I’m really hoping that each patch in SoD is done in a sympathetic manner regarding discovery. It’s great that there isn’t a test realm and this give me a lot of comfort knowing discovering the world, new class structures and the new runes seems to be the priority but, I’m fearful that this will turn into a race of efficiency once the dirty YouTubers have created their “content” and social pressures force people to race progress. Please give us plenty of time to explore multiple classes and the new lvl 25 end game content. I’m hoping for something like 4-6 months between updates. This will allow us to build communities built on discovering ourselves again and also allow the community to learn to “ENJOY” games again instead of “ENDURING” them. Gamers gamers we really need to learn to value the journey of games and not just the process of min/maxing and sticking a flag in and saying “done… this game sucks there’s no content”
Agreed, give us time to explore it, level an alt or two to 25 and just generally take it easy.
Wowhead will have all the data on day one so don’t be that naive/childish with bashing people… A 10-man easy dungeon doesn’t need even a guild but if people do not want to run it multiple times, just pay for gear then GDKP will likely happen. And if you want to be in one of the best guilds on a mega server then expect it will have requirements.
Half a year for level 25? What they already told it’s that it will be weeks, likely based on player base population after like 4-8 weeks. So no, you won’t have 4-6 months. It would also drop quite a bit of player and create a way too many profession cooldown alts 
Don’t join the /world channel then, don’t go to the Forums, don’t go to Wowhead, don’t go to YouTube, don’t go to Twitter and any other social media. Probably don’t join a guild.
Everyone plays as they want and you have no standing to decide how a game must be played. If you don’t like 99 out of 100 will play completely differently than you then either play as you want or leave. Stop moralizing players.
I think you’ve completely misunderstood my points.
“Best” is subjective but if by your meaning a group of individuals with pre-worked out formats for things as “best”, then no, I don’t want anything to do with those groups. Time investment is more wisely invested in other people and building a community imho.
Yes, I saw that the window that was offered was in weeks. This sparked one of the reasons to write this post. As a company I’m sure they’ll do what they feel is best. It will piss some people off and it will make others happy. We will see, I guess.
I’m not sure what your meaning is by inferring I pretty much play solo, when I think it’s perfectly clear it’s the opposite. Turning away from problems doesn’t solve the problems. Being passive aggressive just implies you’re willingness to brush issues under the carpet.
We all make moral judgements, it’s a natural part of social interaction. Don’t feel victimise because of this! I’m aware of my options and I often do leave to play other games. New World, Blood Bowl 3, Total War Warhammer. No Man’s Sky. This is called balance and not permitting myself to live in an echo chamber. Should I wish to frequent this game again I can do so and I should also be permitted the opportunity to raise concerns as I see fit. If you don’t agree, that’s perfectly fine, I’m sure you have your reasons, and much like your advice, you can stay and chat or you can leave the discussion.
My main point was that as gamers “WE” need to take a large part of the responsibility in community style games instead of blaming the companies that produce them. They give us the bedrock in which to build upon.
Very few people do. Blizzard banned bots - people got angry about prices and supply. Blizzard added TBC Battle Pass, WoW token, and doesn’t care about botting - people still play, even enjoy the AH welfare or legal swipe option to then buy the gear in GDKP.
Don’t expect a playerbase to take a moral stand. They will only take a stand when it’s not fun for them. Then the game changes or if not then the players quit like in Shadowlands.
A lot of players play Fallout 76 now, and even have a subscription (which is higher than WoW) even though early on it was a disaster. Early next year majority will go play Cata because everyone else also moves to play Cata and any “it’s not Classic anymore” will not be called en mass to make actual living WoTLK servers.
I get your point there regarding bots. I hate the fact they are so passive on this!
Playing other games is vital I think to enjoying games more. Raiding 5 days a week made me feel like I was working a game instead of enjoying it. Sadly I didn’t realise it at the time until my health took a turn for the worse!
There is some responsibility we can make though. Bots only exist because people buy from them to make it profitable. Supply and demand, as it were. This is one reason I’m so passionate about social pressure to “keep up” with the “best” gamers. Some people struggle to keep up and this buy gold. Struggling is an important part of achieving and overcoming hardships provide a better dopamine hit than buying your way through social pressures because those social pressures just keep going as long as you feed them! An addiction, if you will. Both parties, Blizzard and gamers, are feeding this addiction imho and I’d love a law to come into force to curb such things, though I’m clueless on how it would be implemented.
That’s why nowadays 2 raid nights a week is dropping in popularity and most want a 1-day, or went to FF14 with 0-day for the majority of content 
In the old days all day every day…
In Classic I never raided for long. I was at the start, on scarab lord grind, the end. Then leveling and progressing gew toons to and at 60, but still very little raiding (and there is a reason why people want super fast MC or BWL clears).
In Classic? People are lazy. On a PvE chill, medium pop realm on launch people were ANGRY when Blizzard banned Strat bots because that dried out orbs supply on the AH. Then people didn’t level alts through quests but via boosting as it’s faster… most didn’t even bother with getting the consumables in any other way than AH welfare. Our main tanks didn’t even bother to farm FR gear for MC and were outclassed by a Shaman player…
Typical private server before that looked differently but it’s not coming back. You got a 1-3K population and for many things, you had to go and get it or organize it in a guild or it would never show up on the AH.
I still remember when AQ was launching on a private server and new consumables like Rumsey Black Label were enabled 24 hours before gate opening. I was fishing as I liked it and when I listed first Rum on AH I quickly got orders from all the tanks of best guilds that were preparing for AQ40 clear 
Due to much lower pop and no bots you needed people to do things, crazy isn’t it?
At least 4 months would be great. I hope they let us enjoy it. I don’t see the point of rushing it to 60, which we already know very well. I will skip all guides/bis lists/etc for sure, but I am doing this almost every time. So it will be nothing new.
We used to set up guild grinding where we took it in turns to grind as a team to fill the raid consumables etc. this was a lot of fun because we were all on TeamSpeak/Ventrilo or Mumbles having a laugh as we did our thing. One of our guildies used to create a radio station vibe by playing music and reading gaming news out to us to! I think I was extremely lucky back then and it’s why I find it so difficult today! The comparisons are worlds apart. /cry
4-6 months ??!
Bro it’s just level 25. It’s like 20hours game time to get there, taking your sweet time.
I think 6-8 weeks is enough to discover the new runes and secrets of the 1-25 level zones, and also to give you time to raid / reroll.
I’m on the “taking time” team but 6 months with no updates for a 25 cap is a dead game.
4-6 months allows you to get to 25 with a few classes and enjoy the game. Not everyone will be wanting to power level and get to 25 in 1 sitting. There is people out there with jobs, kids and other responsibilities. I’m sure there’s lots of additions to the game, they’ve already hinted and lots of new quests etc.
@Belhus
4 months might be a good sweet spot. I do hope they try and instil a more RPG theme to it all. It could also just be a testing ground for them disguised as a new mode whereby the updates proceed as a when they have their data? We will see but I hope it goes in a manner in which you suggest. 
Those would be like 2 months at max. Leveling to 60 in vanilla took 2 months of 3-4h a day gameplay in most relaxed playstyle. lvl 20 is like 2 days and 5 extra levels is 4 days (of same 3-4h a day) so it takes you exactly a week to complete SoD phase 0.1 content in reasonable time. If you play only several days a week in can be up to 2-3 weeks at worst case with all exploration included. What to do for the the of 5 months you proposed is unclear.
Playing the game. Do BGs, WPVP, dungeons, farming, raid, quest, colleting, exploring, profesion, try solo dungeon/bosses, RP, and try to figure out some crazy/funny combos. It will be a huge new playground. And I’m not even counting with new things, so it can be much more. You don’t have to chase endless progress; just stop and enjoy the game. “End game” on lvl 25 will be great. I have had something like that in my head for many years. And it is finally here.
A lot people will get to 25 within a day of release. They rest will make it within the first week at the very most unless they are very casual.
btw does anyone have a full list of all the SoD changes?
So phase 1 will be two weeks at most.
I hope they take things slow definitely. But considering the first patch is only level 25, I think 8-12 weeks is a good length. I would have said 8 weeks but considering christmas/new year is coming in soon after release, I feel like late february for the next patch is good.
@Dangleberry & Belhus
I think you overestimate what we will have as of phase 1. Hence your will about 4-6 months.
Cap 25 I think will be a good thing but it also means the world we play in is drastically reduced in size. For instance on Alliance, basically it’s starting zones + Darkshore/Westfall/Loch Modan and portions of Redridge Mountains, Wetlands, Ashenvale and Duskwood. In 2 months you have plenty of time to explore all of that several times.
I do hope the time left will bring players on PVP content and obviously there is the raid announced. But SoD is vanilla, it won’t be revolution (if we exclude new game mechanics for class).
Maybe Cap 40 will have longer time than 2 months but that’s simply because your options (professions, leveling routes etc.) are increasing exponentially while leveling. But 25 is just beginnig of the game to be honest.
I respectfully disagree and I think Blizzard is not on your side on this one. Their goal at first with the cap was to avoid situations of players feeling “late” in their leveling versus other players.
So they clearly want to avoid a player going on holidays and discovering phase 2 has already started without him or that he didn’t even have time to play on phase 1.
So phase 1 will be two weeks at most.
In an interview with Crix, the bearded dude (Aggrend I think) mentioned that they were not sure how long it would last. He says “It will be some number of weeks, we’re trying to be unspecific about that, probably more than a month, less than 3-4 months”. Again though, they are very specific about not giving a hard date.
I’ve linked the interview, they talk about it at 28:15 approximately.
Two weeks fits most of those criteria. It’s a number of weeks and less than 3 months. One month is far too long.
Do they really want people to stop playing it for months? It’s so easy to get to 25 and will be boring after two weeks, let alone 2 months.
3 months will be too long even for the hyper casual players.
Edit: the bands should be 35, 48ish and 55.
I personally think it will be around 1 to 1,5 months. 2 weeks seems far too short to me, considering they do want people to experience the new content. Don’t forget that a number of people, both casual (myself included) and tryhard, will also be rolling alts to try out as many of the changes as possible. I also don’t know if 2 weeks is enough for the majority to farm the raid enough to get as much of the new loot as possible.
You could be right, of course, and truthfully we’re both just speculating. We’ll know soon enough!