World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Will Launch on or Before 12/20/14

[Steven Bogos]

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Will Launch on or Before 12/20/14

You can now pre-order the regular or digital deluxe edition of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.

Blizzard has made a few of big announcements regarding its upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack: Warlords of Draenor. Namely, you can now pre-purchase both the regular game and the digital deluxe edition from the Blizzard store [https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-warlords-of-draenor], and it will launch "on or before" December 20 this year. Blizzard stresses that it is currently aiming for a fall release, and the December 20 date is more of a "worst-case-scenario" than an official release date.

The regular version of the game costs $50, while the digital deluxe edition edition will set you back $70. Pre-purchasing either edition gives you a free level 90 character boost that you can use straight away.

The digital deluxe edition will contain "a Dread Raven mount and Dread Hatchling pet to accompany you in World of Warcraft, Grommash Hellscream and Blackhand Battle.net portraits to intimidate your foes with in StarCraft II, and a battle-torn Warsong Pennant to fuel your demon-slaying rage in Diablo III." Just like the level 90 character boost, the digital deluxe edition rewards will be made available as soon as you pre-purchase the game.

There will also be a physical collector's edition made available to retailers in small quantities, which will contain all of the digital deluxe goodies, plus a hardcover art book, behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD set, Warlords of Draenor mouse pad, and CD soundtrack featuring epic music from the expansion.

If you'd like an additional level 90 character boost, Blizzard recently announced that they would also be sold stand-alone, albeit with a $60 price tag [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132803-World-of-Warcrafts-Character-Boosts-Now-On-Sale-for-60].

Source: MMO Champion [https://battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-warlords-of-draenor]

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[Roofstone]

Hey. This is much better than the usual (And trademarked) Blizz soon. It is an actual sort of kinda date that is sort of kinda set!

...

Hooray?

 

[Abomination]

Curse your American date culture.

It's 20/12/14!

Other than that, it's nice to have an "about" date for once. Not that I mind how long it takes Blizzard to release things. They tend to put some of the most polished products (if not the most polished products) on the shelves.

 

[suitepee7]

while the date is a bit off what i would have liked, i'm mainly shocked by the pricing. considering the prices of their previous expansions, this is too rich for my blood, i'll wait till it goes on sale

 

[VanBasten]

$50?

Blizzard is really milking what's left of that cow...

 

[SonicWaffle]

while the date is a bit off what i would have liked, i'm mainly shocked by the pricing. considering the prices of their previous expansions, this is too rich for my blood, i'll wait till it goes on sale

I've literally just begun playing WoW, and was surprised that my original £4.98 payout got me vanilla, TBC, WotLK & Cataclysm as well as a month of game time. It seems like it's easier just to wait for them to add expansions to the basic package as they go out of date

On a related topic: is there any kind of Escapist group on WoW? I checked the user groups but they seem pretty dead, and as a new player I was looking for friendly people to maybe join a guild with...

 

[Shayman]

I hope that is most definitely a worst case scenario date, that would be over a year without new content.

 

[Queen Michael]

(Can't let people see I'm clueless about WOW...)

Um... Woohoo! A new expansion to that game that I totally do play. And I'm super psyched about all the Draenors, and the warlords thereof!

 

[Darks63]

So including this new expansion if someone wanted to play this they would have to pay 40 to 60 bucks on all of the older stuff plus 50 bucks and the sub fee. Thats like 90 to 110 bucks w/o the sub thats a pretty steep entry price for me sorry blizz still not interested.

Note I checked amazon for those prices since the blizz store seems to be down for maintenance atm.

 

[Xeorm]

So including this new expansion if someone wanted to play this they would have to pay 40 to 60 bucks on all of the older stuff plus 50 bucks and the sub fee. Thats like 90 to 110 bucks w/o the sub thats a pretty steep entry price for me sorry blizz still not interested.

Note I checked amazon for those prices since the blizz store seems to be down for maintenance atm.

Well, to be fair they've routinely knocked down their prices for previous stuff. $20 seems to be an average price, going down even further in some special sales. Which I would say isn't too bad of a price for a game that's been in production for so long.

The timing baffles me though. That's a long time away without any real new content to keep players playing; I know plenty of people have stopped playing due to being done with the last raid already, months more of that and they'll lose a ton of subscribers, and it's so much harder to get them back than it is to keep them going.

I was thinking a summer release if they wanted to keep people going, not a fall release if they hurry.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

So including this new expansion if someone wanted to play this they would have to pay 40 to 60 bucks on all of the older stuff plus 50 bucks and the sub fee. Thats like 90 to 110 bucks w/o the sub thats a pretty steep entry price for me sorry blizz still not interested.

But why would you buy the vanilla game and all the expansion packs in one go if you were just going to be trying the game for the first time (I'm assuming by your use of "entry price" you haven't played WoW)? If you were just starting the game the logical way to do it would be to just buy the next expansion every time you hit the level cap, instead of buying them all in one go. I mean, most people that will be buying this expansion pack on day one will be the people that have played the game for years and already have all the released expansions, and when you look at it that way $50 (£34.99 for me) isn't really much. Sure it would be a lot of money if you bought them all in one go, but doing that would just be silly.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Note the importance of "on or before (date)". It'll definitely be before.

Blizzard have stated many times that they want to get things out more frequently and that leaving the last patch of Cataclysm to drag out for so long was a big mistake, so there's no chance they'll leave it a full year between content updates. I'll be very surprised if it's later than mid-September.

 

[Ninmecu]

So including this new expansion if someone wanted to play this they would have to pay 40 to 60 bucks on all of the older stuff plus 50 bucks and the sub fee. Thats like 90 to 110 bucks w/o the sub thats a pretty steep entry price for me sorry blizz still not interested.

But why would you buy the vanilla game and all the expansion packs in one go if you were just going to be trying the game for the first time (I'm assuming by your use of "entry price" you haven't played WoW)? If you were just starting the game the logical way to do it would be to just buy the next expansion every time you hit the level cap, instead of buying them all in one go. I mean, most people that will be buying this expansion pack on day one will be the people that have played the game for years and already have all the released expansions, and when you look at it that way $50 (£34.99 for me) isn't really much. Sure it would be a lot of money if you bought them all in one go, but doing that would just be silly.

Because the Battle Chest is 20 bucks, has the first 4 games in it and is the only standalone version of the game still officially sold/printed by Blizzard mostly. If you go to Brick and Mortar stores they'll likely have 2 versions, the Battle Chest version and the individual expac packs, not counting mists of Pandaria which is still considered standalone by them.

On topic however, seriously? You're aiming for a fall release after Siege of Orgrimmar became easier than Icecrown's raid from launch? Granted I got carried my first run through because my buddies guild needed to replace a raider the night before raid night and that's a whole other story. But the mechanics are pretty simple to master, the encounters are just, well, long if anything annoys me with it. The group I was raiding with before deciding to quit, I was lowest damage dealer doing 220k per second on average and it still felt like it took us for ever on some bosses because, to quote yahtzee, "Their health meters are made of mars bars and we're diabetic." But the bosses in question aren't challenging, they're simplified mechanics from previous raid tiers and I mastered the 13/14 fights the first night, Garrosh (The last boss of the expansion) isn't particularly challenging either, he's just unforgiving(Which is a good thing) and a long player stamina based fight(Not so good.). I'm pretty much ranting at this point so yeah, I'll get to the end now.

This is not good, not good at all. An early summer release would've gained them a ton of subs from people coming out of school into less responsible times to live with and had more free time and desire to play the game, a fall release loses them the opportunity to snag some players who've been lost because of such a huge gap between new content. Unless they release the 6.0 update soon, they won't have much of a playerbase soon.


Edit:

Blizzard have stated many times that they want to get things out more frequently and that leaving the last patch of Cataclysm to drag out for so long was a big mistake, so there's no chance they'll leave it a full year between content updates. I'll be very surprised if it's later than mid-September.

While true-If they wait until a mid september release date, that's over a year of SoO if what I've been told is accurate.(I returned in Oct and quit this month, SoO was well underway and cleared pretty easily by several guilds by then.)

 

[Ferisar]

So including this new expansion if someone wanted to play this they would have to pay 40 to 60 bucks on all of the older stuff plus 50 bucks and the sub fee. Thats like 90 to 110 bucks w/o the sub thats a pretty steep entry price for me sorry blizz still not interested.

Note I checked amazon for those prices since the blizz store seems to be down for maintenance atm.

Generally speaking in the case of WoW expansions, the pricing eventually hits the 60 dollar mark for everything + the current expansion. That was the case with cata and mists, anyway. I'm assuming they're sticking with that trend. The 50 dollar price-tag for this is out of place though, unless the amount of in-game content somehow makes up the difference (of which we have no real idea until a beta test is available, unfortunately).

Either way, chances are that a "Bundle" 60-dollar equivalent will be available post-launch, especially if it's during the holiday season. Blizzard tends to favor using their own store for any kind of deals that may be offered, so pricing on amazon may be inaccurate.

I've literally just begun playing WoW, and was surprised that my original £4.98 payout got me vanilla, TBC, WotLK & Cataclysm as well as a month of game time. It seems like it's easier just to wait for them to add expansions to the basic package as they go out of date

The biggest draw to playing at "current" content is raiding and just being on par, since that's how the game has been structured for a bit now, so the pricing reflects the playerbase, essentially. It is nice to get into the game though, if anything. I don't know if it accurately reflects "end-game" so to speak, but that's a bit more of a design discussion rather than a fiscal one.

OT:
Saw this from the b.net client, lost some hype. The price is higher than usual, and the pre-order bonuses (not that I've ever pre-ordered anything) aren't really anything note-worthy. Yeah I can level to 90, but that's do-able in a week if you're just powering through to max-level. This will only be made more trivial by the XP gain increase once the expansion launches, meaning the climb to 90 isn't going to be worth that much money. I don't know Blizzard. I DON'T KNOW. Don't make it more difficult for me to play your games.
I guess it doesn't matter too much in the end since I only play WoW in short bursts and take breaks before new patches, but it's still a detriment which seems only more awkwardly paired with the "purchase 90" option.

EDIT:
Also, to parrot what was said earlier: Seige of Orgrimmar has been out for a while -already-. Waiting until Fall is going to cause players to halt playing, even if it's not permanent. I'm curious what can actually be done to remedy this outside of segmenting completed content in a way that provides semi-consistent amounts of time. That would essentially mean having finished parts of the game behind patch-walls simply for the sake of time, but it would surely be better than having the same freakin' raid being current for a whole year. (Never forget Cataclysm Hour of Twilight. Never again.)

 

[SonicWaffle]

The biggest draw to playing at "current" content is raiding and just being on par, since that's how the game has been structured for a bit now, so the pricing reflects the playerbase, essentially. It is nice to get into the game though, if anything. I don't know if it accurately reflects "end-game" so to speak, but that's a bit more of a design discussion rather than a fiscal one.

As a total newbie, the idea of end-game content is still kinda confusing to me. I enjoy questing because I level up and get nicer gear to do my next quest with - if you're finished levelling up, what do you do, just run the same instances over and over to get slightly better gear?

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

(Can't let people see I'm clueless about WOW...)

Um... Woohoo! A new expansion to that game that I totally do play. And I'm super psyched about all the Draenors, and the warlords thereof!

You better start singing 'everything is awesome', otherwise everyone will start turning on you for not being "one of us".

(Hopefully you will understand this reference)

I was hoping to utilise the jump to max level option, but I can't justify that at $60. Maybe it would undervalue working for it to put it any lower, but I can't say that I'd be spending that much on a new character.

There may be plenty of clueless level 90s running around soon though... including me.

 

[Ferisar]

The biggest draw to playing at "current" content is raiding and just being on par, since that's how the game has been structured for a bit now, so the pricing reflects the playerbase, essentially. It is nice to get into the game though, if anything. I don't know if it accurately reflects "end-game" so to speak, but that's a bit more of a design discussion rather than a fiscal one.

As a total newbie, the idea of end-game content is still kinda confusing to me. I enjoy questing because I level up and get nicer gear to do my next quest with - if you're finished levelling up, what do you do, just run the same instances over and over to get slightly better gear?

Kind... of. It's weird. Essentially, think of all the divisions of expansions as having many "end-game" oriented encounters/dungeons/raids that were specifically catered to characters that finished leveling. This also came with certain crafting things (less relevant now) or reputation grinds/gains with factions. As the game aged patches were added to each of the expansion divisions to advance the end-game content, which became more difficult based on gear quality over just levels. Additionally, certain quest chains or repeatable quests were only available to maximum level characters. (The most poignant example of this would probably be the current "Legendary" Quest line, where you acquire an increasingly beneficial item from a story chain that becomes available at max level).

So, every expansion introduced: Leveling to a new level cap, at which point you went out with people to find the bestest gear to get to the next tier of raid content. It's not a playstyle everyone participated in, but it's a lot more accessible now what with the whole raidfinder tier or flex raiding. Honestly, if you're enjoying your leveling and just running around, it's probably fine not to worry about what happens at the end, as it tends to gravitate a player toward reaching the max level rather than just going through content however they felt like it.

Short version: WoW's been out for too goddamn long.

 

[Leemaster777]

The biggest draw to playing at "current" content is raiding and just being on par, since that's how the game has been structured for a bit now, so the pricing reflects the playerbase, essentially. It is nice to get into the game though, if anything. I don't know if it accurately reflects "end-game" so to speak, but that's a bit more of a design discussion rather than a fiscal one.

As a total newbie, the idea of end-game content is still kinda confusing to me. I enjoy questing because I level up and get nicer gear to do my next quest with - if you're finished levelling up, what do you do, just run the same instances over and over to get slightly better gear?

In WoW, there are essentially two methods of leveling up: The traditional kind, and your armor. Traditional is exactly what it seems like: Gain experience, level up. Armor is a bit more complex, and only really comes into effect once you've reached max level.

See, all armor, weapons, etc in the game has a level of it's own. The higher level the armor is, the better it is (generally). As you equip better and better armor, your average armor level increases. Once you've reached a certain armor level, more difficult raids and dungeons unlock for you to participate in. These more difficult dungeons, in turn, yield better armor, and the cycle repeats.

And the differences between armor of a higher and lower level is more than "slightly". Using out-of-date armor (even armor that only max level characters can use) in tougher dungeons will make you extraordinarily ineffective in alot of situations, and be downright suicide in others.

In the end, WoW is really two games: The leveling up game, and the endgame. Which is why I've never had a problem with Blizzard's decision to add the option to skip right to level 90. It's essentially a different game once you max your level, and sometimes, that's the game you'd rather play with a new character.

 

[Colt47]

It's interesting to hear how they are still going on with that game. I've been done with it since the summer before the Siege of Orgrimmar even got released. The issue isn't how boring the low level zones are or the fast paced leveling, it's the fact the actual games challenges are all loaded on the end game front along with the insane grinding mechanics. World of Warcraft is basically Diablo with raid and group mechanics attached, but without any fulfillment at the mid and low levels.