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World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Coming November 23 | MMORPG.com
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World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Coming November 23 | MMORPG.com
In a tweet today, Blizzard announced that the delayed World of Warcraft: Shadowlands finally has a new release date. Coming this November 23rd, Shadowlands will also host a pre-launch event on November 10th to set up the release later in the month.
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For those who beta tested Shadowlands, how do you rate it in comparation with ......BfA? Is it on pare with Legion ( content-wise ) ?
Is the new system like the ..extravaganza Azerite Armor/Neckless in BfA? Or is it..much more ( in a good way? )
Thanks!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
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I was really hoping for this to be a buy but I think I'm going to wait it out for a bit.
Yeah, its gonna be very very rough atm. The one thing I'm more concerned about is the 'balancing' of all of this. They just added a new rough covenant ability a few weeks ago(?) and with the order rework of the soulbinds, that's leaving some 'issues' as well. The maw (which you're going to be spending quite a bit of time is) is honestly not really touched and is pretty barren so.....its gonna be a rough time for this expansion, especially with the raid being scheduled at the start of december around-about.
Imo, this is gonna be like BfA all over again thanks to covenants. Some abilities are just all over the place and really can't be balanced unless they are nerfed into the group (which a lot have already been surprisingly) but they are probably going to re-jig the system or something hardcore in 9.1, because as it stands now, its gonna be too crazy by the next raid tier. I say that because a lot of things connected to the system itself (conduits, soublinds, even legendaries) are % based, so gear is going to impact performance massively as time goes on.
But I have said myself, that they should just put it out in an beta state because it is better than BfA in a lot of areas. I'll correct myself in believing delaying this will honestly help, because it really wont. The systems in Shadowlands are too convoluted to complex for the sake of being that way instead of actually them being 'good.' Usually, there are complex systems because you can create builds, but honestly that's not been the case with this system in alpha/beta. There's been 'interesting' things, but that's all they've been. But whatever, the leveling in SL has been 'fixed' and torghast honestly isn't bad, so most people will get a solid month of fun, especially since alt play is IMMENSELY easier this time around, compared to legion/bfa.
Aside: That was insanely hard to write given the increasing number of ads this site has littered everywhere.....
They fired their entire QA department. So any testing that has been done is by players in Beta lol.
Seeing what a buggy mess the pre-patch was, this whole expansion is going to be even worse than BFA was.
That's why I am happy I did not pre-order Shadowlands, saw what the pre-patch was and immediately canceled my sub.
ActiVision is literally on a destructive path killing off WoW. The closing of the offices in France. The mass layoffs that happened in the US a while ago.
I don't think they have much interest in keeping WoW around much longer. The sub numbers must have dropped to a new Epic low thanks to the whole BfA expansion fiasco, for them not seeing any profit in the game any longer.
That doesn't mean is making THE same tone of money.
But yea, they will keep WoW around .. much longer. Of course they will milk as much as they can do.
Anyway, hearing @JeroKane about the pre-patch and what a mess it was, it reminds me about the first month of BfA, which is not a good sign at all. BfA was full of bugs and idiotic decision in the first 2 months ( at least ).
I'm still undecided. If the game-play, story, etc works, I can .."look-away" a bit if there will be bugs and such. If it's BfA ( at launch ), then I won't even touch it.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Perfect example of why you fact check people's claims. Completely false.
Sub numbers are strong and presales for the next expansion are higher than any expansion for the last decade.
Source: https://investor.activision.com/static-files/3ea261b4-e6cc-42de-bff1-28a4092dfa39
Rumor has it that this is the way wow will be from now on. After Shadow, when version 10 pre-patch hits, we'll all be squished back to 50 again, and expansion version 10 will be 50 to 60 again.
It makes sense but not sure how i feel about that overall? Like always 50 to 60... forever!
If Blizzard was doing so great, all the veterans wouldn't have jumped ship the past couple years! All of them are gone!
Don't be fooled by those numbers as they don't paint the whole picture and is a gross income figure of all games under Blizzard's umbrella. Not just WoW.
You have to look at their net operational income, which is the lowest under ActiVision umbrella. Both ActiVision and King are doing much better.
That is why they are doing another mass layoffs round within Blizzard by closing the offices in France.
Of course people are anticipating Shadowlands, hoping it would be better than the disaster that was BfA. So pre-orders inflate that income number on the investor report. Doesn't say a single thing about actual subscriber numbers of WoW.
When Shadowlands releases in 3 weeks and it ends up being another buggy disaster like BfA (which is a sure thing to happen according to beta reports), subscriber numbers will take a nose dive again after the first month.
Most anticipated expac of the last decade. Could be right, since the last popular expansion for WoW was Wrath of the Lich King, which released over 12 years ago back in 2008. That is when WoW was at it's peak with 10 million subs. Ever since then it has gone down hill.
I am sorry, but if Blizzard was still doing great like they were over a decade ago, these people aren't going to "voluntarily" leave a company that is filling their bank accounts with millions a month.
Case in point. Almost all of them have started a new company and are back at it again full swing lol.
Yeah....they sure as hell are spending more time with family right now.
Jumping ship implies you are joining another. Most of these people are retiring or dumping investments into things. You're missing the point. No sane person will say Blizzard is doing as well as they were a decade ago, but that doesn't mean retiring is any reasonable measurement of that.
First of all, they aren't. Clearly stated. They are above the numbers for the entirety of a decade. Second, they were specific to World of Warcraft. They had both aggregate and game specific numbers.
Sorry, I will trust Earning Calls which are subject to public audits versus your opinion.
On a side note I hate when I hear people always complaining about balance. You can't and shouldn't have perfect balance between classes and builds. That was problem they had years ago when they tried to balance everyone and all the classes felt the same. It was horrible. It is ok for some classes to feel stronger. I love Classic and some classes there are super under powered and it is still fun to play.