-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
World of Warcraft
- Thread starter Cerebral Palsy
- Start date
- Status
Really? With one fairly minor content patch being released now I would not be surprised if it came out in September.markot said:
BC - Jan 18th, 2007
WotLK - Nov 13th, 2008
Cata - Sept 9th, 2010
WotLK came out 22 months after BC. If they keep that trend, September 9th is the release date.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The public beta hasn't even started.Einbroch said:
HarryDemeanor
Member
Some information has leaked out of the press event before the embargo has been lifted. News is that the new Caverns of Time instance is the War of the Ancients. Also the Grim Batol raid is named Bastion of Twilight where Cho'Gall is confirmed to be the final boss of the instance.
Hopefully this information is true. War of the Ancients would be a really fun instance that I hope doesn't fall into Culling territory with long scripted text that feels like hours. Just hope they insert a quick option early into release.
Hopefully this information is true. War of the Ancients would be a really fun instance that I hope doesn't fall into Culling territory with long scripted text that feels like hours. Just hope they insert a quick option early into release.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. OS 2.0 won't hold people over for long and this arena season can't go that long as well. They have to know this as well. They can't launch this xpac in Nov/Dec because not many people will stick around that long. Will the majority of people that freeze their account return? Sure. But they probably don't want to risk losing some that may not come back after such a long time with beat content. Yes, they have a huge amount of subscribers now and can get by with the loss of a million or two that may freeze for a few months, but I'm sure they'd rather have that income coming in.
If they can't get this xpac out early Oct at the latest, they should be ashamed of themselves.
If they can't get this xpac out early Oct at the latest, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
J-Rzez said:
That sounds like a executive mentality.
I disagree completely. As a gamer I want them to take their time and work on it. Fine tune it, and get it right, and deliver on the promises. This won't be as good as everybody wants it to be, unless there will be some serious commitment from the team.
It's Blizzards live content team to make sure, that stuff is being released from time to time, as well, but that does not mean that Cata should be rushed before it's ready. They have made EVERYTHING on the policy not to release it before it's ready. It's their trademark.
That new resto druid tree looks pretty interesting.
It looks like they are really trying to take all of the emphasis off of rejuvenation and instead make regrowth more popular. With an ability like Efflorescence which procs off regrowth crits and sounds pretty awesome honestly. Also there are quite a few talents in there which increase the crit chance of regrowth.
Also the new tree of life I am not too thrilled about yet. That 50% snare does not look nice at all.
It looks like they are really trying to take all of the emphasis off of rejuvenation and instead make regrowth more popular. With an ability like Efflorescence which procs off regrowth crits and sounds pretty awesome honestly. Also there are quite a few talents in there which increase the crit chance of regrowth.
Also the new tree of life I am not too thrilled about yet. That 50% snare does not look nice at all.
Mr. Luchador
Member
We get a little content patch soon, but I'm hoping there's a pre-Cata patch similar to when the other xpacs were released. Was really close to freezing my account last night and I've only been back playing 1 month.
Chriswok said:
I learned back in TBC that the lull before a new expansion is pretty much the worst time to play. Freeze that sucker until you hear people talking about the Cata launch event in this thread. There's nothing worth doing right now that won't be wiped away when the expansion hits.
Blizzard (and MMO developers in general) need to learn how to phase their content releases so there aren't these huge gaps of nothingness and massive gear resets. There's nobody with a dry-erase calendar saying "Hmm, let's move this content to July so our subscribers don't flee en masse?" Nevermind paying a subscription for a game that's metaphorically sitting in the tarmac.
A single room sized raid between ICC and Cata isn't content by anyone's standards.
ShallNoiseUpon
Member
ShallNoiseUpon said:
New page.
Retro said:
Pretty much sums up my thoughts. I don't know how they can't get it right that there's this many months of no content right at the end of an xpac. People are, and many have been bored now for at least a month with the end game content. No way, no way possible will they launch this xpac in Dec or later. If that's the case, I'm freezing my account tonight.
As to the "get it right" part said above, we all know it doesn't matter how long they have. Shit will be broken and it will need to be patched regardless within a few weeks. This is Blizzard's "tag your community along" line. We all know how much money they make off this game, we all know by their loses how much it costs them. What we don't know is why they refuse to hire more talent to get things right off the launch, and why they don't get more artists so they don't have to cheap out and recycle each model 3+ times per raid. It's disgusting to see "recolored tier models" as off pieces. What a joke.
I wouldn't doubt to see the new talent trees/added abilities patched in a month before the game launches. You just obviously won't have the mastery gear.
J-Rzez said:
Right. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure WoW content is hard to develop, but I'm certain there's ways to produce that content so it's released in staggered chunks rather than all at once. I'd much rather see a new 5-man every 2-3 months than 3 5-mans and a raid all at once with 3-5 months of just... nothing.
I dunno. It just seems like content could come in smaller batches on a more regular basis rather than... blowing their load all at once.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
That's not the point.J-Rzez said:
People will come back no matter when they launch it. They were bleeding subscribers in TBC's end too.
ciaossu said:
Because ICC was released in december 2009. And their new 1 boss raid won't keep people interested for very long. A new expansion almost 1 year after their last big raid is kinda disappointing.
Raids is pretty much the only thing "hardcore" players cares about. Myself, i just play low lvl alts when i'm bored with my 80s, and i still have fun. If i couldn't stand playing low lvl alts, i would have canceled a long time ago.
Retro said:
Never gonna go away IMO. If gear is the method of progression I.E. the carrot they dangle, then the gear resets will always be an integral part of the game. The only real solution is to play the content for fun and not just for the gear. If the treadmill is loot based theres no way to remove the resets without causing some really ridiculous problems.
Bisnic said:
There it is! Like I've been saying, ICC is beat, and OS 2.0 is just a teaser for Cata at best. I've cleared ICC what seems like two months ago now (I have to check again), and there's nothing left to do. Arena will have gone on for far too long as well. People are bored now, freezing accounts until Cata. Sometimes these people just don't come back after said break like I know some people that did it from TBC, or even the content patches within Wrath.
Shameful is when a company that makes so much profit can't get their stuff together and hire more people to do what they need (artists, CS, etc) to get the product rolling. Especially since they're throwing a splash of paint on the old world (yeah yeah, I'm sure there was a lot of work involved but not like from scratch). Once again, we'll see item models recycled to hell and back most likely, same with spell effects.
In fact, I remember reading an interview with them clearly stating that if they can't get out xpacs around 1 year after the last xpac then they're not doing it right. And I agree they are not.
Fularu said:
Hey, it's my stalker. You got lost from the official wow forums again I see. It's my opinion, get over it. Nerf druids, pure dps should do more dps than a hybrid.
Do hard modes and stop crying or just cancel your account and go outside?J-Rzez said:
Dire maul took 9 months to develop, ICC and Ulduar almost a full year each.
Blizzard has more than 4 dedicated dev teams working on different aspects of the game, raid zones, world zones, pvp, itemization, design not to mention the expansion team which starts work on the next expansion as soon as the current one hits retail.
Your whining and arbitrary schedule is not how Blizzard operates, thankfully. You obviously don't understand how software developpement works and have no idea how easy (or hard) it is to maintain a game like World of Warcraft.
Also sets are reused because players were sick in vanilla of looking like retards with off pieces, especially melee classes who couldn't count on their tier sets to provide them with the proper gear.
To avoid such problems, off pieces are recolored versions of the main set (warrior for tanking, paladin for healing and DK for DPS in 25, DK for tanking and warrior for DPS in 10 usually).
I'd rather have it that way than the trash and garbage we used to get pre BC.
But by all means, please keep crying, that's prety much all you do in this thread
As for stalking you.. I have better things to do in my spare time, like spam the WC thread
You're making yourself way too important really damn, that URL is fuckeeeed!
It's 33/43/0. Take all available DPS talents from both trees.
Weird Smite DPS/Healing build (47%+ holy damage, heals on low health targets when smiting, holy nova aoe, bubbles when smite heals crit, 10% hit chance, 15% extra crit, archangel mechanic to recover mana)
Very very weird, but I like it.
It's 33/43/0. Take all available DPS talents from both trees.
Weird Smite DPS/Healing build (47%+ holy damage, heals on low health targets when smiting, holy nova aoe, bubbles when smite heals crit, 10% hit chance, 15% extra crit, archangel mechanic to recover mana)
Very very weird, but I like it.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Alcoori said:
Still going on about this?
Well if they deliver on their promise to make each game worthy of a 50 Bucks single player campaign, it's all good. I like the concept actually. But I also am optimistic that they will deliver on a massive single player campaign for each game!
Fularu said:
I've been doing hardmodes when others are bored enough to log onto the game, and that's telling. We're all burnt out on the content, but we tend to get through the content faster than others.
They said themselves their target was 1-1.5 years per xpac or they failed. Thus, they failed. Maybe they should've not worried about making cash-money off of pets and mounts, along with breaking cardinal rules about MMO's with the pay-for-out of game AH.
People were tired of looking like a clown so that's why they copied the tier sets? No. They said once before it was so there was less of a pool of random things to have to render so there's less lag in cities, which was bs. They copy the gear because they're lazy. There's no reason for off-pieces, and emblem gear to look the same as the special tier sets. Just like the weapons all sharing models. It's lame. Blind love won't help you to see that though.
And no. I help people out with strats, gear, and discuss the game I love to play. I just want more. I won't gargle blizzards nuts like you when they screw up, or screw the players. It's my opinion on things.
You've made it clear you're a stalker. You've already made a name for yourself with the "shit guild and bad player" remarks you made about me and my guild without even knowing my character and my skills. You're annoying with your posts that belong on the official forums. I'm sorry you're so hurt over that hybrids will never do the same dps as they shouldn't for blatantly obvious reasons. Don't bother with your official wow-forum style posting back as you'll be on ignore, as you're the worst poster in this thread by far. And surprisingly my ignore list isn't that full for this forum, you're in an elite group, be proud.
I agree. The game is already stale and it simply makes sense to launch the expansion sooner rather than later. Let's just take this theoretical situation and see what happens:
Case 1: Game launches in November.
- 200,000 accounts between now and November = 15 (fee) x 3 (average months lost) x 200,000 = $9mil
+ 10% workload/development costs = ~$2,000,000 (complete estimate)
- 50,000 accounts of those accounts that never come back
So they lose ~$11,000,000 and potential customers for life.
Case 2: Game launches in July.
- 100,000 accounts between now and November = 15 x 1 x 200,000 = $3mil
+ 30% workload/development costs = ~$6,000,000 (complete estimate)
- 25,000 accounts of those accounts that never come back
So they lose ~$9,000,000 instead of ~$11,000,000...but most importantly they don't lose those customers that would not resub for Cata but would continue to play if they expansion was launched earlier, resulting in millions of dollars. I know the numbers were estimates, but even if the developer costs were higher it still wouldn't match the thousands of lost subscribers.
Case 1: Game launches in November.
- 200,000 accounts between now and November = 15 (fee) x 3 (average months lost) x 200,000 = $9mil
+ 10% workload/development costs = ~$2,000,000 (complete estimate)
- 50,000 accounts of those accounts that never come back
So they lose ~$11,000,000 and potential customers for life.
Case 2: Game launches in July.
- 100,000 accounts between now and November = 15 x 1 x 200,000 = $3mil
+ 30% workload/development costs = ~$6,000,000 (complete estimate)
- 25,000 accounts of those accounts that never come back
So they lose ~$9,000,000 instead of ~$11,000,000...but most importantly they don't lose those customers that would not resub for Cata but would continue to play if they expansion was launched earlier, resulting in millions of dollars. I know the numbers were estimates, but even if the developer costs were higher it still wouldn't match the thousands of lost subscribers.
Honestly, I know they need some time with the beta yet, though they claim they worked on their "phasing" tech and perfected it in Wrath, so that's off their shoulders they said. They had to have been working on this content for a long time now if they have shown off last year gameplay from Cata. I know they have numerous teams out there, and I'm sure they all been working on it for a long time now. They're original plan was a new xpac every year to eighteen months. It's looking like if we're lucky it will be two years now.
Perhaps this beta will be different though. Maybe it's along and refined much further along already via internal testing and this beta will be for the majority a stress test and "raid tuning" as they expressed with their contest for guilds to get into the beta to help test.
I'd still expect the game at this point no sooner than Sept unfortunately. And that seems like a long shot going by their track record though.
I agree they will lose players who freeze their accounts for months before Cata. It's happened in the past, and it'll happen again. Considering we haven't seen any landmark pressers from them in a while, I think they know they have to get their asses in gear. While I'm sure they can afford to operate comfortably with a loss of even a few million subs, but I'm sure they don't want to lose out on said money. After all, by their financial reports they were making an absurd amount of money in which was probably allowing them to dev D3, SC2, Cata, and even their new "next-gen" mmo comfortably without needing heavy investments. Oh, and tons of new statues for around their offices.
Perhaps this beta will be different though. Maybe it's along and refined much further along already via internal testing and this beta will be for the majority a stress test and "raid tuning" as they expressed with their contest for guilds to get into the beta to help test.
I'd still expect the game at this point no sooner than Sept unfortunately. And that seems like a long shot going by their track record though.
I agree they will lose players who freeze their accounts for months before Cata. It's happened in the past, and it'll happen again. Considering we haven't seen any landmark pressers from them in a while, I think they know they have to get their asses in gear. While I'm sure they can afford to operate comfortably with a loss of even a few million subs, but I'm sure they don't want to lose out on said money. After all, by their financial reports they were making an absurd amount of money in which was probably allowing them to dev D3, SC2, Cata, and even their new "next-gen" mmo comfortably without needing heavy investments. Oh, and tons of new statues for around their offices.
To quote TB: "Difficulty settings are not new content."Fularu said:
People deactivating their accounts temporarily can very commonly lead to permanent cancellation. It isn't very smart to consider that a viable business strategy. Game servers need to be populated to be fun, so migration away from the game tends to be en masse.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Einbroch said:
Yeah, so people need to stop thinking that Blizzard/Acti gets all those 15 USD per subscriber a month.
I promise you that lot of that fee goes to companies behind the scenes that you have never even heard of. It's not that simple. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to pay some sort of tax on it as well.
Like I said at the end of my post, it's not about how much of the money Blizzard gets per 15 bucks. That's not the point. The point is that they're supposedly bleeding customers by delaying their expansion launches by so much. If they delay the expansion to November or later, I simply will not play this game anymore. I know this also applies to my friends. Anecdotal? Maybe. But it also will apply to many others, I'm sure.Vigilant Walrus said:
For me, FFXIV is still scheduled for a 2010 launch, and frankly I don't want to pay $40 + monthly fee for maybe a months worth of play.
Blizzard releasing the expansion in a timely manner isn't just about keeping their own subscribers, but keeping them away from all the other big MMOs slated to hit in the Fall.
I'm keeping my WoW account and raiding when I can, but I've been testing the waters with other MMOs lately, because I have no desire to spend most of my free time dicking around in Dalaran.
I'm keeping my WoW account and raiding when I can, but I've been testing the waters with other MMOs lately, because I have no desire to spend most of my free time dicking around in Dalaran.
Wow... oddly enough I'm not alone with this. Maybe all you guys should do hardmodes and shut the hell up too then.
No way, no how will this hit in July, nor Aug. By their contest description, the earliest we will hear of the beta is next week/following week. It would be a way to get themselves some free attention during E3 without even being there that's for sure. I think they'll cut down on a lot of the testing time in Beta by launching some "pre-made" characters in gear good enough to raid in to test their content, a-la their premade PVP toons in Wrath beta.
Yes, also I forgot to mention that not only will they have to worry about losing people to boredom, but in that away time they can easily get lost in competitors MMO's, or even other games in general. This fall is slated for a ton of games that can easily do this, and I'm sure they don't want that to happen. July/Aug is too soon still, they have SC2 to hit and ride the hype waves. Early Sept would be my guess of "at the soonest".
No way, no how will this hit in July, nor Aug. By their contest description, the earliest we will hear of the beta is next week/following week. It would be a way to get themselves some free attention during E3 without even being there that's for sure. I think they'll cut down on a lot of the testing time in Beta by launching some "pre-made" characters in gear good enough to raid in to test their content, a-la their premade PVP toons in Wrath beta.
Yes, also I forgot to mention that not only will they have to worry about losing people to boredom, but in that away time they can easily get lost in competitors MMO's, or even other games in general. This fall is slated for a ton of games that can easily do this, and I'm sure they don't want that to happen. July/Aug is too soon still, they have SC2 to hit and ride the hype waves. Early Sept would be my guess of "at the soonest".
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
They aren't going to cut down their beta time at all.J-Rzez said:Wow... oddly enough I'm not alone with this. Maybe all you guys should do hardmodes and shut the hell up too then.
No way, no how will this hit in July, nor Aug. By their contest description, the earliest we will hear of the beta is next week/following week. It would be a way to get themselves some free attention during E3 without even being there that's for sure. I think they'll cut down on a lot of the testing time in Beta by launching some "pre-made" characters in gear good enough to raid in to test their content, a-la their premade PVP toons in Wrath beta.
Yes, also I forgot to mention that not only will they have to worry about losing people to boredom, but in that away time they can easily get lost in competitors MMO's, or even other games in general. This fall is slated for a ton of games that can easily do this, and I'm sure they don't want that to happen. July/Aug is too soon still, they have SC2 to hit and ride the hype waves. Early Sept would be my guess of "at the soonest".
It will launch pretty similarly to Wrath of the LK.
This stands the only chance of ripping a large portion of WoW's player base because well, It already has a large fan base.
Star Wars: The Old Republic PAX Demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERHnZwZnYk&feature=fvw
Star Wars: The Old Republic PAX Demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERHnZwZnYk&feature=fvw
- Status