They're pushing the expansion becase that's were the money is. Remember, Blizzard is a business and businesses only do one thing: make money. It's never too early to start building that mind share for the expansion, especially with serious competition on the horizon.

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I work on a software development team and it's easy to understand why all the answers are "maybe".

NOTHING is set in stone until you get some working product out there. You'd be amazed how many things you think are so simple turn into nightmares when you actually start trying to write the code and get a product.

They are very cautious about saying "yes, it will work this way" because the player base will crucify them if (for some reason) they had to backpedal and couldn't deliver.

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It's kind of weird to say that Blizzard hasn't even started design on the expansion yet. I can promise (knowing how game development works on a very basic level) that a certain section of the WoW team started on the next expansion after they finished development on Burning Crusade. Zul' Aman is finished and same with the Sunwell instance ,but they need all this time to tweak encounters and such so the major raiding base doesn't complain about it being so hard. Look for W.O.T.L.K to be released in Fall of 08'.

P.S. They announced the WoW expansion at this Blizzcon so they can announce Diablo 3 at the next one.

Josh

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Hopefully more decisions have been made and cast in concrete than the replys lead us to believe. And "maybe" really only means they don't want to commit to much of anything yet.

It does make them look a bit inept when the expansion was unvield with playabe demos yet so much is still undetermined.

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No attunement for NewNaxx? That doesn't make me feel good at all. I paid a ton for that attunement, and I want it to be worth something!

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The end of the article alluded to the big reason: Blizzcon 2008 can and probably would be shuffled under the carpet due to the fact the Olympics will be held at the same time. Yes, I'm sure not every WoW player drops everything to watch the Olympics but when say 1/4-1/5 your market place is in China, the host country, then you pull out the stops early, get them hooked without distraction, so when the olympics are done with, you can brow beat everyone over the head with how the expansion is coming.

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@5 a ton? Even at only revered it was not that bad, oh hate to break your bubble but any epics you earn now will be replaced again so let the QQing begin lol.

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@7 dont be a tool. it was alot back in teh day to get attuned unless you were revered or exalted. so /shoo and who mentioned gear. Blizz should let us reuse the rep we worked for back in teh day.

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Plus, the no attunement fee really applies more to those mains who switched to alts from the main game to TBC and those that will from TBC to WotLK, as well as those Death Knights that would be showing up as well.

You can't ahve them go back and pay out the ass just to do a 25 man.

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@8 I said revered because revered was pretty normal in the old game considering most of the level 60 non raid instances and quests gave AD rep. If you were not revered in the old game and played in the old game then you pretty much skipped most of the level 60 content.

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I think it's the other way around. I think WotLK is further along than they've been letting slip, and all those "maybes" are just their way around having to tell us anything until they're cleared to by their superiors, who are notorious for telling us as little as possible.

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@8. You should have already been at revered or pretty close to it by the time Naxx came out unless you were a completely new player. Anyone who thought that attuning for Naxx was expensive shouldn't have been in there in the first place. Remember raid repair bills?

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I think their responses are deceptive.

They're probably vague, because they're paid to be. Look at the latest Games for Windows, which was chock-full of information that hadn't been posted elsewhere. What did Games for Windows get out of it? An exclusive for the month on Starcraft 2.

Blizzard is pushing Starcraft 2 (not that they really need to) as well as WoLK, so they have to form a symbiotic relationship with the promotion and the marketing goes hand in hand with that. CM's are the low end of marketing essentially when it comes to giving out details of forthcoming projects.

I imagine that the game is much farther along than the CM's are allowed to mention, because the magazines or other websites in exchange for running promotion for Starcraft 2 are being given exclusive access to certain details, and as their publications have large lead times... things look silly on the internet. After all the Games for Windows magazine with the details of WoLK had to be set for press sometime Mid-July, so they probably had the info early July... or Before Blizzcon. (and the person who leaked the info pre-Blizzcon was probably an employee of some part of the process for the magazine)

So there's probably quite a few people under NDA's that have a lot more information that we're not allowed to know yet. The CM's will be the last to know about it all, or at least the last to be allowed to tell us about it. I'd suspect that PCGamer will have an exclusive about some new part of the expansion at some point, and maybe ign.com and another website or two will have their exclusives and after all that, we'll get official CM responses that don't include "we're not sure" or "we have no plans".

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"Because all indications are, guys, that Wrath hasn't even been designed yet."

I dunno. I think they're a LOT further along than they were in 2005 at Blizzcon when they announced BC. Back then they didn't even have the first island of the Blood Elf starting area done. What I played through at Blizzcon this year was an order of magnitude bigger.
Having gone through the pain of doing their first expansion, they now at least have at least the mechanics of doing an expansion worked out. Sure, there's a lot to do, but I seriously doubt we're looking at the 18 month wait we had after BC's announcement.
Maybe half that time? I honestly don't think that's unrealistic.

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what's qq ing mean again?

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I don't think we will see WoTLK until Fall/Christmas 2008. Unless there is a compelling competitive reason.

Reasoning:
1.) We have Naxx and Sunwell to fit into the schedule. If they drop this content every 4 months, 12-15 months until the expansion seems reasonable.

2.) Unless Age of Conan / Warhammer is seen as a significant threat, why rush the content? Do it right, with the maximum polish to fend off competitors. Nothing worse than releasing buggy code. Makes for grumpy customers.

3.) The christmas season and the run up thereto is where the money is. Why do you think Halo 3 is dropping now?

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The longer they take to release WotLK the more chance they have to actually convince me it will be worth the money. So far, I am less then impressed.

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They really announced Wrath of the Lich King too early. BC wasn't announced until the final instance of the original WoW, Naxx, had been out for at least a month (I think...) and now they've announced it in what seems to be still the initial development stage, while they still have a lot of content yet to be created and released for BC. So people are all worked up about death knights and level 80, and don't care as much about the current game (why bother getting all those level 70 epics when they're going to be replaced with 71 greens?)

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Blizzcon the developers admitted that only half the land was even made, not completed, made. only the starting zones were really playable, story arcs aren't flushed out yet. And we haven't seen ANYTHING of the Arthas endgame. This time pre-TBC, we were seeing raid videos, loot tables, exploration videos out the wazoo. And even then it took, what, five months beta? It isn't anywhere close to being done, much less testing for beta. However, I would start to look from May, and that's really only if they announce beta testing at the end of January.

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Only reason they had gruesome attunments in TBC was to limit progression early on. Much like all the Heroics, Kara, etc. were all nerfed in 2.1. By limiting progression, they maximize profits for the current content, and give temselves ample time to produce new content.

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