Title. Yeah, yeah, the old cringe topic. But, it’s been asked all throughout the course of SL, and time has come for it to be asked in DF.
So, what do you think, will there be a 10.3 or is has “a drama in three acts” now become the standard of WoW expansions?
We do “know” that 11.0 will be released in November 2024, since they release an expansion in November every even year no matrer what.
TBC was January
WOTLK was November
Cata was December
MoP was September
WoD was November
Legion was August
BFA was August
SL was November
DF was November
That’s pretty far from every expansion in November…
Since they haven’t shown a timeline for 2024, we don’t know.
But it would make sense because going without a patch for 9-10-11 months (if we assume a sept/oct/nov new expansion release) all of a sudden after a year with this current patch cadence feels very off.
Of course because DF is a ‘bare bones’ expansion in terms of expansion features, they might cut this one short and release the new expansion in Q2 next year and just have another ‘extra season’ type deal like they did near the end of Shadowlands.
I think 10.2 will be the final major patch.
Blizzard will announce the next expansion at Blizzcon in November.
Patch 10.2 will come out in December.
And then they’ll start transitioning to the next expansion that will release the following November.
And there’ll be a minor patch or two to bridge the year-long gap in content. You know, fated raids and all that.
I think that’s the recipe for now.
Expansions sell and get subscribers back.
Patches don’t sell and don’t get subscribers back.
Better to make expansions than patches.
That’s usually the case yes.
Not completely true; there’s definitely ‘seasonal subscribers’.
Depends how you look at it; they are also a lot harder to make and require much more time and resources than patches do.
I hope you’re wrong because going without any real new content for 2/3rds of a year after a first year of patch after patch after patch is going to feel extremely bad and I think the servers would empty to alarming rates.
Unlikely, they would have mentioned it. Less content and higher price.
It matters not. An expansion starts at its peak and then it’s down from there. It’s true that patches can provide a small bump on the downward curve, but it’s still a downward curve. The only thing that really alters that curve is a new expansion which always gives it a major bump. And as WoW ages it needs those major bumps more often.
Blizzard looks at it this way:
Patch: 10 bucks per player.
Expansion: 10 bucks + 45-70 bucks per player.
I think Blizzard have a few things in mind to manage content drought.
One is the Trading Post. That keeps the collectors around every month.
The second is to update periodical content, like Holidays, which we’re getting in an upcoming patch.
And the third is to focus on Seasons and progression content like Mythic+ and Raiding and Solo Shuffle. Fated Raids show that Blizzard can get a lot of replay value out of very little extra work through that kind of content focus.
For Blizzard it’s not very good use of production resources to make big zones for patches. It’s better if they can lump such content bits together and call it an expansion. It’s worth more as a unified product that costs 45 bucks than separate patch content.
Two toys instead of one probably.
Right, well, it’s easy updates to make.
Ideally, from Blizzard’s point of view, then the development team should primarily be focused on making expansions. That’s what the majority of the content production should be aimed at.
Patches should focus on changes and tweaks and minor updates that’s easy and quick to produce and implement and which doesn’t take much focus away from making expansions.
That’s the ideal from a business perspective.
Devoting massive resources toward patches is not very smart. Blizzard gets nothing out of that. Great for us as players, but for Blizzard it’s not ideal.
That’s way too simplified.
Because, like I said, they also need to take time investment and resources needed into account.
The type of argument that you’re using is the same as saying that all of WoW’s subscription fee is pure profit; without thinking about all the costs involved with keeping the game up and running (that’s not EVEN taken into account development of new content).
Maybe they THINK they do.
Like I said; I really, REALLY, hope you’re wrong.
I want to see the current patch cadence continue next year, so maybe have 2 small and 1 more big patch before transitioning into an ‘extra season’ type thing (which I hope will be better/more interesting than Shadowlands S4 was because otherwise I’m canceling my sub again).
I think the easiest way to look at it would be to use Diablo IV and its upcoming model.
It also intends to have patches and expansions.
But it doesn’t have a subscription.
So what do you think Blizzard are going to put into their patches and their expansions?
They’re of course going to put Seasonal gameplay stuff into patches, alongside the usual pile of class changes and bug fixes and other “cheap” updates.
And then they’re going to put the new content additions into the expansions. That’s the expensive and exciting stuff and you want people to pay for it.
You always want to put your resources where you make your money.
WoW does have a subscription, but the same principle applies. The more Blizzard can shift their focus to making expansions whilst still keeping people around with patches, the better it is for their business. And I think that’s what they’re slowly transitioning toward.
You can have 300 developers make patches for 12 million subscribers. But you can’t have 300 developers make patches for 3 million subscribers. What you can have is 300 developers make expansions for 3 million subscribers.
I think next year will have 2-3 small patches and then the next expansion. But I would also prefer what you’re hoping for. 
i honestly don’t think dragonflight should last that long so i hope we can see a new expansion next summer (2024)
What kind of silly thing is this to say. It’s just not true we don’t know this and it’s extremely unlikely.
It’s not true that we know, indeed; we don’t know.
It MIGHT be released in nov 2024 though.
If you look at Blizzard’s track record; it’s more likely than it is unlikely.
But let’s just wait until we actually hear something at Blizzcon later this year.
It’s hasn’t even been a year, like how are they gonna make an expansion so fast exactly?
What do you think they acquired all those new developers for? Making patches?!
Same way they always do; they’ve already been working on it for a while (their internal development is way ahead of what we know/see).
It’s clear they’re working on the base game in DF; they’re adding all kinds of systems meant to improve the very basis of the game. So maybe they’re even cutting this particular expansion a bit short, to focus on getting many players back with ‘something big’ next.
It’s all speculation at this point of course.
I think it would be a bit of a waste since dragonflight is actually pretty fun.
This would be the first “filler” expansion i guess? If they did that.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Blizzard’s original goal way back when, was to release a new expansion every 1½ year.
Then they moved away from that because they couldn’t manage developing both content patches and expansions at the same time over such a small period of time.
But necessity is the mother of invention, and now the reality is that WoW can’t manage having expansions that last three tiers and almost 3 years. The playerbase dwindles too quickly, so by the time Blizzard gets to the third major content patch there’s hardly any players left to play through it.
The reality right now is that Dragonflight didn’t sell very well, so it doesn’t carry a lot of subscribers into all the subsequent patch content we’re getting. That makes that patch content not worth very much, relatively speaking. Blizzard are better off getting to the next expansion quickly, cashing in on those box sales, and potentially bringing people back to WoW again, if only briefly.
they have enough staff to develop new content and patch updates at the same time. also i’m pretty sure everything about dragonflight’s dev. process was done at least a year ago from now so they probably already started working on the next expansion or at least the creative parts.