?

[Schmilblick]

It should be a yearly expansions, especially with shitty ones like BFA that want it to end as soon as possible.

[guardian_titan]

Question seems to be more about expansions being released every 2 years, not so much the actual development. Story lines are often laid out years in advance. Blizzard likely had an idea of where Garrosh's story would go way back in TBC at least up to MoP. They knew Gul'dan's story arch from WoD to Legion (although that was more than likely a last minute WoD change). Anduin's arc they likely had mapped out years ago, too.

What's your alternative to the development cycle now? Blizzard tried to shorten it. That led to WoD with a TON of cut content. Are you talking extending the life span of an expansion to 3 years? You have to realize the attention span of most of Blizzard's player base. People grow tired of the same environments if in them too long. People were tired of orcs. People will likely soon grow tired of trolls and dinosaurs. People got tired of Pandarens pretty fast, too, as well as demons. A 3 year expansion would be potentially too long.

Blizzard has years of marketing and can use data from other companies on when to do their releases. Obviously a 2 year lifespan works for them or they would have changed it. They already tried a shorter one and failed miserably.

[Dorfadin]

TBH don't need 2000+ quests per expansion, if you boost a character your lucky to of completed 200 quests by the time your max level.

[P for Pancetta]

What you're really asking is - would moving to agile development methods (instead of the current waterfall) benefit the WoW team [1].
And in terms of velocity and feedback, the answer is of course, yes, it absolutely would. However, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Almost all commercial, "as-a-service" software has moved towards agile/DevOps methods in the past 10 years. However, games are a bit different, since most of the times, they are just one-offs with very limited product lifecycle (couple of years). That normally leads to situations where the game software architecture is not built to support such methods and even though MMOs are much closer to "as-a-service" software than other games, I suspect this wasn't considered 15-20 years ago, when WoWs development begun.

Moving to fast development pipeline would probably require re-architecturing and a lot of code refactoring. That kind of internal investment is probably out of the question at this point. Also, it's probably very hard to justify any kind of long term ROI from a move like that. It's unclear what the direct benefit of autonomous teams would be this late in the product lifecycle.

I'm generally OK with the 2-3 year loop and I understand the necessity of maintaining it due to the legacy status of the product, but where I think they suffer (a lot) is the customer feedback cycle.

The modern Internet-/gaming crowds are just not used to having 2-3 year silence between "suggested feedback" and "implemented feedback". They should really do something about that. Soon. And by "something" I don't mean more video Q&A's - those are completely rubbish sources for figuring out what feedback has been accepted to the development pipeline and what has been discarded.


[1] For anyone wondering what that means - here are two videos to explain

agile generally creates terrible and easily exploitable software, I don't think it'll work for such a vast and easily exploitable product like an MMO.

[justandulas]

I’d actually prefer they take an extra year longer to make it that much better. All their best work is when they are allowed extra time to polish it up

[Ademptio]

They have the funds to hire more people. The amount of profit they rake in is insane... They still got millions of subs just for WoW only.
They could hire more people to speed it up. But the quality remains an issue in my opinion. I love WoW, been playing it since start of TBC and it's amazing to see where we stand now. They took leaps in most departments (Graphics, Cutscenes, Quests,...) But in some ways it feels like they took some steps backwards... I am just gonna throw it out there. (Warforging, Titanforging... all the RNG stuff) turned WoW into a grindfest without any new challenge. I know Vanilla used to have grindfests also... Armor sets from raids (Praise the ppl that managed to actually get the set).
So glad they removed that part in TBC and I never had to experience it.

TBC had some grindfests also (Netherdrake) But at least you knew there was an end (calculated days and quests) Where as Titanforge gear is what... 0,001% chance per item to have the stuff you want, no fun.

So in my opnion 2 years isnt holding them back, they chose to do it. They could speed it up... they could slow it down they are in charge. And we sadly can't do anything about it but whine and cry and pray for faster releases (Hopefully improved compared to old ones, otherwise suck it up and start the countdown for next patches/expansions)

[Sondrelk]

They have the funds to hire more people. The amount of profit they rake in is insane... They still got millions of subs just for WoW only.
They could hire more people to speed it up. But the quality remains an issue in my opinion. I love WoW, been playing it since start of TBC and it's amazing to see where we stand now. They took leaps in most departments (Graphics, Cutscenes, Quests,...) But in some ways it feels like they took some steps backwards... I am just gonna throw it out there. (Warforging, Titanforging... all the RNG stuff) turned WoW into a grindfest without any new challenge. I know Vanilla used to have grindfests also... Armor sets from raids (Praise the ppl that managed to actually get the set).
So glad they removed that part in TBC and I never had to experience it.

TBC had some grindfests also (Netherdrake) But at least you knew there was an end (calculated days and quests) Where as Titanforge gear is what... 0,001% chance per item to have the stuff you want, no fun.

So in my opnion 2 years isnt holding them back, they chose to do it. They could speed it up... they could slow it down they are in charge. And we sadly can't do anything about it but whine and cry and pray for faster releases (Hopefully improved compared to old ones, otherwise suck it up and start the countdown for next patches/expansions)

Adding more people does not necesarily mean the dev time is faster. Just look at WoD, the biggest addition of devs in WoW history, and it ended up rushed and unfinished.

Much of this can be attributed to changing priorities to Legion, but still.
Cannot remember the name of the phenomenon, but there is a management theory that states that adding more people is only effective up to a point, after that adding more people an end up giving you no, or even negative productivity.

[Sansnom]

Let me just start by saying that is absolutely incredible what Blizzard can do in only 2 years of development time.
Battle for Azeroth has 2430 quests while Vanilla only had 300.
Detailed continents, tmogs, dungeons, raids, cutscenes...and somehow they find time to put smart references and hidden tricks.
Its absolutely incredible.

But, do you think a 2 year development is holding Blizzard back?

I personally think an XP takes more than 2 years. I would guess they spend at least 1 year on concepts, prototyping, etc and then once accepted, it then starts the real development using elements that are generally complete in some form from prototyping.

However, this is just my own opinion.

Secondly, the XP is build on existing tech they already have. They may adjust certain elements and add new features, but the XP is build from the ground from nothing.

[Big Thanks]

I personally think an XP takes more than 2 years. I would guess they spend at least 1 year on concepts, prototyping, etc and then once accepted, it then starts the real development using elements that are generally complete in some form from prototyping.

However, this is just my own opinion.

Secondly, the XP is build on existing tech they already have. They may adjust certain elements and add new features, but the XP is build from the ground from nothing.

I think Blizzard is too afraid to create a new expansion with less of the "standard" we so much take for granted, and more of "crazy stuff".
I would love Blizzard to try new things.

But they need to release the "standard"...and that probably eats at least 2/3's of their time...just a guess, i dont know if its 2/3's.

[Fred Skinner]

They should build an AI which creates content rather than hand crafting it. That way they could serve expansion sized content every half year.

Dynamic dungeons for solo players and groups could be another addition.

Player generated quests could be a thing. Player generated storylines.

[MoanaLisa]

I think two years for development is a problem, yes. Guessing where players might be in 2021 and starting to develop that now is certainly an issue. As others have noted the development cycle for an expansion is longer than two years. They're actively working on the next one now and starting to design the main features of the one after that. This is not a secret.

Other than that, there's nothing that we can do to fix it. It's not like the developers don't know that this is an issue.

But look at what's happened every time they've tried to go to a shorter development cycle, the famed "We'd like to do an expansion every year." That has been worse and Blizzard has rightly said they can't and won't do that any longer.

Solution: Believe in themselves, release a game that fits the broad contour of their audience, stop paying any attention to the 10% of players who do what Ion feels is "important" and pay much less attention to everyone else, release a game that they believe that can continue to be a market leader and take their lumps if they guess wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

I think Blizzard is too afraid to create a new expansion with less of the "standard" we so much take for granted, and more of "crazy stuff".
I would love Blizzard to try new things.

Garrisons were a new thing once. Island expeditions are a new thing. Warfronts are a new thing. Scenarios were a new thing.

None of them well received. Scenarios was given the benefit of the doubt and developed into something useful that is used in the game today. Who knows about the other stuff. One of Blizzard's problems is that there's plenty of new stuff in an expansion but ideas that don't work the first time out have lately been abandoned instead of improved. That's a bad idea because a lot of those ideas are fine as ideas.

BfA's content isn't that terrible in concept. Some of it needs more love and iteration for it to reach a form that people can accept.

[lolcats121]

I think Blizzard is too afraid to create a new expansion with less of the "standard" we so much take for granted, and more of "crazy stuff".
I would love Blizzard to try new things.

New things liked garrisons, artifact power, and island expeditions? I think the opposite would be better, fill the expansions with zones, quests, dungeons, and raids and only add new features if it makes sense to do so. It feels like they add things just for the sake of having a new feature to announce for each expansion, rather than because they're actually good ideas.

[Zensunni]

It is crazy that blizz puts out an xpac every two years....until you realize they must have multiple dev teams.

At this point I'm 100% convinced there are two major development groups leapfrogging xpacs at Blizz, and that it started during wrath (i.e. the new, bad team started developing cata, then the wrath team started MoP once they wrapped up wrath). This is just a conspiracy theory, and sure I'm probably wrong, but the consensus is enormous that: cata sucked, MoP was great, WoD sucked, Legion was pretty good, BfA sucks.

On a serious note though, if they'd stop abandoning good systems and constantly tinkering with new bad ones, they'd have so much more development time. Islands were a colossal waste of time, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have told you they would suck and be a flop just at the drawing board. All those development resources should have been put into an existing system that was successful in the past, i.e. BfA's dungeon design is not good and could have used a ton more early design work to make them more interesting.

[lolcats121]

What i don't understand is how they keep making features nobody likes despite having 20 years of experience making the game. I understand that nothing is ever perfect but going from WoD to Legion to BFA is giving me quality whiplash.

[Wangming]

What i don't understand is how they keep making features nobody likes despite having 20 years of experience making the game. I understand that nothing is ever perfect but going from WoD to Legion to BFA is giving me quality whiplash.

You think you don't like them but actually you do. They know what you want better than you cause they are professionals or something....

[Irian]

No. 2 years of development time is a huge amount, especially for a game that doesn't actually have to worry about a new engine and reuses a lot of assets per expansion. I'm not criticizing this, I think Blizzard is extremely good at asset reuse, but it's not like everything they make each expansion is new.

There is either mismanagement, incompetence or laziness in parts of their team other than art. You look at what other games manage to pull off - in the same genre, no less - with the same schedule and you start to see massive holes in the development schedule for WoW. Something doesn't add up.

If you only play WoW it might not be as obvious, but in two years a ton of really incredible games and expansions have been made that are far larger in scale.

[lolcats121]

There is either mismanagement, incompetence or laziness in parts of their team other than art.

All of the above probably.

[aceperson]

if blizz takes longer to make expacs, then they will need to spend even more time making content for the current expac to warrant the longer wait. it's a give and take and i don't think wows playerbase is willing to wait longer with nothing in the mean time.

[gobio]

No amount of development time can work if you let your hard work flies by people's head in 5 minutes.

Like you take your whole development team to design this cool shit. Only for 100% of the player to "literally casually" run through it in 30 minutes while every single one maybe except the tanks (not really) are watching netflix while doing it...

It is like fishing. Allow the fisherman to wait, allow the time that nothing bites, allow the chance that you hook a fish and it got away. guess what, people are still fishing. and guess what, if you magically make every attempt of fishing catches something, and each time you get +5% bigger fish magically. Fishing instantly becomes NOT A THING.

[Zandalariprelate]

They need to clean off some dusty/lazy/incompetent people they have, bobby is a good example for that.