Why does SL feel like end of expansion time?

[Wangming]

It's pretty obvious something major happened in development to have released an expansion with such paper-thin content and virtually nothing on the horizon but concept art. Whether it's the pandemic or something like what happened in WoD's development, it's clear that there is something very wrong with WoW/Blizzard at the moment. Hopefully they just pull a WoD 2.0 and scrap the rest of this failed expansion and focus on the next one.

I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but it can't be just the pandemic.

[NordWitcher]

I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but it can't be just the pandemic.

What else would you think contributed to it? We were always told that Blizzard were working 1 expansion ahead. So pretty sure they had some kind of plan on what they would be working on after Shadowlands and what content they would be releasing during the expansion. I mean right now they probably have a team already working on the next expansion.

[Kralljin]

My point they'll keep WoW expansions coming even down to less than a million subs is my guess. Maybe if gets to only 750k subs then they'll stop because it'll cost them money not nske money.

They'll just double down on the cashshop.

Heck, i am predicting [current tier] lootboxes in a few years if revenue stops coming in, Blizzard will obviously defend this by saying "so people will no longer have to purchase a boost from 3rd party websites".

What else would you think contributed to it? We were always told that Blizzard were working 1 expansion ahead. So pretty sure they had some kind of plan on what they would be working on after Shadowlands and what content they would be releasing during the expansion. I mean right now they probably have a team already working on the next expansion.

A skeleton crew that works out a basic concept of the expansion and perhaps from art designers.

I mean, look at SL, if we're to believe Blizzard, then the Jailer, the big bad of this expansion, wasn't even visually finalized when they announced the thing, that's why a shadowy figure was only shown.

[Zorachus]

What else would you think contributed to it? We were always told that Blizzard were working 1 expansion ahead. So pretty sure they had some kind of plan on what they would be working on after Shadowlands and what content they would be releasing during the expansion. I mean right now they probably have a team already working on the next expansion.

They start working on the next expansion, immediately after the new one gets officially released. And they say another team does early rough ideas even a year before that.

[Stardrift]

Care to engage in an actual argument instead of just smugly claiming toxicity? Oh right. You don't have a fucking argument. You just want a safe space where you and your best friends on the internet can happily jerk yourselves off about how bad Shadowlands is.

You've been on a pretty toxic crusade throughout this thread just berating and verbally attacking people you disagree with.

So far, your only argument is "I like Shadowlands and fuck you all for criticizing it". You speak of safe spaces yet there's plenty of "spaces" on this site to speak praise for Shadowlands. That, or you could make your own praise threads.

Why don't you, instead of backing yourself into corners on this thread, which was made to criticize Shadowlands btw, go do that? Seek out threads that fit your opinions of the game, or create your own? Because the only person I see here who needs a safe space is you.

Take care of yourself, man.

[Electric Lighter]

They'll just double down on the cashshop.

Heck, i am predicting [current tier] lootboxes in a few years if revenue stops coming in, Blizzard will obviously defend this by saying "so people will no longer have to purchase a boost from 3rd party websites".

A skeleton crew that works out a basic concept of the expansion and perhaps from art designers.

I mean, look at SL, if we're to believe Blizzard, then the Jailer, the big bad of this expansion, wasn't even visually finalized when they announced the thing, that's why a shadowy figure was only shown.

I assume that was the intended idea behind the token to be honest...or at least that is what it turned into. Since the token came into the game boosting went from something that was rather uncommon beyond the top guilds selling mythic to people playing the ah to something that a large part of the games player base uses.

[Stardrift]

It's pretty obvious something major happened in development to have released an expansion with such paper-thin content and virtually nothing on the horizon but concept art. Whether it's the pandemic or something like what happened in WoD's development, it's clear that there is something very wrong with WoW/Blizzard at the moment. Hopefully they just pull a WoD 2.0 and scrap the rest of this failed expansion and focus on the next one.

I would honestly forgive them if they did so. They've got some things to figure out before they continue on. I mean if ex devs are coming out and saying the WoW team's largest problem was they don't know what kind of game they want to make, then it's been glaringly obvious that that is and has been the issue for a long time now.

I don't have a link, but I know Ghostcrawler recently came out to say that in an interview not that long ago.

[Wangming]

What else would you think contributed to it? We were always told that Blizzard were working 1 expansion ahead. So pretty sure they had some kind of plan on what they would be working on after Shadowlands and what content they would be releasing during the expansion. I mean right now they probably have a team already working on the next expansion.

Dunno, but for FFXIV covid didn't cause this much of a delay even though Japan was the second country hit be covid and the dev team had to coordinate with the overseas localization teams. Hell, they had to find a new voice actress for the english team since the original died (back in 2019 but still they had to get a new one now). It caused one patch to be delayed by about a month and a half and one feature from 5.5 to be moved to 6.1. All of which was communicated to the playerbase. Now either Yoshida is much better at crisis management than Ion, or there is something else at Blizzard we don't know about. Oh and 5.3 (the delayed patch) included old world flying. And guess what? It wasn't a planned feature. The devs did it in their free time because they thought the players would like it.

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I mean, look at SL, if we're to believe Blizzard, then the Jailer, the big bad of this expansion, wasn't even visually finalized when they announced the thing, that's why a shadowy figure was only shown.

Ahh yes, that also happened. Totally forgot about that.

[arr0gance]

You've been on a pretty toxic crusade throughout this thread just berating and verbally attacking people you disagree with.

So far, your only argument is "I like Shadowlands and fuck you all for criticizing it". You speak of safe spaces yet there's plenty of "spaces" on this site to speak praise for Shadowlands. That, or you could make your own praise threads.

Why don't you, instead of backing yourself into corners on this thread, which was made to criticize Shadowlands btw, go do that? Seek out threads that fit your opinions of the game, or create your own? Because the only person I see here who needs a safe space is you.

Take care of yourself, man.

What the fuck? Are you capable of reading? You're writing in complete sentences so I assume you understand English on some level but absolutely none of the things you're accusing me of have happened in this thread. My singular contribution to this thread is an observation of the completely unconstructive and pointless nature of threads like this where people just want to give themselves meaningless platitudes for sharing the super unique opinion that the current expansion isn't up to whatever imaginary completely unachievable standards the person posting has made in their minds.

[Stardrift]

What else would you think contributed to it? We were always told that Blizzard were working 1 expansion ahead. So pretty sure they had some kind of plan on what they would be working on after Shadowlands and what content they would be releasing during the expansion. I mean right now they probably have a team already working on the next expansion.

They do have a team working on it. They already have a name for it most likely. But doesn't mean the design teams already have everything sorted.

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What the fuck? Are you capable of reading? You're writing in complete sentences so I assume you understand English on some level but absolutely none of the things you're accusing me of have happened in this thread. My singular contribution to this thread is an observation of the completely unconstructive and pointless nature of threads like this where people just want to give themselves meaningless platitudes for sharing the super unique opinion that the current expansion isn't up to whatever imaginary completely unachievable standards the person posting has made in their minds.

Like I said, go make some positive threads if you feel this stuff is "unconstructive".

[Kalivox]

The unfortunate reality of WoW is that it has no competition. The MMO market just isn't on the game dev radar anymore. Without competition the game really wont die until blizzard pulls the plug themselves or another game comes out that everyone leaves for.

That being said, it really doesn't matter how bad or good the expansions are. People will play it. Sure the numbers aren't what they used to be but it still pulls in more people than all other MMOs combined even when it is doing bad.

[arr0gance]

Like I said, go make some positive threads if you feel this stuff is "unconstructive".

I'll post wherever the fuck I want. Thanks.

[Stardrift]

If it hasnt been said, I think the reason this is feeling end of expan like right now its been 4 months since the last bit of real new content, and we will not be seeing a patch for sometime still. We havent even seen the next patch on the PTR yet. Here is hoping 9.1 hits PTR this week.

I doubt it will be this week. I'd give it another month before it hits PTR.

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I'll post wherever the fuck I want. Thanks.

Then so will the others. Even if it is "unconstructive" to you.

[Zorachus]

The unfortunate reality of WoW is that it has no competition.


That being said, it really doesn't matter how bad or good the expansions are. People will play it. Sure the numbers aren't what they used to be but it still pulls in more people than all other MMOs combined even when it is doing bad.

True.

As bad as we may think WoW is, it still has the most subs #1 by far, no other game is even remotely close to a fraction of the subs WoW still has. It will take a ton of players to leave to wake up this company, and that's just not gonna happen anytime soon, no matter how lame Shadowlands is.

[Stardrift]

For Ny'alotha, you were forced to either have your neck at 85+, or you were forced to have your cloak at about lvl 6-10 (Some required 12-15 Cloak lvls). It wasn't fun game design.

I totally skipped out on 8.3. Deleted my account over personal reasons too. Made a new one so I could just put it down whenever I wanted without feeling overly attached to it like my old account

Came back a month before 9.0, and tried out some of the 8.3 shit. It was some of the worst content this game ever had to offer.

[arr0gance]

Then so will the others. Even if it is "unconstructive" to you.

No shit, I never said they couldn't. I really don't understand the purpose of this discussion so I'm gonna tap out. Have a nice night my dude.

[TheFirstOnes]

Well you just proved what I was saying. Blizzard only cares about the money. As soon as the numbers start dropped which did happen with WOD, Blizzard will panic and make a call. I mean you have WOD repeating itself all over again here. Activity is dropping quickly all across the board. The only difference now is that you have WoW Classic to fall back on.

In a COVID environment things are going to be a lot different. Patches that usually take about 6-7 months will take longer. Are they really going to commit to working on an expansion that's bleeding subs when they would rather focus on a new expansion and try and hope to bring back players with something fresh. We've seen them do it before.

They only dipped on WoD cause they had no idea what to do with it. Also, Sub numbers have been decreasing since WoD. Doesn’t mean Blizzard’s stopped before. Legion and BFA were packed, and the subs were so bad with BFA (Or was it Legion?), Blizzard stopped counting em in their quarterly stat thing.

Also, if Blizzard did give up on SL like they did WoD, I doubt they’d be hyping the story up and future shit post SoD raid this much...

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I totally skipped out on 8.3. Deleted my account over personal reasons too. Made a new one so I could just put it down whenever I wanted without feeling overly attached to it like my old account

Came back a month before 9.0, and tried out some of the 8.3 shit. It was some of the worst content this game ever had to offer.

I got a lot of MoP vibes from SL, moreso SL PvP (MoP PVP was also a lil fucked before the balance actually peaked later on), and while I do agree that some of SL’s content could be much better, the content is not among the worst.

Be glad you skipped 8.3. It’s the worst shit ever. And Legion’s also had some shit stuff aswell.

[Kralljin]

I assume that was the intended idea behind the token to be honest.

I'm not sure if this was the intention, rather the side effect.

I agree with your analysis that the WoW token made boosting far more accessible, but looking back, remember when the WoW token was introduced?
Mid WoD, when was the last time the subs looked absolutely horrendous? Mid WoD.

If i were to speculate, then the higher ups put the gun on the chest of the WoW team and said: Get in some more revenue or bad shit will happen.

Even thinking back, the WoW token was supposed to help combat botting / goldbuying - in an expansion where any person could essentially just print gold via Garrison?
Honestly, i think the one expansion where the average player did not have any guild issues was WoD, simply because goldmaking relied on your willingless to manage the Garrison on multiple characters.

[Electric Lighter]

I'm not sure if this was the intention, rather the side effect.

I agree with your analysis that the WoW token made boosting far more accessible, but looking back, remember when the WoW token was introduced?
Mid WoD, when was the last time the subs looked absolutely horrendous? Mid WoD.

If i were to speculate, then the higher ups put the gun on the chest of the WoW team and said: Get in some more revenue or bad shit will happen.

Even thinking back, the WoW token was supposed to help combat botting / goldbuying - in an expansion where any person could essentially just print gold via Garrison?
Honestly, i think the one expansion where the average player did not have any guild issues was WoD, simply because goldmaking relied on your willingless to manage the Garrison on multiple characters.

I mean MoP too.. Depending on your class and how badly you abused potion of treasure finding you actually could acquire a lot more though it did relied on you being proactive and geared.

I don't really know about the token though. To be honest even though its made wow a free game for me since its inception along with any other blizzard product I would still rather it never existed.

[Soon-TM]

As bad as we may think WoW is, it still has the most subs #1 by far, no other game is even remotely close to a fraction of the subs WoW still has.

I wouldn't call subs into play, since 1) no one has official numbers for either WoW or its direct competition (mainly FF14 or ESO) and 2) devs have shown time and time again that they don't give a !@#$ about the number of subs, otherwise they wouldn't have designed systems like SL's which leave a sizeable portion of the playerbase out of content after a couple of months. As long as they sell mountains of tokens thanks to the widespread boosting and raid BoE's (especially in a context where PvE loot was heavily nerfed), as well as 6 months subs accompanied by some lame pet/mount/xmog, they couldn't give a flying crap about the number of subs...

...At least as long as the bleeding of players doesn't reach WoD levels, that is.