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Wrath of the Lich King Launches in April/May?
By Cameron Sorden | February 18, 2008
Almost all of the estimates I’ve heard for Wrath of the Lich King’s release put it at Q3/Q4 (Autumn) of this year, but I’m not entirely convinced. Patch 2.4, due out in the next few weeks sometime, has a bunch of really interesting changes for the game. Most notably, the inclusion of a new 25-man dungeon and some major changes to how easy it is to obtain epic-level PvP gear. Hmm. That sounds awfully familiar. Where have I seen something like this before?
Oh, wait. It’s kind of like what happened in Fall of 2006, when Blizzard gave players about one month with Naxxramas (the new 40-man at the time) and made the best PvP gear of that period ridiculously easy to get your hands on, before making it all pointless and wiping the slate clean with the release of The Burning Crusade. Is it possible that we’ll see a late-Spring stealth Wrath of the Lich King release? I’m sure Blizzard has learned more than a few lessons from their first expansion launch (players weren’t thrilled at how little time they had to explore Naxx before it became obsolete), but giving players 2-3 months with the new patch should be just enough time to let the serious raiders master Sunwell and let the more casual players frolic in their cheaply-obtained epic loot before a gear wipe resets everything again.
Furthermore, Blizzard probably knows that an MMOG with a shaky start rarely gets back on its feet. What’s coming out in late Spring of this year? Just Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, the two games that many players are looking towards to be their new home away from WoW. They’d have a really hard time getting on their feet if they were going head to head with a new expansion for a game that has over 10 million active players. Talk about killing their momentum. Everyone would be flocking back to WoW and talking about how much fun the new expansion was and how great all the new PvP changes are while Mark Jacobs stands around, waving his hands in the air going, “Guys! Guys? Hey! Our PvP is even better!”
But if they were going to release that soon, wouldn’t the hype machine be rolling? Wouldn’t there be a beta? Wouldn’t we have heard something? Well, their hype machine has been rolling for the last six months or so. We have tons of details about Northrend and the expansion. As for whether there would be a beta, I don’t really see why Blizzard would need one. They’re just adding content, something they do on a regular basis anyway. We might get a week or two on the PTR, but that would really be all they’d need. See this comment from the official WoTLK FAQ:
Will there be an open beta test of the expansion?
We have not yet determined whether the expansion will require an open beta test. If we do decide to conduct a beta test, details will be posted on the official World of Warcraft website once we’ve gotten further along in the development process.
Finally, if Blizzard is eyeing up their competition, it’s actually in their best interest to announce it as late as possible. That way, Warhammer and Conan are committed to their launch dates (making further delays look really bad from a PR perspective) when Blizz drops the bomb that they’ll be going toe to toe with Lich King. It’s definitely the smart move for a winning business strategy to keep them as the dominant game on the market. By the time people got tired of the expansion and went to try the other games, they’d have lost their momentum and would be sitting in the same 200-500k population area as all the other “successful” MMOGs.
So I guess what I’m saying is don’t be at all surprised if we see a late Spring Wrath of the Lich King launch. I won’t.
Topics: Random |
February 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I have heard that the launch date for WotLK will be in November.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Thats just an estimated date from stores so they can put a pre-order form up. This article makes many good points and it was a great read.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Rather than repost what I already typed on our site I’ll just link it here. I believe you are off base on your estimation but we’ll see. Follow the link to see my reasoning why.
http://www.shadowwalkersguild.com/boards/showthread.php?t=3610
February 18th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
All release dates for WotLK so far have been speculation. This artical through, makes a point of it being speculation… but a April/May release date sounds about right, when you look at the evidience.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
XO Did you not read the article?
February 18th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Sure bro, everyone’s heard something.
This makes a lot more sense.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
It would be nice. I mean.. I’m itching to see the new content and play a new class just like many other people are, but, given how much they pushed back burning crusade from their 3-4(more?) assumed release dates from the game stores, I’m not counting on this article to become reality. Just keep in mind that they have to build yet another continent nearly if not equal the size of outland, I don’t believe the designers can work that quickly.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I posted this at curse.com but here’s my 2 cents.
Here’s why I think WoTLK will be released in FALL 2008
STARCRAFT II
Blizzard needs time between launches mostly about a year so that two products dont ruin each other, be it by over working the staff and thus service is crap or one game blows the other one away making one a failure.
Early 2010 for Starcraft II is most likely the launch date, which makes WoTLK launch at the latest fall 2008.
May 2008 will be WoTLK BETA, which will run for about 3 months till the end of summer and be released in time for the holidays.
After the expansion is released Blizzard needs time to work out bugs and problems so that takes about 6 months or more, leading to Spring 2009 where Starcraft II beta info is released.
Summer 2009 Starcraft II beta is released which will run well into fall with a launch in Janurary of 2010.
Here’s the kicker, do not forget about the NEW AGE MMORPG. IF (BIG IF) another game comes by and really hurts Blizzard (ie Spore) all schedules will be accelerated to make room for the new MMORPG to be released.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Did you guys not read the blizz web page about the event they have coming up in france? They said there that testing of WotLK and SC2 would be available. We wont see any major news about either game till then, and my best guess is the collectors edition announcement. The exp pack wont be out till the late fall early x-mas. And dont bank on AoC and Warhammer coming out in April/may either.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:46 am
WotLK will be out around summer the earliest here is why: Sunwell will last for good 2-3 months before the last boss is killed on most servers, because of the way the next ones are unlocked along with all those “free epics”. There still isn’t all content that 2.4 will contain on PTR, so my guess for 2.4 live is late March/April. If they don’t hit early summer when a lot of people get time to play, they can very easily wait for autumn.And don’t forget beta testing, Blizzard accepted the fact that they need at least closed beta to polish their products. So if the beta will start in July, it basically tells everyone “Hey, WAR is out, but WotLK is comming and has 2 milion beta signups”
February 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am
“It’s kind of like what happened in Fall of 2006, when Blizzard gave players about one month with Naxxramas (the new 40-man at the time) and made the best PvP gear of that period ridiculously easy to get your hands on”
Truth is patch 1.11 with Naxx came 2006-06-20 and patch 2.0.1 with PvP walfare epix came 2006-12-05. That is 5-6 months not one.
Wotlk will be out June/August.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Nice catch, Fug… my memory is a little foggy. Still, June is a lot earlier than Autumn, and I still wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
you can preorder wrath of the lich king for nov 30 2008 on amazon.com–just fyi
February 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
[...] had an interesting post on whether Blizzard is planning on releasing the WotLK expansion sooner rather than later. Among [...]
February 20th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
They have said numerous times that the November release date is just a placeholder date, not really the true thing. It MAY become the date, but that was not the orinal intention, just the retail worlds way of accepting early pre-orders.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:04 am
I dunno. I think your thinking is in the right place, but keep in mind that Naxx was released in June 2006, roughly 8 months before BC was sold in stores. Cross realms opened in August, and then the ranking system was removed shortly thereafter. I still think an April/May release is highly unlikely, especially with the lack of flow of information about WotLK from Blizzard.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:18 am
2.4 probably won’t be live for a few more weeks (mid-March), then it will take a few weeks of world events before all the content is unlocked (mid-late April). Then it will probably take a few more weeks for the first teams to down the first boss (mid-May?)
So you’re looking at May before Sunwell has even seen its first run-through, much less many players had a chance to sample it.
Also, someone else mentioned the European event which is advertising a chance at “hands-on w/WotLK”, and I think it’s scheduled for July…
February 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
[...] Date Thoughts Posted February 21, 2008 I just got a chance to read Cameron’s post about this, and I got to thinking everything through a little bit. Here are a few things that [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Guys listen it’s all fine but youhave no idea… WotLK will be released in [----] when you least expect it!
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Blizz doesn’t need to Hype the expansion, Viral marketing will do that just fine, all they need to do is show a few cool trailers, pay for some T.V adds showing Chuck Norris doing a roundhouse and announce a release date.
Every retailer, magazine and interviewer will be begging Blizzard to “cover” the release of the game, not the other way around.