Well done blizzard.
Those are words I do not often get to say this expansion. It was very important, in my opinion, for blizzard to announce the new expansion at gamescon. If they had not done so and waited for blizzcon to do so instead than that could have meant they were behind on development again. After the long drought at the end of mists and a rather lack luster and fairly poorly received warlords being on top of things, or at least giving the appearance of being on top of things was very important for blizzard and the health of warcraft as a whole.
I will still say cataclysm was their worst expansion to date but warlords gave it a run for its money. In truth, it if were not for the fact I had so much dislike for cataclysm I could say warlords is worse. It gave us less to do and cost us more. That alone should rank it lower than cataclysm in the ranks. But there is one thing that can save warlords from taking that space from cataclysm as the worst expansion and that is if it does not last very long.
Perhaps with the announcement of the new expansion at gamescon that might mean that we will not be spending over a year in one raid. It still seems rather unlikely that will happen however, and that could push warlords past cataclysm on my worst warcraft expansion list if it does happen.
In the past blizzard usually releases the new expansion near a year after its announcement. If it is announced next week than that means, unless they really are developing faster like they keep promising they are trying to do, that we will have hellfire for over a year, like it or not.
Either way, it is a much better thing for us at players to see it announced at gamescon. This means that at blizzcon there will be a lot of work already done and probably beta will being at that point. We should also have a better feel for what the expansion will look like from there. Unlike what was announced at blizzcon for warlords and so much was changed, they will already be deeper into work on it when blizzcon comes around this time so perhaps they will give us a more accurate assessment of what we will end up with.
I hope that blizzard plays it right this time around, even just using certain wording so it does not appear as a "promise" to people. Like they said they were "promised" the capital cities that never happened for example.
With the announcement at gamescon and three months development time, on top of however far along they are already on it, when we see a full flesh out at blizzcon it should be a better representation of what we will end up with than the warlords presentation was.
I think the smartest move on blizzards part was the ditch the idea that warcraft can only be announced at blizzcon and instead they are announcing it when it should be announced instead of trying to stretch it out to fit their own convention schedule.
To that I say, well done blizzard, well done.
Now let the rumors begin. If you read here often, you already know what I think it coming, and I will be playing a shadow hunter (even if I think it should just be a 4th hunter spec instead).
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I hope the release date will be February - April. Otherwise people just won't last in Tanaan that long, because in a month or two even many-alt players who play lazily in the evenings (like me) will have all the things done in Draenor. Even for LFR-only players like me 1-2 months will be enough to get all loot from him. Which leaves us coming to Blizzcon with COMPLETED Draenor. Hey, Blizzard. A year ago you gave us Draenor and now we come to report our results: "Everything" (pronounced with Gul'dan's voice).
ReplyDeleteIf it really is a Sea expansion (which is more likely, people will not go to yet another planet with draenei and legion), there won't be too much work to do. Pirates, vrykul, murloc, naga, crab people - recolored and enhanced. So I hope they focus on zones and storylines and 110+ content again, CAREFULLY studying current feedback. Raid team works top notch this expansion, so I don't expect any evil mischiefs from them.
I hope they study the feedback too, and do not just read the titles, but entire posts. The last thing we need is them doing their standard knee jerk reaction to things again.
DeleteI am thinking March or June, at best. Beta at blizzcon. Notice march and june are both end of quarter months, they will always try to release close to them if able for the earning boost.
I think beta can begin no later than Blizzcon if Blizzard has any hope of stemming the tide against WoW. A year in Tanaan and Hellfire will continue the mass exit of subscribers, flying or not. Game release needs to be out by February.
DeleteDo I think that will happen? No. History is not on their side.
I will also add the obvious that whenever it releases, it had better be polished and complete. If we get another WoD released Beta with updates as features, WoW will continue to implode.
People can say the relative importance of WoW is dropping at Blizzard. Perhaps so, but this is still their golden goose. Why on earth would you want to turn that gold to lead?
Even if the beta hits at blizzcon we will have a year or T2 and HFC. That is a forgone conclusion unless they really have something up their sleeves, which is possible but unlikely.
DeleteBlizzard has never been one for quick releases. I would rather them take their time and make a good game than rush it and have another WoD if I had the option.
So the real question is, do you think blizzard is still capable of making a good warcraft game?
I do not think blizzard will abandon it, not any time soon at least, but I do think that they are not going to give it the full court press any longer, they have other games, they do not have to. So they will try to coast on making it with as little effort as possible. It is a business move, nothing more.
Congrats on forecalling it quite some time ago. I only made my prediction a few days ago after all.
ReplyDeleteStill my bet is on "PTR opens at Blizzcon", and a half finished version will be available for Christmas. We'll get 2 updates - one delivering the content promised at Blizzcon for launch, another one added later called "Mite Island" were we will be fighting lot's of bugs.
If it's really water based a lot rehashing will be done wherever Nagas currently are - using phasing. So expect to relive parts of the old world and TBC. We'll also spend a lot of time on a ship playing Farmwille, just on a smaller scale but with more micromanaging.
Naturally there must be some complete rehashing of characters, more ability pruning.
And just maybe - Shadowhunter will be a SPEC with a twist. I could see Blizz starting to give every class a 4th spec, that is only open to you AFTER you leveled one character completely in this spec to 100.
Rauxis, chosen of CAT
It only seemed logically, but sometimes blizzard really does not do the logical thing so I was taking a little risk. I figured it had to be announced at gamescon.
DeleteDon't all blizzard releases have their mite island zone where we fight bugs? :P
The ships would be interesting. Having us not being able to fly from island patch to island patch because of fatigue, so we need ships to go back and forth.
Being able to mod our ships, build things in our ships, things like that, could be really cool. As long as they do not make it like garrisons were we felt like we needed to log into all of our characters every day.
I expect abilities to be pruned further. Arms warriors will only be able to mortal strike now. Four months into the beta, charge will be worked into their rotation. Survival hunters will have all their damage baked into their autoshot because focus and abilities are confusing for new players.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, wow has been decreasing in importance dramatically at Blizzard. This announcement shows 1) that other, more important, games will be showcased at Blizz con, 2) WoD is broken and only early announcement of a new expansion will save the brand, and 3) the European market is more important to wow than the US
I doubt EU vs US thing. Most EU forum sections have never been commented on by a blue since they were created. Things may have shifted though.
DeleteThey do not need any pruning, but that does not mean it will not happen. So I could see that even if it is not needed.
DeleteWow is very low on the priority scale now. As an industry expert said, they can make 10 times more with hearthstone for one tenth of the effort. Things like that and other newer endeavors make wow a thing of the past. Why work so hard to make warcraft, and it is a lot of work, don't doubt that, when you can make more money easier.
I agree with James, the US market is their focus, not because of some sort of favoritism or anything, but that is where the company is based.
As of right now, I'm kind of ambivalent about the next expansion.
ReplyDeleteI know for sure that I will not pre-purchase it unless something major changes. I've really lost a lot of faith/interest in the direction Blizzard is taking WoW.
Or maybe I'm just coming to realize how much I've changed relative to the game. I feel like I talk a lot about what I don't like about the game but I do still really enjoy it over all. Although this expansion has changed that some.
I think once Pathfinder is done (very soon) and flying drops, I'll probably feel better. I'll free freer in Draenor and I'll go back to playing my various alts instead of dedicating my limited time to just one or two.
I also don't like getting excited about the next expansion when I haven't even finished this one yet. I'm not asking them to slow down for me, I know that i am in the minority of wanting slower patches and expansions. But I haven't gotten to the last raid in LFR yet nor have I really explored the story of this expansion enough yet. So I'm still focused here.
It's nothing new for me, but just makes it hard to want to think about the next one.
I'm sure you've got a post about it somewhere, but why is Cataclysm your worst expansion? I wouldn't say it was my favorite, and perhaps pre-WoD it was my least favorite, but WoD currently keeps the crown for me.
I would really have one question for them if I could ask, and that would be the most important thing for me. Will the new expansion have repeatability?
DeleteAs in the rares were once and done, the treasures were once and done, the bonus objectives were once and done, there were no dailies for repeated game play, there was no valor to make repeating dungeons worth it, etc.
They need to add repeatability into the game or the game is not really worth playing more than once. Without repeatability it is like a single player console game. Play until you kill the last boss and stop. And with LFR that is not even hard any more if you are willing to stop there.
You are not in the minority wanting things slower. Well, to some extent. I think they released BRF too soon and I think they released HFC too soon. And soon when we sit around for a year with nothing maybe some people would agree with me. But delaying BRF 2 months and HRC 2 months would mean only 8 months of wait, which would be better. Blizzard, once again, did a piss poor job with spacing things out in my opinion.
I did not think cataclysm was made in the best interest of the game. If I had to pin it on one thing it was the fact that cataclysm destroyed the continuity of the game.
Before cataclysm when you were leveling an alt, or for a new player the first time, as you leveled you went through the history of the game from vanilla to BC to wrath, it was one fluid motion. When cataclysm came out it ruined the entire leveling process.
In cataclysm it was like this, you level in current time, go to the far past for BC, the somewhat not as far past to wrath and then catch up to current. Now it is you start in the past, go further into the past, then a little closer, than back to a past you have already been to, and then things start going smooth again.
So that is why cataclysm was the worst expansion ever. It ruined the flow of the game. They could have redesigned the old world and not destroyed the story of it. But they didn't. They made a conscious decision to make the entire story process disjointed. And that is a sin I can never forget.
Not to mention removing some of the best quests lines in the history of the game because of it. The level 60 epic quests line for hunters, priests, mages, the scepter of the shifting sands, the warlock mount quest, the paladin mount quest, etc... and all for what? No reason.
That is why I hate it.
@Grumpy
DeleteThat is a very fair criticism of Cataclysm and I generally agree.
I didn't like where they took the stories at times and I didn't like losing some of my favorite old areas. But I did appreciate what they were trying to do and so I guess I give it some leeway.
But you are right about the unacknowledged time-travel that is essentially going on. I'm not sure how they could have managed it to be honest.
For me though, it is still WoD but as this discussion continues I'm beginning to wonder how much is the game, how much is me, and perhaps most importantly, how much is due to the flying fiasco. Not simply the lack of flight but Blizzard's handling of it and the toxicity it brought out in the community.
I would have liked to see them fix it all up, add flight like they did. Maybe even kill off a few of those orphan quests that do not lead anywhere any more but that is about it.
DeleteThey should have left the timeline in tact in my opinion and unless warlords does something else really bad, or lasts really long, I don't think warlords could pass cataclysm for the damage it has done to the game in my person opinion. But it is really "thisclose" between the two.
If we are judging these by the way the two expansions where handled through their respective representatives, it is a different story.
In that case, warlords is 10 times worse than cataclysm could ever have been. The flying issue alone shows that. It was handled so poorly.
I feel like people looking for a south seas type of expansion are going to be disappointed. Since MoP was announced, it's become clear that Blizzard are going out of their way to try the most outlandish concepts, probably just to see what the player base reactions will be. South seas/Naga makes too much sense, frankly. I was trying to come up with another idea that was equally strange to the Pandaren and Time Travel Expacs (note: I actually loved Pandaria, not a hater, but it was an odd choice) and what popped into my head was the following:
ReplyDeleteBlizz admits to orc burnout among their customers and also notes the lack of Troll related content during WoD. To compensate, in true Blizz tradition, the new expansion will be all Trolls, all the time. This new "Troll Expansion" won't be on Azeroth though, it will be on its Moon. Specifically, we will travel to the dark side of the moon and find the Proto-Troll Empire from which the Zandalari and all other trolls descended. The origins of the Trolls and also the Night Elfs (who have long been rumored to be descendents of trolls), as well as their connection to (and the nature of) Elune will be explored. They will call it "World of Warcraft: Dark of Elune".
All firmly tongue in cheek, of course, but I think it's still a less stupid idea than what we got in WoD.
Remember one thing, blizzard is a pendulum and it swings too far in every direction. We went from too many dailies to none, for example.
DeleteSo while they were doing outlandish and crazy stuff, they saw people hated it in record amounts, so they will swing too far in the other direction and make a logical next step expansion next. Because, after all, that is their pattern.
Or at least that is a possibility.
As for the south seas expansion, it is a troll expansion. So that solves that problem. ;)
Your idea does sound like something blizzard might think up. Would make for a humorous dungeon if blizzard ever wanted to have some fun with some crazy stories. Then again, I kept saying WoD should have been a raid in the caverns of time, not an expansion, and I was off there too. They made it.
I figure south seas would be focused primarily around trolls (Zandalar) and naga (Azshara & Nazjatar), possibly with some more goblin stuff as well (Tel'abim?). All are currently under served by the lore and would be a nice change from orcs, orcs and m'orcs.
DeleteI think I would like some m'orcs, they could all be like mork from mork and mindy and we can get flying eggs to travel in.
DeleteSorry, could not resist.
Yeah, that is what it would be mostly.
Nanu nanu.
DeleteThe lunatic is on the grass.
DeleteThe lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.
-roo
Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:
ReplyDeleteWell, the announcement has been rumored to occur at the Gamescon event, so that part is not really a surprise or at least a total shock. To be honest, an announcement there does make it seem like they are trying to keep to the quicker release schedule. Beta announced at Blizzcon now seems to be the default assumption but I suppose it could be +/- a month or two, so anywhere from September to January.
Unlike some, I have no inside scoop on any possible content and storyline, but I do have the ability to make a prognostication. The longer the delay between the announcement at Gamescon and the start of the Beta, the better things may be in the next expansion. An early beta would indicate that Blizzard is happy with whatever little they have tossed together to make an expansion pack. A later beta possibly the opposite. Possibly.
I want to have faith that Blizzard will make something worth having, but to be frank, I don't. Or rather hope has been tattered one time to many and is rather much a tenuous matter. I do recall having that faith that a product from Blizzard could be trusted to be playable right out of the box and that even if I didn't agree with all the design decisions, I could still get immense amounts of entertainment from the game.
For me, the height of the game was the Wrath/Cata time period. WoD has not been as abject a failure to me as it has to most, but that is because I am so slow in consuming content. At the rate I am going, I may maybe finish the Pathfinder achievement by the time the next expansion comes out, or not. I am pretty sure those reps are going to be a problem for me. Also I still need to find another 25 treasures or so.
On the other hand, because I was so burnt out on the game, MoP was my least favorite expansion. I only had one toon reach 90 before the thing was nearly over and done, where as I had nearly as many 85s as you, Grumpy. Now as I fly various characters around Pandaria, I think the area beautiful and the quests seem like fun...now, but not so much when it was current. Again, that was the burnout at play.
If the raid or die continues, I may well not be inclined to purchase the expansion. As it is, I will probably wait at least a few days before purchasing a copy for either of my accounts. If reports come in that it is raid or die again, and the RNG is still king with no viable alternative to gearing up, I am thinking level 100 is a good enough stopping point.
It looks like they are trying to keep to faster releases, but they won't. Their track record is too spotty, so I do not expect it. I won't even consider it a possibility until they prove me wrong a few times and prove they can release stuff, decent stuff, in a timely manner.
DeleteIf the raid or die continues, it will kill the game. The game has been steadily losing customers ever since they introduced it in mists (with the exception of the new expansion release) and it continues to do so. Raid or die will, if anything can, kill the game. It needs to change for the over all health of the game. As soon as blizzard changes it then the game can start healing again and maybe even start growing.
@Anon
DeleteI think that burn out that you are talking about might be what I'm struggling with. I would prefer not to quit the game to cope with it but rather find a new (or old) way to play the game that allows me to return to a better place with it.
@Grumpy
I would really love to hear how raid or die is good for the game. I'm very much a fact/data based person. I may hate something but if you can prove to me, yup, this is actually a good thing, I will probably (grudgingly) support it.
I know they never will, but I would love for Blizzard to come out and say, when we have raid or die these 10 good things happen and it improves the game over all. When we remove raid or die, these 5 very serious things happen and it hurts the game. Then I could admit, yup, raid-or-die is good and as much as I hate it, it allows me to play this game.
But they'll never do that. To be fair, I'm not sure most companies would but i think being open and honest with your customers ultimately helps. Especially when you are telling them why they are wrong. That's been the problem. They keep telling us we are wrong (flying is bad!) we push back with examples (no, flying can be good, here's how) and then they just go "nope".
@Casually Odd
DeleteI am not the person to talk about taking a break because even when I take a break I still log on to raid. But for what little it is worth, changing your play pattern is a great way to take a break without actually taking time away from the game.
Blizzard has a lot of spin doctors working for them. I am sure how they can turn the constant loss of subscribers to be a positive thing. The constant complains about RNG based gear to be a positive thing. The nearly (rumored) 1 million subs they lost right after the announcement into a positive spin.
With all that said, I am sure in their mind the raid or die mentality is the best thing that ever happened to the game. Even if someone could supply "facts" that shows it has hurt the game they would just spin them into the standard "you do not know what goes on in the background" argument that they love to fall back on. They have used it often when people throw facts at them.
Naga? Trolls? zzzzzzzz I don't think I will be super excited for this. I may buy it to play thru the leveling content and story but I can't see myself joining a raid team or caring like I used too.
ReplyDeleteFF14 update they released a new top teir set with weapons included that I can buy with valor If you raid the mythic equivalent raid you can get items to upgrade these items into a 10 Ilevel higher item I love this model!
If the leveling was as good as it was in draenor it will be nice to at least do that, in my opinion. I really liked the flow of leveling on draenor. It is the best thing of the whole expansion in my opinion.
DeleteFF14 seems like it really had the right idea. That gearing model sounds perfect if you ask me.
I am going to go ahead and disagree with you there Grumpy.... yeeeeeah. ;-) Honestly, I am shocked that the expansion reveal is happening at Gamescon and not Blizzcon. That just seems wrong IMO. But, like you said it will give them time to develop more and have more to show at Blizzcon, but it still bothers me that it's not being announced at Blizzcon - and instead being announced in BFE (Germany) and further incensing me with the final line in the press release, "We hope to see you there!" Sure... let me just jump on my private jet and head your way. And, thanks for the advanced notice giving everyone ample time to make arrangements to attend. (/sarcasm)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, like you said, the plus side means we should see a beta sooner rather than later and be able to get a better idea of what it will be and how it will play out.
WoD had it's pluses and minuses - more of a disappointment to me than Cata was. But here's where I draw my line in the sand: I don't ever want to see a two Tier expansion again... EVAAAR!! Anything less than three Tiers is a waste of time and money IMO. HM and BRF were too short and AGAIN... last Tier... HFC... will be too long. It's like they couldn't strike that perfect balanced release schedule to save their life.
If they waited until blizzcon, based on past history, that would mean we would not get an expansion until at least 3rd quarter 2016, which would mean we are once again stuck in a single patch for an obscene amount of time. It will still be bad even with this announcement, but at least this means the possibility for a first quarter release and at worst a more likely second quarter release. That is why I think it is a good thing.
DeleteI agree, even more so with the increased cost of the the expansion. We should get more out of it, not less. Three tier should be the minimum for an expansion. I too hope to never see a two tier expansion again.
They should have delayed BRF two months and HFC two months, it would have given more time for the previous raids of each and it would have shortened the ending drought we will end up having. I wonder how they can make the same mistake twice in a row. Rushing out the raids last expansion is why they ended up with such a long drought. I would have thought they learned, but apparently you can not teach this old dog new tricks.
Exactly! That 4 month (in total) delay to HFC would have struck a pretty good balance to the raid release schedule. My guild had finished clearing Heroic BRF for about three weeks and had a few pulls on Mythic Beastlord, and then HFC dropped. We are by no means slow at downing content, but we are also not flying through it either - so I can only imagine the frustration of more casual guilds or guilds with fewer days devoted to raiding.
DeleteI think MoP was the closest to exactly what I would like to see with the exception that ToT should have lasted another 3 to 4 months (IMO). Had ToT been current, longer, I think MoP would have been nearly the perfect raid release schedule (with the expansion released 3 months earlier than it was).
It is amazing that as an outsider looking it I, and you and others, can see that delaying 2 months would have been better, but within a company filled with people who are supposed to know better no one else realized it. There is no excuse for it. Even more so being they have no intention of adding another patch. So they knew, well ahead of time, this was it. So delaying it would have actually made it last longer and made it not seem as long. I sometimes wonder who is running the place over there, the marx brothers?
DeleteMy guild, as a casual one, was on BH heroic, we never got to kill it. Normally we would clear normal (now heroic) and be dabbling or half way through heroic (now mythic) when a next patch was released. This expansion we are so way behind. Sad part is, we are (yes bad) top 5000 still, and we are WAY WAY behind our normal progression. So imagine what all the other guilds are feeling if we are doing this poorly and rank that high. As bad as we are doing we should not even be top 30,000.
MoP with the staggered release at the start seemed wrong and made it feel like those raids did not last long enough, because of course you move to the one with the higher gear and the tier stuff. They should never do different item levels in opening raids again. Bad idea, horrible idea. But yes, ToT was out a fair amount of time. SoO, well we all know that story. But they could have delayed ToT a few months and then SoO a few months, and it would not have hurt it and it would have made SoO not seem as bad as it was, time wise.
GE says - But there is one thing that can save warlords from taking that space from cataclysm as the worst expansion and that is if it does not last very long.
ReplyDeleteOk, what is it? I'll tell you what it is - where's the fookin' flying?!?
-roo
Flying will be out soon, as in some times in august most likely.
DeleteAs it works out, by the time flying comes most of the reasons people wanted it to begin with will be done. Sure it will still be a great thing to have, but it should have been in at release.
as usual, you are probably 99.99% correct. Don't you hate being right that much of the time? :D
DeleteSadly, being pessimistic and right just makes me even more pessimistic.
Delete've been wondering, why Cataclysm is thought to be the worst expansion?
ReplyDeleteI've quitted WoW during Wrath, when I was 76 lv due to laptop downgrade. Cataclysm trailers made me return and start from scratch, cause I wanted to punish the assholes who destroyed Loch Modan.
There was a great reboot of questlines throughout continents, 5 unique zones with amazing plots, flights in the old world, cool dungeons and a dungeon-bridge to raids which also told a great story. I had some fun at Hyjal, pushing druids into Ragnaros domain - that was hell of a daily perfection, opening new zones and perks as you gained some reputation. I completed the raids only at my lv 100, but it was awesome and I guess how cool they were as a current content. I've played Cataclysm March-September when Pandari was launched, but it was an amazing experience.
Was it a long gap with playing the same raids? Because this expansion is really cool imo.
I will cut and paste from a reply about it I made to someone else here.
Delete"I did not think cataclysm was made in the best interest of the game. If I had to pin it on one thing it was the fact that cataclysm destroyed the continuity of the game.
Before cataclysm when you were leveling an alt, or for a new player the first time, as you leveled you went through the history of the game from vanilla to BC to wrath, it was one fluid motion. When cataclysm came out it ruined the entire leveling process.
In cataclysm it was like this, you level in current time, go to the far past for BC, the somewhat not as far past to wrath and then catch up to current. Now it is you start in the past, go further into the past, then a little closer, than back to a past you have already been to, and then things start going smooth again.
So that is why cataclysm was the worst expansion ever. It ruined the flow of the game. They could have redesigned the old world and not destroyed the story of it. But they didn't. They made a conscious decision to make the entire story process disjointed. And that is a sin I can never forget.
Not to mention removing some of the best quests lines in the history of the game because of it. The level 60 epic quests line for hunters, priests, mages, the scepter of the shifting sands, the warlock mount quest, the paladin mount quest, etc... and all for what? No reason.
That is why I hate it."
Well Blizzard is posting its Quarterly earnings on August 4th and is rumored to have profits 120% beyond expectations. I am expecting that this is coming in the form of other games and “account services”, not monthly subscriptions. There is a couple of ways to look at releasing this at Cologne Germany rather than waiting for Blizzcon, I’ll start off cynical.
ReplyDeleteGross ineptitude, whoa, led off on a little on the extreme there. But MMO’s have for a long time been considered a nitch market. Blizzard has for years known that, spending resources guarding it’s own market share rather than attempting to capture a new one, it spent years as the only real MMO available. To be frank Blizzcon is a safe place to make announcements. It’s an audience guaranteed to like whatever they announce, regardless if the ideas are new and exciting or repackaged from another competitor. Blizzcon announcements can be more tailored to the community, there is a serous risk that at Gamescom their announcements atleast for WoW will be received with indifference.
Thrall: FOR THE BOARD!!!! Chasing profits and stock is the most likely scenario in my eyes, but not mutually exclusive from ineptitude. There are a LOT of other people at Gamescom for the first time this year, its proximity to Winter and the holiday bonanza makes it more appealing than e3 in June. There is a trade off for developer, e3 is a safe insider environment farther from the sales season, or gamescom a very public show closer to the holiday season. Other developer’s are there to interact with their communities, demo integration with twitch, vr etc. WoW has no reason to be there, the announcement was made too close to the event for any community interaction, and Blizzcon in Nov. is closer to Christmas anyway. What Activision can say is we have a big name game at Gamescom to their share holders . They are not on schedule in my eyes, e3 was the proper venue for this if they could not wait till November, so they are likely two months behind already.
An expansion with broad appeal, self evident a new audience for a new type of content. Even if they are a bit late to the pirate genera, an expansion set in the south seas has more broad appeal that a Tolkien/Fantasy world.
Yearly expansions and what Blizzard sees when it looks at wow now. Blizzard imagines that players will come back and when there is a new patch/content. Its possible they are now planning to release expansion as quickly as possible to retain subscription dues.
You have a very good point about why they should announce at blizzcon. It is an audience that is sure to like what they have to say. With warcraft being a niche market as you mentioned, I'd guess most people there would not even be remotely interested in it. Video games and MMOs are not the same thing even if they are both games.
DeleteI do not like the one year model. It feels like a waste of the box price. I do not mind buying a box every 2 years and paying a monthly fee, but if are going to push out content like they are they need to ditch the box costs completely and let our subs pay for it, because paying for a box each year for less content feels like highway robbery to me.
Quick prediction on next expansion-related things.
ReplyDeleteTiming - 8 months after announcement. Apr 2016. I have zero issue with annual expansions since I'm paying for multiple accounts with in-game gold... I realize they make the money for my sub elsewhere but ultimately I don't mind paying money for expansions. If they come out faster I wouldn't object to a cheaper box price, though... $20-30 would be fine.
Content - Some variation of Kul'Tiras, Sylvanas and Gilneas. Been too long since Sylvanas was a core in-game figure, Gilneas was under-used in Cataclysm and Kul'Tiras is the most logical new location to visit. I thought a Legion-related expansion would be next a while back but there are too many demon-related things happening in WoD right now for that to make sense, it would make for a logical progression but that isn't usually how Blizzard does these things. I'll save that prediction for the following expansion.
Backup plan - Wrath Redux. I'm not sure what the point would be, but I'm not sure what the point of WoD was either so that's not exactly a show-stopper of an issue.
I hope they never go back to wrath. It was too good of a memory to be destroyed by bad decisions. I beg them not to do that.
DeleteThe answer to this question is obvious as of 130 today. Over 4 million sub losses for the year of 2015. WoW is no longer a top earner. The WoW token failed to stop the hemorrhaging sub losses. With no fixes for what is wrong in WoD blizzard's answer is to get us out as quickly as possible. They are at 5.6 million subs and not even in 3rd quarter where they see the sharpest losses.
ReplyDeleteAnd just think, we have 3 more quarters (if they rush) and most likely 4 more quarters of reports to come that will have no new content as part of them. So you can expect to see them fall even more, a lot more.
Delete44% of subs lost since the release of the expansion is a nightmare from a business standpoint.