Blizzcon 2013: Part 2 - WoD Release Date

Warlords Release Date

·         Q: "Typically after you announce something it is another year, but we are at Patch 5.4 now. What content do you have planned for between now and then?" A: "Any content we do now will delay the expansion by the same amount of time it took us to make that content. We are completely focused on making the next expansion and will try to deliver that as soon as we can, hopefully on a shorter cycle than players are imagining, but you never know, we will have to see."

·         Q: "Typically that would be in the Winter of next year. Does that mean it is a goal to bring it in to Summer or Spring?" A: "Well certainly the goal is before that, but we'll see, it is very hard for us to predict."

I am very excited about this upcoming expansion.  Just like always Blizzard made sure to not give us any information at all about the release date.  We have seems fairly consistent winter releases of expansions.  January, November, December and September.  Obviously they wanted to push out content at a quicker pace so that player don’t end up being stuck with the same content FOREVER.  WotLK was a nightmare in that regard, even though I feel Cata was worse.  At least in WotLK they gave players the Ruby Sanctum as a bonus.  Reminding us all what the game was really about: killing fucking dragons!

In standard Blizzard fashion they deflect the questions.  They let players know that they won’t be releasing anything else for this expansion and instead are focusing their attention squarely on the next expansion.  This isn’t bad, but since it is now November, a patch came out last month and most people are done with it…. this could be trouble.  Even spending until Summer with just this content is going to feel incredibly boring.  I see a late Spring/early Summer release date, btw.  Calling it now.  Hopefully this gives me enough time to kill Garrosh, that fucking asshole… SPOILER ALERT, I know we don’t kill him and instead just kick his ass and send him to trial.

They mention speeding up the cycle, typical Winter releases and hoping to have it out before Spring/Summer and that’s great.  I hope all of those things comes true, but I’m not holding my breath.  I see it showing up in April at the earliest, July at the latest.  I see the content being fleshed out well, but there being A LOT of expansion (LAWL).  What I mean is, I don’t think it will be finished.  I think each patch will add a large amount of more space or things to do.  I feel like development is moving close to larger content releases more similar to patches and away from huge game-changing events like the old expansions.  Don’t get me wrong, this is pretty big, but based on what they are saying… that is how I feel.