[Column] General: Waiting for WoW’s Next Expansion

SBFord

How long is too long to wait for an expansion? That’s the question many WoW players are asking themselves after learning that content patch 6.2 will likely be the final one for Warlords of Draenor. This week we look at the hopeful but skeptical response from the blogosphere.

Read more of Jessica Cook's Tales from the Neighborhood: Waiting for WoW's Next Expansion.

DrunkWolf

Dont they only bring out expansions when there is another hyped up game about to be released?

So when is the next hyped game coming out? thats when you get your next wow expansion.

WhySoSerious

I passed on WoD completely, other than the free 10 days they gave me. Awful expansion imo. I'm curious to see what the next one will be. I don't have high hopes. 

BillMurphy

When Heart of Thorns releases? :P

danwest58

This is why I quit WOW and I am never coming back to WOW.  

 

I am sticking to FFXIV.  

meonthissite

The two developers who take entirely too long to update their games are historically Blizzard and 4j studios.

Shodanas

As i wrote in previous relevant threads, there is NO way that patch 6.2 will or can carry the game for almost one year. If this is indeed the plan then WoW will loose millions of subs and this time the majority of these subs will NOT jump back in when the new expansion comes. 

eye_m

I honestly don't know which is worse. Paying a subscription and box price for lackluster content, or having your previous efforts become meaningless if you don't pay for the next expansion regardless of how lazy the developers decided to feel. Wonder what would happen if another quarter of their playerbase decided to get smart and move on. Wonder if that would motivate them a little more.

SBFord

Originally posted by Shodanas
As i wrote in previous relevant threads, there is NO way that patch 6.2 will or can carry the game for almost one year. If this is indeed the plan then WoW will loose millions of subs and this time the majority of these subs will NOT jump back in when the new expansion comes. 

My prediction is that they will break tradition and announce a new expansion at Gamescom and then do the big PR push and reveal new details during Blizzcon. Expac CBT will begin after the first of the year and be released in June.

*takes off swami hat*

Issiea

I've been playing WoW on and off for years but I have to say that WOD isn't great at end game.  Way too much solo content now and you can basically get everything from just sitting at your garrison....

Honestly garrisons should of been more of a housing type feature with some options.  If they made different variations of buildings for different races with the ability to farm things for it I think it could've added longevity to the game for many people.

That being said I know of a few die hard fans that have cancelled subscriptions this month which cannot be a good sign.  This is Blizzard though with another good expansion in the future they may do well again.

Maelzrael

Originally posted by BillMurphy
When Heart of Thorns releases? :P

Lol, exactly. 

Blizzard needs to wake up. Their pockets are now deeper than their imaginations. Little less money on hookers and blow and a little more on hiring more developers or better talent to handle WoW would be a great boon to us the gamers. Hell they could of been developing WoW 2 this whole time with better graphics and all the best stuff that wow and other games have done and have it launch with the movie. Boom instant billions. Have one sub for both WoW and WoW 2 and now you have the entire market cornered again. Update every 3 months, both small and large, and yearly expansions for both games. They have the money to do this, but it isn't being reinvested into the game the way it should be. I'd wager they could top 15million concurrent subs if they were do something as significant as what I'm suggesting, and still make a cool profit even after all the investing required to pull it off. ... I feel like this is a rant.. so /rant. 

Bladestrom

Here is a couple comments from blizzard that demonstrates exactly how confused and erratic their design choices are:

1. Garrisons and boating forms the heart of the wod expansion, now consider what it has done to open world questing and gathering/crafting, now consider this QA:

Q w/ caches now not giving "next difficulty" gear after X kills, wont they become obsolete as we gear up through the tier?

A  'Better for raiding to make mission rewards obsolete, than for missions to make raiding rewards obsolete. (WarcraftDevs)'

2. Garrisons and boating forms the heart of this expansion:

• [Requires a realm restart] Upgrading to a Level 3 Shipyard now unlocks an additional Fleet Command Table at the player's Garrison town hall.

Yup that's right, 'command tables' aka menu driven play in a mmoRPG. And get this, this 'menu' was added so people didnt have to travel between their boat mini game and their garrison mini game.

 

I feel sorry for the loyal players of this game, they must be spinning and wondering wtf is going on.  

WhySoSerious

It would take an amazing expansion for them to win me back. Or they could release a classic (Vanilla) server and I would instantly throw my wallet at them.

reeereee

Originally posted by Shodanas
As i wrote in previous relevant threads, there is NO way that patch 6.2 will or can carry the game for almost one year. If this is indeed the plan then WoW will loose millions of subs and this time the majority of these subs will NOT jump back in when the new expansion comes. 

No patch has ever been able to carry the game for a year but that never stopped them before.

knightaudit

Have to wonder what is next ... With EQ and EQ2 starting Time Locked Progression servers ... Could Wow be thinking the same thing?

I unsubbed 2 months back when I found I never had to leave the garrison to do anything ... As a miner it became useless to gather anything or sell anything .. because anyone can farm basic mats. They really killed crafting .. More so in this patch than in others. 

I will have to see what they do with the next X pac .. but honestly it has really gone downhill after Wrath.

gervaise1

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by Shodanas
As i wrote in previous relevant threads, there is NO way that patch 6.2 will or can carry the game for almost one year. If this is indeed the plan then WoW will loose millions of subs and this time the majority of these subs will NOT jump back in when the new expansion comes. 

My prediction is that they will break tradition and announce a new expansion at Gamescom and then do the big PR push and reveal new details during Blizzcon. Expac CBT will begin after the first of the year and be released in June.

*takes off swami hat*

I totally agree that something like that is planned.

From a business perspective subs rise with expansions and fall between expansions. So (probably) faced with falling subs this is an obvious move.

However what they may not have considered is: how much of the decline in subs is due to Blizzard not putting out expansions at the frequency they once did? Between vanilla and BC for example they released 12 major patches.

Combine this with the impression you get from the WoW forums that WoD was not a "proper sized" expansion (with 6.1 totally dismissed); that it was rushed and delivered with more bugs than usual and people are asking how Blizzard will be able to produce an expansion so quickly.

Along with the inevitable question: so what is the sub for?

Activision Blizzard's next results: August 4th. What will be a good number? What will be a poor number - even if its still higher than any other sub based game etc. etc.

Any number above 6.5M classed as good maybe? Any number below 6M as bad? Maybe 5.5M?

A bad number will make your prediction much more likely imo.

reeereee

Originally posted by eyelolled
I honestly don't know which is worse. Paying a subscription and box price for lackluster content, or having your previous efforts become meaningless if you don't pay for the next expansion regardless of how lazy the developers decided to feel. Wonder what would happen if another quarter of their playerbase decided to get smart and move on. Wonder if that would motivate them a little more.

Anecdotal evidence indicates they're still hemorrhaging subscribers.  I wouldn't be surprised if they're down another quarter soon.  Still I'm skeptical even that will motivate them.  If Activision had no interest in reinvesting in WoW when WoW was making money hand over fists, why would they suddenly decide to start pouring resources into it now that it isn't nearly as profitable?

Muke

What Blizzard also should do is not reveal any future content untill it is released.

 

What happens:

 

1. I see them announce a new raid in some castle.

2. you can pre-download the content on the test server or Live. That means dataminers are going to look what it is all about and who the bosses are. So you got major spoilers there already.

3. the patch appears on the test server: what you get is many guilds/players do those raids on the test server. All fun, Blizzard can tweak it.

 

BUT:

 

it also means that players+guilds complete the normal + heroic raids on the test server before it goes Live.

Addons are being created/adjusted to time every Boss special.

Players watch Twitch + forums, they and the ones on the test servers see what the raid is all aboot and are already 80% bored with it before it goes Live.

Once Live they complete the new content in no time. Plus you see like 1-2w after Patch Day you see guilds already go do the mythic tiers.

 

 

Blizzard shoots themselves in the foot.

They should not release it on the PTR.

They should get testers for the content and let them sign a NDA

They should just give hints about the new raid (teasers)

Once tested, throw it on the Live servers and say "have fun"

 

The way they are doing it now the players have caught up with their months of programming within a few weeks and start to complain about being bored.

 

 

Purutzil

The real question asked is "Why the hell did I pay $50 for an expansion with a pathetic amount of content, and does blizzard REALLY expect me to pay another $50 after a 1 patch (which wasn't even a big patch, most content having been developed before release and pushed off to a patch) expansion seeking the next expansion?"

 

I have absolutely 0 interest in the expansion. Blizzard has shown they don't give a crap about the consumer and just wants to nickle and dime them as much as they can. It feels as if the cash shop has more content added this expansion then any gameplay, AFTER raising the price of the expansion.

 

Unless the next expansion is free as a apology for the terrible way they treated their costumers, I have absolutely 100% no interest in revisiting the game again. WoD was their chance and they showed we are just wallets and nothing more.

Entropy14

The bad thing about all this is each month they make enough money to build a whole new AAA MMO, yet they come out with so little content.  With the money they are making this game should be so much more.

Avanah

Originally posted by danwest58

This is why I quit WOW and I am never coming back to WOW.  

 

I am sticking to FFXIV.  

I stopped playing MMO's and only play Single Player Games. Certain multiplayer games with 8-64 people per server I still play around in like H1Z1, stuff like that.

Mrcigarman

All kids want new expansion or major update..of course next update will be lvl 110 in 2 days,all items drop 100% to all class from first run of raid...we suck at pvp,what we will do..Blizzard make wow too easy,too simplifie...I will sugest to rise cap to 120 whit 0,10 exp per mob,drop chance 1% at every boss...and to make some raids entrance available only from ground(not instant teleport or flying) and both alliance to meet at the same entrance....to make some world boss who drop some very very,ultra hard recipe whit 0,1% chance whit 1 week spawn,then u will lose the kids but u get the hard-core and pro,and adults staying.When wow will become how it start,then i go back till then i play Mario,drink beer,and hangout whit friends.Peace all.

 

 

Loke666

I kinda feel that a game with monthly fees should still add content until 2-3 months before launch of the new expansion (there is no use to release a hard raid a month before an expansion, no-one would play it since the loot would be pointless very soon anyways). I can buy that after that all focus should be on getting everything out in time and working right but before that it feels cheap.

After all is Wow still earning huge bucks, seems silly to risk that to save a few dollars on not releasing some new content. Is Activision just thinking on looking good in the next 3 months budget instead of long term? 

WoWs strenght is that it actually still have many very loyal players who stay subbed for years and years. Acting like this may drive many of them into the players who bungee in and out whenever an expansion hits and play others games the rest of the time instead.

observer

" Blizzard has promised faster development times,"

Their promises don't mean anything when they continuously fail to deliver them.

I could understand their first expansion (BC), because they were just getting started with an MMO, but 10 years and 5 expansions later, and they're still making excuses.  They've got the money and the talent, and yet, they still take years for an expansion.  The irony is, WoD was their lightest expansion to date and they still want to charge $50 for it.  If they want to charge that much, they better be on par with the other expansions.

Fourplay

I don't think rpg developers are like factories. So them promising faster expansions whether they reach the time limit or not is bad for them. It's setting the expansions up for rushed, unpolished, un-creative content.

 

They didn't become the world's biggest mmo player by releasing faster content. They perfected World Of Copycraft. They did it even better than the competition.  Their days of 12 million subscribers are over regardless of what they do because the industry is much larger and richer in depth than it was 8 or ten years ago. But if they release huge expansions with depth and polish then they will retain more of what they have.

 

So if they release a flying expansion, look at who does it best and do it better. Dynamic events, do it better. 

Loke666

Originally posted by Fourplay

I don't think rpg developers are like factories. So them promising faster expansions whether they reach the time limit or not is bad for them. It's setting the expansions up for rushed, unpolished, un-creative content.

They didn't become the world's biggest mmo player by releasing faster content. They perfected World Of Copycraft. They did it even better than the competition.  Their days of 12 million subscribers are over regardless of what they do because the industry is much larger and richer in depth than it was 8 or ten years ago. But if they release huge expansions with depth and polish then they will retain more of what they have.

So if they release a flying expansion, look at who does it best and do it better. Dynamic events, do it better. 

Agreed, but that doesn't mean they should cheap out on the content patches between expansions. 

Blizzard have been well known for taking their time with stuff, Diablo 3 were delayed for more than a few years and *Starcraft: Ghost were canned while it was in beta. That is all fine as long as they provide quality products, rushing out content can kill any MMO pretty fast. 

Any MMO with more than a million players and monthly fees can still afford content patches until a short time before the next expansion, anything else is a misstake just like rushing the expansion is.