WoW Expansion At BlizzCon

The world will get a taste of the first World of Warcraft expansion at BlizzCon, according to Gamespot. From the article: "In the second World of Warcraft Battleplan, which went up today, a Blizzard employee named 'Drake' confirmed the first WoW expansion will make its debut at BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment's annual expo. 'I'm very happy to announce that we'll have the first public showing of the expansion for World of Warcraft at BlizzCon,' wrote Drake. 'Attendees will be able to view the work that is going into the project and hear some of the eagerly awaited details.'"

Comments

At the risk of repeating myself

[bradbeattie]

It's been about 3 weeks since slashdot asked the developers of WoW some questions. Any word on that yet?

Re:At the risk of repeating myself

[PhilippeT]

It's been about $Current_Date - $WoW_Launch_Date and paying customers on official forums haven't gotten answers.

I wouldn't hold my breath

But did you hear! An Expansion will shown... does this mean they will show a in-depth look or release information about it... probably not but I'm certain they will enjoy their 40$ * $Current_WoW_Population influx when people buy it like mad.

Re:At the risk of repeating myself

[bradbeattie]

What's that you say? Blizzard is releasing $Minor_Feature? Forget all those questions I had; I can see WoW is in good hands.

And the easy guess would be

[Anonymous Coward]

An expansion for this and every Christmas, for the next six years.

Although it seems a little late for a Christmas announcement, I dont think Vivendi would want to miss holiday sales.

Article author

[Vaevictis666]

The "Battle Plan" may have been posted by a CSR named Drake, but it is signed Shane Dabiri, Lead Producer.

Re:Article author

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid an editor READ an article before publishing it.

1. 2. 3.

[universalcurb]

1) get 4 million people addicted to your game.
2) sell expansion packs.
3) profit!

wait, somethings missing here!!!

Re:1. 2. 3.

[Solikawa]

Working as intended.

Expansions vs. patch content

[llevity]

Anyone else a little disillusioned about Blizzard with the announcement of this expansion? The game hasn't even been out a year.

Part of the reasoning for the $15 subscription costs are new content. Yet since November's release, there have only been ~6 content patches. That is barely just one patch every two months, and considering some of these content patches have had very little content, it's not a lot.

Now, this announcement of an expansion brings to mind mental pictures of the devs splitting their time between implementing new content, and working on an expansion.

I wouldn't begrudge them an additional revenue stream in the form of an expansion if the "frequent content releases" promise was lived up to. There has been some, but it's been very underwhelming.

Is it going to make my cancel my subscription? No. Will I buy the expansion? Yes. It's just that it almost feels like a slap in the face when Blizzard claims patches are coming out so slow because they're working so hard on making them the best they can be, and then they announce they have an expansion almost ready to show!

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[Palos]

I not sure what type of content patches you're used to from other games, but the amount of content that has been in the patches thus have have been very large, at least compared to other most other mmorpg patches.

Some things they've added:
2 new battlegrounds with rewards for various ranks( a third is finishing up testing right now and will most likely be in next week )
2 new non-raid instance (maraudron, dire maul)
A new raid instance (black wing lair, a new one will be added most likely next week)
A honor system along with honor ranks/rewards/etc
2 new outdoor raid boss encounters
Darkmoon faire

If you combined all these patches together they'd probably be roughly equavalent to an expansion.

Personally I think that the amount of new content being released is fine, I'm more concerned with balance issues. As with every game blizzard has fallen into the hole where everything has to be more powerful than the things before it. This itemization seems to have a greater impact on certain classes (those that rely on items more), such as warriors while classes less reliant on equipment are getting left behind.

I'm not pretended it is easy to keep a balance between the classes, or the factions themselves, but I believe at some portion of the time spent on new content should be spent making sure that people play on a more even playing field in PVP (and to a lesser degree PVE).

Now back to the orginal topic, blizzards expansions have seem to be hit or miss. I think the diablo II expansion for example was defintely worthwhile, but the warcraft III wasn't.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[Shivetya]

Well your title hit the nail on the head but your comment seemed to ignore the obvious, there can and usually is a large difference between what constitutes and expansion and what is delivered via patches.

Outside of the Asheron's Call series I do not recall any game which sold monthly content updates as part of the "package".

New dungeons, opening existing areas, and new items are great features for content "patches". Entirely new landmasses, new races, and new "types" of items are valid for expansions.

Which way will Blizzard go? Probably the latter. They have a track record of releasing good quality games for the money paid. I doubt they would let what is now their premier title to do any less. The side effect of being on the top is that when you screw up you have just that many more people screaming about it!

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[Rallion]

Well, the expansion may be almost ready to show, but what I've seen in interviews SEEMS to indicate that it won't be ready to release for another year or so. I really can't say that two years is too short a time without an expansion.

Of course, I really want new content, so if the expansion were to release in a few months, that would make me happy.

Yet, also, upset, for the reason you mentioned.

Mmm. Such a dilemma.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[llefler]

I not sure what type of content patches you're used to from other games, but the amount of content that has been in the patches thus have have been very large, at least compared to other most other mmorpg patches.

Some of us were spoiled by monthly updates in Asheron's Call. I don't expect to buy the WoW expansion any time soon. But then again, I unsubscribed last spring because I didn't have time to play, and don't plan to restart until around November. Oddly, over the years I maintained two AC accounts, and never unsubscribed until I changed to WoW. A friend tells me he gets bored with WoW. I'm not sure whether his problem is lack of new content or lack of community.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[JVert]

Soo easy to forget the honor system and battlegrounds were all a part of playing catchup.

These new features were in the game manual. Printed. As a feature that was expected to be available when it was released.

From what they have taken in they have also taken out. Civilian dishonor takes the whole city raid elements out of the game.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[Nasarius]

Meanwhile, Guild Wars is about to have a major update, even though I haven't spent a dime on it beyond the initial $30 for a CD key. Suckers ;-)

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[PaganRitual]

how about some extra non 60 areas so putting more than 2 characters thru to the level cap doesnt become incredibly boring after a while.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[The Sage Of Time]

Well.. An expansion after a years time for an MMO isn't that surprising really. A year isn't a short time you know? And sure, it hasn't been out quite a year yet, but the expansion probably won't be done for awhile yet either.. So oh well? Might as well start early than late in the production of it. Also, it is debatable that the subscription fee is not for content updates, but for maintaining the servers. And as many players should know, they do run into a fair share of troubles with that sometimes.. Sure, they most certainly pocket extra change from it too; considering the vast amount of people playing right now, but eh.. Anyways, the game is pretty big as is, the updates haven't been bad so far, and the ones upcoming look great too. I don't mind buying an expansion for new content myself, after all, making a profit off their work is incentive to.. you know, actually do the work.

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[andi75]

I second that. Even for a single char, there's not enough choice (e.g. there's usually just one instance accessible for your current level, and if you're a lvl 34 Shammy, there's none right now. They're either too high or too low level).

Re:Expansions vs. patch content

[reza666]

Sure patches might not have had so much extra to offer but i'm still having so much to do with the original content! I played a druid to lvl 44 (Nightelf) now a hunter to 56(Orc) (and going to 60 pretty soon) and tested mage to 23. That is just different chars. Not mentioning the trade career and going to the last dungeons for epic items. I still have at least 6 month to explore until i'm ready for a patch so i think the content is so huge that you can not complain about the patches. Ofc it will be fun with a patch to see what they will add :) ps. I live in Europe so we got the game a bit later then US so you might be where i will be in 6month ;)

Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two articles on WoW in one day. Yet I know two people who have posted articles about another game in the same genre and platform. But they never got accepted.

Suspect favoritism here on someone censoring based on their own taste.

Wonder if this post will be censored as well.

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW has something like four million subscribers. Unless the game you're talking about is Lineage, the next closest game is miniscule in comparison.

So, what game do you think they're censoring? If you refuse to provide details, I'll have to assume that it was unimportant stuff that no one in their right mind would care about.