World of Warcraft: Expansion Announcement Coming at Gamescom

SBFord

Blizzard has just announced that a World of Warcraft expansion will indeed be announced at this year's Gamescom, ending speculation about what the special press event was going to reveal.

Join us Thursday, August 6 at 9 a.m. PDT for a special World of Warcraft event streamed live from gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany—where we’ll be unveiling the next chapter of the World of Warcraft saga. . . .



Tune in again Sunday, August 9 at 8:00 a.m. PDT for a World of Warcraft developer chat before the show ends, and find out more about what’s in store.



Stay tuned to our dedicated gamescom page for further details on the live stream. Those who are able to join us in person at gamescom can visit us at the Blizzard booth in hall 7.1. We hope to see you there!

Read more on the World of Warcraft site.

See what we think will be coming next in our latest World of Warcraft column.

Bigdaddyx

Can't wait. I really enjoyed WOD and i hope that new expansion revist some of the old lore. It would be so awesome if the next expansion has some underground zones.

tawess

that was a very interesting bit of damage control and desperation. Especially as this would have been the big ticket item for Blizzcon. 

 

I think they actually are a bit worried. 

SBFord

Originally posted by tawess

that was a very interesting bit of damage control and desperation. Especially as this would have been the big ticket item for Blizzcon. 

 

I think they actually are a bit worried. 

This is only an announcement that it's in the works, and a title. It will GUARANTEED be THE big ticket item at this year's Blizzcon.

WhySoSerious

Even though I haven't had an active sub since sometime in Cataclysm, I'll admit... I'm still kinda excited to see what the next expansion is. There is always the possibility they could surprise me and make something I'll want to play again.

tawess

Ok desperate might have been a tad bit to strong of a word. But i think that maybe the buzz for Blizzcon have been a bit to low even with the movie. So they decide to jumpstart the PR machine a bit early with this. 

 

I expect the usual expansion reveal at blizzcon with feature slides and all. Will be a good year. 

DrunkWolf

everytime i think of WoW coming out with expansions or updates I allways think of this video.

 

Loke666

Well, just as you predicted.

Not very surprising though since the last one wont get any more major patches so I guess they had little choice but announce it or lose loads of players.

Daikuru

Originally posted by DrunkWolf

everytime i think of WoW coming out with expansions or updates I allways think of this video.

 

 ^This.

tawess

Originally posted by Deyirn

Realistically speaking, for such a short period of time, I'm rather skeptical on the creative potential of this expansion,

 

Well iirc it is a 3-ish year cycle with a year-ish to formulate the theme and stuff and 2 years of active development. (i think it was said at a Blizzcon or maybe on a CE disk) so in essence this expansion have had around 2 years in development and should be ready come next year. 

 

But i agree, they seem to cut it a bit to tight seeing how much of WoD that was underdeveloped. 

Yaevindusk

 

Hopefully they've learned from the mistakes of WoD and the mainly legit complaints that even Blizzard MVPs and popular Pro WoW channels had.  Their official acknowledgements of mishandling many things in WoD in interviews gave some ray of hope, but that was devastated by another interview whereby they kind've back tracked on such, further proving how split their development team is without actual leadership in their "we decide as a team" philosophy.

 

Only supporting your expansion for half its life cycle is no longer okay (12-15 months of drought; we had about 20 months of drought without real content that wasn't paid for by the expansion up to 6.2, which... only gave content that was supposed to be a part of 6.0 to begin with or something that was promised during WoD).

 

Other games are providing 3+ new dungeons every 3 months, a continuous narrative, side narratives, dozens of new, large systems (such as marriage, housing, chocobo racing, triple triad, monster hunting, The Hunt, treasure hunting, etc.), new PvP maps, new events, guild events, crafting updates (huge ones, at that), new classes, new areas, etc. all in simple patches.  Even MMORPG did an article explaining this and wondering what is going on with WoW's development team.

 

They supposedly have double the team of MoP, yet they didn't even come close to giving 10% of the content MoP did.  Presumably to get faster expansions out.  But why can another game do 18 month expansions while updating so stupendously every three months without relent?

 

There is even a post on WoW's main forums of people saying they don't want yearly expansions (with some 700+ thumbs up the last time I checked) if it means them not properly supporting the expansion they paid for and support through subscription fees.

 

I'm genuinely expecting them to learn how to manage their game better next time around.  Have proper storyline every month with dozens of quests.  New dungeons monthly.  New lands and systems each patch.  Etc.  To actually show effort and given even 10% of what other MMOs on the market are currently giving despite their lower budgets.  They could even have a team that's dedicated to updating an old area in the world and putting new story in it every month.  The first of every month, a new area is completely updated and has a storyline with favorite characters to further capitalize on fandom to keep people interested in the story and keep them as customers while promoting the movie that will come out.

Albatroes

Guess everyone is excited for them to take another year off from updating content just so they can "focus on making the expansion great" like they did with WoD....can't wait!

Bladestrom

The big question is are they going to learn and introduc content that compliments current content and gives people what they want, or are they going to arrogantly introduce some random shite again that destroys other content again ie garrisons v crafting. If they do then credit to them, if not thru are going to pay.

My question is what would constitute a good expansion? My offerings would be:

- Large continent, Player level extended by 10 (genuine 10 so it lasts twice as long, not 10 levels at double xp con)

- New class

- expand on skills and get balancing off the critical path for good gameplay, stop the fucking about with stats every 2 minutes and refactor so imperfect balance is ok e.g totally seperate pvp and pve.

- housing, not garrisons.

- make old zones relevant ( how about rewriting time and restore PRE Cata with updated models - that would be awsome for old players)

ThomasN7

I guess desperation has set in since people are leaving WoW in droves. This is only a bandaid to temporarily stop the bleeding. 

orbitxo

if they play their cards right= its a prologue expansion to the warcraft movie.

 

Gretelda

yes can't wait for another batch of reviews praising it and then reading articles about what a damn failure it was after a few months. glad i didn't take the bait with Warlords of Draenor. 87/100 metacritic lol that's cute.

 

 

oh also, hope current wow players are having fun killing Archimonde, a totally new and original boss cause that's what Blizzard is all about right now, coming up with original characters right? lol.

Pyuk

Maybe this will be the expansion that will bring the fun back. One can hope.

Shodanas

So, Azshara and nagas then ?

 

BadSpock

They need to announce that the next expansion is the final/wrap up of the entire Burning Legion/Old God storylines and the end of World of Warcraft.

And then release WoW 2.

Anything else is going to fall and deaf ears to me.

Lord.Bachus

Offcourse this expansion will be movie related...

Chrisbox

Another chance to steal back millions, or continue the failstreak.  

BadSpock

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Offcourse this expansion will be movie related...

It really can't be.

I mean, the movie takes us back to the original (Warcraft 1) invasion of Azeroth by the Orcs...

Warlords of Draenor took us back to before the invasion and the corruption of the Orcs by the Burning Legion.

So the new expansion would be... well the Orcs are invading Azeroth for the first time.. again.. anyway?

 

I mean, yeah it'd be KIND of cool to go back to an Azeroth before the events of Warcraft 1,2,3 but... at the same time, we've been there and done that.

Azaron_Nightblade

Blizzard's really churning them out!

Then again, who knows when the expansion gets there.

danwest58

Good for them.  Don't matter to me though not coming back.  I started playing in Dec 04, and I am sorry but WOW really became a wreck from WOTLK on.  Every Xpac I was hoping they would learn their lesson from making the game more and more a single player game.  They have not so I am not going to be back.  

Mickyknox

70 bucks for 1 month of fun......... Still worth it i my books cant wait !!!!

observer

I don't mind faster expansion releases, but if they think one content update per expansion is going to entice players to buy an expansion, they are fooling themselves.  WoD was the most pathetic expansion in terms of content.  It was very weak.