The lights are on
Earlier this week, Blizzard announced that the Deathwing battle is coming to World of Warcraft in the next patch. If that seems like it signals the end of the Cataclysm expansion pack to you, it should. The developer is hoping to be much more timely with the release of its next expansion.
I spoke to World of Warcraft game designer Tom Chilton today at Gamescom and asked him if Blizzard had reached its goal of speeding up the pace of content patches, an issue Chilton had brought up in a previous interview as one of the problems they faced with Wrath of the Lich King. His response revealed that we can probably expect the next WoW expansion much faster than the publisher's usual schedule of one every couple years:
"We've been able to do it in one sense, but not as much as I would like to in another sense. I would like for all patches to reliably have raid bosses. Our first Cataclysm patch didn't have raid bosses. From a raider's persepctive, it probably doesn't feel any faster than it did before. For us, where the biggest improvement is going to be in this cycle is in the actual expansion release. Traditionally we've only been able to do an expansion about every two years. We're really hoping to make a meaningful difference in that."
With Wrath of the Lich King's final content patch, the final raid was released in segments, leaving the Lich King encounter itself locked away for over a month after the patch had been released. Chilton told me that the current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release, so they will not be dragging the lifespan of this patch out. That means the developer will be motivated to get the expansion out relatively quickly to avoid players losing interest. "Hopefully it will feel noticable," Chilton said. "It's hard to say for sure, because I could be off, and we could end up taking longer than what we hope."
Chilton was not ready to confirm anything yet, but he strongly hinted that the new World of Warcraft expansion will be announced and shown for the first time at Blizzcon, which is happening in October. I'll be there to report on the news and grill Chilton and company about whatever is next for World of Warcraft, so stay tuned.
Hmm... Well this is different I remember back when TBC, and WoTLK came out it almost took them until the next expansion was announce to make a patch for the end game, But seeing as how already they are telling us this makes me wonder if the next expansion is going to be announce sooner then I thought it would be...
Sounds like they are trying to squeeze blood out of a rock. WoW did a great thing to gaming and MMOs in general, but its time to evolve and try new things. At least that's the general sense I get from people who have lost interest. I myself stopped playing years ago, and never returned, nor do I ever plan on returning lol.
I played wow for a while - in all honesty I was wondering when the fun was going to start. The ingenious of wow is that it contains addictive play styles. It's content is completely based on the idea that you will play for hours hoping to gain something. Like a moron I was sucked into this, not once really enjoying the game.
I'm glad I canceled my subscription. I'm not wasting hours of my life to a never ending grind and paying money for it.
I seriously can't wait for guild wars 2. An MMO that actually wants you to have fun.
I tried WoW on that new unlimited play until Lvl 20 and wasn't impressed. I immediately went back to EvE Online.
another expansion would be cool, I was pretty burnt by cataclysm. I heard the new expansion was something about pandarins which would be cool to see. Perhaps a time of peace and lore improvements would be good. Deathwing was pretty stupid
WoW is dying. I had fun with it years ago, and I still play it, but it's not the same. I play to get gear and see content, and that in itself isn't entirely entertaining. I almost quit outright a couple months ago, but my brother dragged me over to his server so we could raid together. It's been all right, but nothing too great. I'm disappointed by Cataclysm though. They were doing good at first. Cataclysm was great. 4.1 was okay, and 4.2 was a little better. They should have built on that. They didn't. 4.2 is already old news. Everything has been farmed out, raid contents been cleared, and nothing else has been added. Hell, they just got around to fixing some issues that came in the patch. Now they're announcing 4.3 with some cool content, but they're also adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Transmogrifying and Void Storage sound stupid. They're taking away pretty much all the armors identity, which is most of it's value in the first place. And more bank space? Really?
Now I hear they're trying to squeeze out another expansion, less than a year after the last one. I fear that I may be interested enough in the new raid content to actually buy it. Raiding is all the keeps me coming back at this point. Not even achievements make me interested, and I'm a very competitive person.
They need to put an end to this, for the player's sake. I'll have no issue with them putting WoW down. Then they can make a new MMO that I'll never care about, and get some of my life back.
Mists of Pandaria for the win. After hitting 85 within the first 5 days of Cataclysm, I really didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I kept slowing down my play time more and more until I stopped playing altogether... I'm willing to give Diablo III a try though regardless of never playing any of the previous games.
Are they pushing the expansion because of the time between WotLK and Cata or because they are a little too in love with money? Hmmm, I'd say both...