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

[VanQ]

A fall release date? Jesus, that's bad. Blizzard said that Siege of Orgrimmar would be the last tier of content they'd release for Mists of Pandaria. Siege has been out for nearly 6 months already and raiders are starting to feel the burnout from a long winded tier of content.

I seriously hope Blizzard decides to release something in between now and then because I imagine with the current burnout phase combined with the expected release of several new MMOs (TESO and Wildstar) that their subscription numbers are going to bleed more than ever.

 

[AstaresPanda]

I like how they are STILL coming out with stuff for WoW but my god is the cow still worth milking ? Then again making alot of players happy to still be able to play new things for their old fav game.

 

[anthony87]

Oh Goodie. The expack that is apparently so lame that blizzard will allow you to pay them for the privilege of not actually playing the game.

Sense....this makes none.

So the expansion, by your immense knowledge, is so lame that blizz is enabling people to skip all past content in order to get to the new content as soon as possible.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

 

[Charli]

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 It seems like it's easier just to wait for them to add expansions to the basic package as they go out of date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...

Not as such, but if you're terribly lonely, I'm an EU player on Emerald Dream realm Horde Side (sleepy but friendly).
You may message me for my battletag if you fancy just knowing someone. (Cross realms great if you've already established yourself somewhere)

And boy there are some moaners in here who don't know what they're talking about eh.

GUYS! I Know you were all experts on WoW back in the day, but the Escapist doesn't give out every bit of news about it! Alot has changed!


(I know the end game might seem repetitive, but try it with a guild who knows what they're doing, and I don't have many experiences to compare it to. Downing a heroic mode raid boss is exhilarating when they're first launched, and my guild is recruiting potentials for WoD since 20 man raids are going to be the hard mode standard)

I like how they are STILL coming out with stuff for WoW but my god is the cow still worth milking ? Then again making alot of players happy to still be able to play new things for their old fav game.

Current game is still worth 7.8 million subs. I'd say it's still worth milking. (Hell if they had 2-3 million stable players it would STILL be worth milking, might take longer for the content to release, but they've made some headway in developing the systems to create landmass and objects much more easily for the engine)

A fall release date? Jesus, that's bad. Blizzard said that Siege of Orgrimmar would be the last tier of content they'd release for Mists of Pandaria. Siege has been out for nearly 6 months already and raiders are starting to feel the burnout from a long winded tier of content.

I seriously hope Blizzard decides to release something in between now and then because I imagine with the current burnout phase combined with the expected release of several new MMOs (TESO and Wildstar) that their subscription numbers are going to bleed more than ever.

I have a sneeeaking suspicion that this is being done deliberately so that they DON'T Clash with Wildstar and TESO's releases, that way those who get bored of or put off the said former two? Get caught on the web of 'oh yeah WoD's releasing soon, guess I'll just go back to that'. Smart, as they're never going to rush through beta fast enough to release before or just on the day those two do. So the inevitable ideal, would be to push for an autumn september-december release.

 

[Wanicochil]

Oh Goodie. The expack that is apparently so lame that blizzard will allow you to pay them for the privilege of not actually playing the game.

Sense....this makes none.

So the expansion, by your immense knowledge, is so lame that blizz is enabling people to skip all past content in order to get to the new content as soon as possible.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

If a restaurant charges you before you get your meal , would you not consider that odd... as i perhaps they feel that you might not want to pay for the meal after you've seen smelt and heaven forbid eaten it?

Like how you know a movie is likely crappy when they push the toys , games, and merchandizing up to a month *before* the movie hit's the theatres.

In this case, they likely have no confidence you'll stick around the game long enough to pay $60 in subscription fees so they're just trying to get it from you up front.

all you need to know, it's never a good sign in games when the developers allow you to pay them to skip 90% of the content. Logic like that, WoW might as well be F2P.

Well no, leveling isn't 90% of the content, if you think so than you have never played WoW before, and this is mostly to help the people who have done the '90% of content' before, like me, I have 8 level 90's already, I really want to level up my warlock/monk/Deathknight but I cannot be bothered with doing the content again
'Oh well if you can't be bothered leveling than it is bad'
I cannot think of a game I have played 8-15 times, not even Dark Souls I have put that much time and effort into and Dark Souls is one of my top games

 

[lacktheknack]

If a restaurant charges you before you get your meal , would you not consider that odd... as i perhaps they feel that you might not want to pay for the meal after you've seen smelt and heaven forbid eaten it?

Like how you know a movie is likely crappy when they push the toys , games, and merchandizing up to a month *before* the movie hit's the theatres.

In this case, they likely have no confidence you'll stick around the game long enough to pay $60 in subscription fees so they're just trying to get it from you up front.

How is this different than literally every other game in existence?

 

[Wanicochil]

Oh Goodie. The expack that is apparently so lame that blizzard will allow you to pay them for the privilege of not actually playing the game.

Sense....this makes none.

So the expansion, by your immense knowledge, is so lame that blizz is enabling people to skip all past content in order to get to the new content as soon as possible.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

If a restaurant charges you before you get your meal , would you not consider that odd... as i perhaps they feel that you might not want to pay for the meal after you've seen smelt and heaven forbid eaten it?

Like how you know a movie is likely crappy when they push the toys , games, and merchandizing up to a month *before* the movie hit's the theatres.

In this case, they likely have no confidence you'll stick around the game long enough to pay $60 in subscription fees so they're just trying to get it from you up front.

all you need to know, it's never a good sign in games when the developers allow you to pay them to skip 90% of the content. Logic like that, WoW might as well be F2P.

Well no, leveling isn't 90% of the content, if you think so than you have never played WoW before, and this is mostly to help the people who have done the '90% of content' before, like me, I have 8 level 90's already, I really want to level up my warlock/monk/Deathknight but I cannot be bothered with doing the content again
'Oh well if you can't be bothered leveling than it is bad'
I cannot think of a game I have played 8-15 times, not even Dark Souls I have put that much time and effort into and Dark Souls is one of my top games

No the leveling isn't but travelling the world, getting involved in the quest/story arcs.

Yeah that's fine and dandy, except for the fact this feature is advertised for people coming back to the game/people who have already done questing before, and even then questing/story arcs are about 5% of the game at most, I don't know what kind of people you think play WoW but it is safe to bet majority don't read quest text
You're trying to imagine WoW as a different game to what it is, (WoW is about end game content if you needed help with that)
(P.S the term leveling includes questing/story arcs)
I don't understand people logic sometimes, more options = always good, give people the option to skip content and get to what they want, it's not like 1-90 (soon 100) won't be there at all anymore and you HAVE to pay to level up
Limiting options = bad, More options = good, it's that simple really

Edit - By skip what they want I mean old content that is just a barrier to getting to newer content, not to pay to skip current expac content, if they gave option to get best in slot gear for money than I would be annoyed/furious

 

[SonicWaffle]

If a restaurant charges you before you get your meal , would you not consider that odd... as i perhaps they feel that you might not want to pay for the meal after you've seen smelt and heaven forbid eaten it?

Like how you know a movie is likely crappy when they push the toys , games, and merchandizing up to a month *before* the movie hit's the theatres.

In this case, they likely have no confidence you'll stick around the game long enough to pay $60 in subscription fees so they're just trying to get it from you up front.

How is this different than literally every other game in existence?

Most other games in existence don't milk you for $10 a month after purchase.

And quite a few games had the model of letting you try for free then buy... you know,, DOom, Duke3d, Quake, etc, etc, etc. Remember that whole concept of SHareware... not Demoware... Demoware is entirely different. Shareware was actual levels of the game (usually just with a few weapons missing) Demoware is usually a crafted 'vertical slice' Remember that from colonial marines?

You can play a WoW trial account for free up to level 20 (and if you upgrade from trial to full you get the whole bundle half price) and once you have the full edition, you can play a ten-day free trial of the current expansion.

Your analogy, she does not work.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Yes, my analogy does have a flaw.. seems to be sailing over a lot of heads.

In the post I quoted, your somewhat disjointed argument seemed to be that Blizzard has no faith in their content as evidenced by the fact they expected people to pay for it up front rather than to sample it for free, as with other games. The simple answer to that, as already pointed out, is that pre-ordering is optional and that they do allow prospective players to sample the game - in fact, much more of it than any game I've played since the shareware days - before they buy.

Ergo, it's not a very good analogy.

Let me spell it out. When I purchase most games I do not have to keep paying money in order to keep playing the game. Thusly my standards for entertainment are a bit lower...WoW charges you a monthly fee to actually play the full content of the game you just purchased.

This is entirely true. However, the obvious response is: so what? The business model seems to be working for both the developers and the players, as we can see from the still phenominally high subscription numbers and the fact that new content is still being released.

If you want to get into an objective price comparative, we can. My outlay for the game - vanilla, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm and a month of playing time - was £4.98. So for less than a fiver I've already got access to more content than the average game release. Those are usually priced around £40-45 brand new, so I'm ahead of the game there. Now, if I want to continue playing, the fee will be about £7 per month, which means that I'll need to pay for & play WoW for around six months before it's equalled the price of a store-bought new copy of another game. If I wish to continue playing after that, certainly I will be spending more money, but it will be because I'm enjoying the game and wish to continue playing it, similar to the way that I might purchase DLC for another game so long as I was interested in playing more of it.

Your complaint seems to be that WoW and other subscription based games keep taking your money so long as you're interested in playing them, and I can't really see why you're acting like this is a negative.

But I suppose at this point the fan boys are so emotionally invested in this game that if the devs found a way to make it attract wasps to nest in the player's PC they'd still consider it a great feature.

Sorry, but I've only been playing a couple of weeks, so you won't be able to handwave away my opinions as those of an obsessive fanboy.