World of Warcraft Expansion at E3?

[nobbie]

From the Rumor Mill:

--> Clicky!

[Quark]

From the Rumor Mill:

--> Clicky!
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I'm sure Blizzard is developing an expansion. That said, I wouldn't believe a word of this. From the first paragraph:

Blizzard Entertainment® today announced their plans to debut World of Warcraft®: Northrend™ the first expansion to World of Warcraft®, its award winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The expanion will add new player races, a new faction and a whole new continent for players to explore.

First off, Blizzard didn't announce anything. If they did, it would be under "Press Releases" on their website. Second off, a CM specifically replied saying they weren't going to do a new faction. One paragraph in and two lies already? Not worth reading anymore ...

[Treesh]

Second off, a CM specifically replied saying they weren't going to do a new faction. 
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I don't know if we were looking at the same thread or not, but a CM specifically said they hadn't even made an official announcement about an expansion and most definitely didn't say it was going to be named "Northrend". So yeah, it's just complete rumor and hearsay at this point. I'll edit in the link when/if I find it.

Edit: Dunno where I got the part about the Northrend name since it wasn't in the post by Tyren so ignore that comment. ;)

The thread on the WoW boards that Tyren made his comments, a post on page one and a post on page two.

[Quark]

Yeah, that was part of where I got my info from. They didn't acknowledge the expansion pack, but they certainly did nothing to actually deny it either :lol:

[Treesh]

Yeah, that was part of where I got my info from.  They didn't acknowledge the expansion pack, but they certainly did nothing to actually deny it either  :lol:
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Well towards the end of beta they said that player housing and guild housing was going to be for an expansion rather than release (iirc) so they never denied that they were thinking about an expansion. :)

[nobbie]

I think that the still missing "Northrend" would be logical for the first expansion. Dunno about a new faction, though. Artha's "Scourge", maybe?

[Icebird]

I'm sure there will be an expansion at some point, and Northrend would be a logical thing to add. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it however - the programmers seem to have so much on their "to do" list I can't see it appearing the in the near future. Marketing wise, I imagine they'll be thinking about a November/December release to capitalize on the Christmas market.

Chris

[lemekim]

While it might seem just a rumor, there are signs that point towards this being a definite possibility, so we might see somehting at E3 after all:

1) Most people have complained about the patching process being so slow. Well guess what - if you have a majority of your people working on Expansion, of course it will be slow. Dire Maul + /Golfclap do not take 4 months to develop. It seems that it's not their "to do" list that is big, it's the fact that there aren't a lot of people working on it, most being busy with expansion.

2) How long did it take for any Blizzard's Expansion to come out? WC3? D2? 1 year? This would be right on schedule.

3) New Ogre models - why would they add them now? There was no practical reason to do so UNLESS they already had the models ready as an expansion race and could just sub them in to prepare us for future.

[Zarathustra]

3) New Ogre models - why would they add them now? There was no practical reason to do so UNLESS they already had the models ready as an expansion race and could just sub them in to prepare us for future.
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It was my understanding that we were finally seeing the "real" ogre models, and that the old ones had been placeholders.

[MongoJerry]

1) Most people have complained about the patching process being so slow. Well guess what - if you have a majority of your people working on Expansion, of course it will be slow. Dire Maul + /Golfclap do not take 4 months to develop. It seems that it's not their "to do" list that is big, it's the fact that there aren't a lot of people working on it, most being busy with expansion.

Very likely, they've been working on battlegrounds.

Also, keep in mind that April 1st, an official Blizzard holiday, is Friday. Pretty much don't believe anything you hear until it passes. Last year, there were rumors for days about the introduction of two-headed player controlled ogres and Blizzard announced them on April 1st. It was an April Fool's Day joke, of course.

[lemekim]

Very likely, they've been working on battlegrounds.

Also, keep in mind that April 1st, an official Blizzard holiday, is tomorrow.  Pretty much don't believe anything you hear until it passes.  Last year, there were rumors for days about the introduction of two-headed player controlled ogres and Blizzard announced them on April 1st.  It was an April Fool's Day joke, of course.
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Battlegrounds? They have been in testing for months now. So has been the honor system. Look at the date of first battlegrounds preview. Even with Blizzard's slow development cycle, this is a bit too long. They are working on something else now, it's the only way to justify the super-slow patch development. Compare to EQ, which released 8 instances in one month along with numerous changes.

P.S. Tomorrow is March 31st. April 1st is Friday.

[lemekim]

It was my understanding that we were finally seeing the "real" ogre models, and that the old ones had been placeholders.
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I think the official reason was closer to "the new models were added to enable use certain new animations", which naturally leads you to think of all the player emotes and such. As for placeholders, they looked more like original Warcraft Ogres then the new ones do.

[savaughn]

Battlegrounds? They have been in testing for months now. So has been the honor system. Look at the date of first battlegrounds preview. Even with Blizzard's slow development cycle, this is a bit too long. They are working on something else now, it's the only way to justify the super-slow patch development. Compare to EQ, which released 8 instances in one month along with numerous changes.
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I'd disagree about it being too long. Blizzard inexplicably announced substantial staff reductions shortly before November and have not made a matching rehiring notice. They are not working with the same staffing levels they had for development. It is likely they are substantially consumed in filling in bug patching, balancing, and NYI material at the moment.

That said, I would not be at all surprised to see a substantial content increase for Christmas. It's just that the whole "they aren't patching as fast as they could be" thing I keep hearing just sounds way too conspiracy theory for my tastes. The new graphics and Ogre models are an entirely other piece. If your programmers are full bore chasing bugs, that still leaves your graphic artists and modellers sitting idle. Graphic improvements are completely outside the bug chase.

[lemekim]

I'd disagree about it being too long.  Blizzard inexplicably announced substantial staff reductions shortly before November and have not made a matching rehiring notice.  They are not working with the same staffing levels they had for development.  It is likely they are substantially consumed in filling in bug patching, balancing, and NYI material at the moment.

That said, I would not be at all surprised to see a substantial content increase for Christmas.  It's just that the whole "they aren't patching as fast as they could be" thing I keep hearing just sounds way too conspiracy theory for my tastes.  The new graphics and Ogre models are an entirely other piece.  If your programmers are full bore chasing bugs, that still leaves your graphic artists and modellers sitting idle.  Graphic improvements are completely outside the bug chase.
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The staff reduction might explain some of this. And while it does sound like conspiracy (we all love conspiracies don't we), there are some things I can point out. For example, why didn't the graphic designers make new models for epic mounts as countless people have been asking for, while they made new ogre models? Why didn't they switch graphics for a lot of class item sets/epics from placeholders to new graphics (although they did switch some)? Conspiracy =)

<Speculation>
Although I do want to point out one thing - supposedly there is another game that Blizzard is working on, but it's under wraps - so that could be the game that Blizzard will announce, and could be the reason for lack of developers working on the WoW.
</Speculation>

[MongoJerry]

Battlegrounds? They have been in testing for months now. So has been the honor system. Look at the date of first battlegrounds preview. Even with Blizzard's slow development cycle, this is a bit too long. They are working on something else now, it's the only way to justify the super-slow patch development. Compare to EQ, which released 8 instances in one month along with numerous changes.

As stated by Caydieum:

Everyone here agrees that the current rate at which we've been delivering content is not acceptable. Too much time has passed between patches, and the fact of the matter is that bug fixes -- which, while not critical, have been done and waiting -- have been lumped in with content that has been continually pushed back. This is not conducive to running a stable and fun gameplay environment, and the idea of the "monster patch" only hinders you folks in the long run.

After this patch, we plan on delivering patches containing both bug fixes and content in a more timely fashion. I cannot commit at this time to saying "monthly", for example, but they will be coming more often and regularly, and will not be held up due to some large feature being the focal point. The internal processes to make this happen are already in place and operating; the changes are real, and you will see the effects shortly after the current patch is live.

So we know that the reason for the slowdown to the patch schedule was due to "some large feature" that was "continually pushed back." My speculation is that it's battlegrounds, which would both fit the "large feature" part and the part that obviously has been pushed back for months now, since it has always been the feature that's "just about done." The way the battlegrounds previews have written them up, it looks like an absolutely monsterous project that would require a massive amount of both coding and design work to get them done right -- practically an expansion-worthy amount of work. It just makes sense to me that this is why we've seen so little new content since retail release.

[Treesh]

Blizzard inexplicably announced substantial staff reductions shortly before November and have not made a matching rehiring notice.&nbsp;
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http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/ Take a look at the dates on those. There were staff reductions yes, but when they saw how understaffed they were for a running MMORPG, they did start hiring again, especially for IT and CS.

[Tharn]

Umm ... when was the last time Blizzard announced release date?