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[Oni Link 666]

Sounds like a good thing to me if they're announcing it this early, with Cata coming out just last december. Hopefully it means that the rest of thier content production for cata is going well and there won't be huge gaps between raids like WoTLK (yes I know Firelands took a long damn time).

Cataclysm was announced the Blizzcon right after WOTLK was released. They'll announce the new expansion this year and show it again at next year's show and release it around Christmas 2012.

 

[ZealousD]

I guess you could technically have that in a Pandaria based expansion pack, at least one of the two.

Emerald Dream has been teased as expansion content for a long time now. It's what the players want and are expecting. To put that as a backseat to Pandaria of all things seems unlikely to me.

 

[HotHamWater]

If the leaked Blizzard schedule continues to be accurate (which it probably won't, stuff gets pushed all the time) this is set for Q2 2012.

That puts it in line for a Blizzcon reveal, right?

Edit

By the way, to give you an idea, Cataclysm was trademarked in July 2009 and announced a month later during the Blizzcon.

I guess that's that, then.

 

[Majine]

I don't think you need to trademark patch names.

Oh yeah, The RotFL logo doesnt have a TM so guess not.

 

[Nirolak]

Emerald Dream has been teased as expansion content for a long time now. It's what the players want and are expecting. To put that as a backseat to Pandaria of all things seems unlikely to me.

The only way I can see it is if they feel it would be more attractive to newcomers and really want to focus on them again.

 

[Iadien]

I wonder if Blizzard plans to add this as a filler type expansion before their next big expansion?

 

[gillty]

Cataclysm has been out less than a year, I didn't say they need to stop adding content, they just need to stop cashing in on expansions and do the patches they promised.

I think Blizzard has pretty much demonstrated over the past year that they are prepared to ring out as much cash as they can from WoW before the players take off. It is certainly not unreasonable to expect decent content patches, but Blizzard is clearly heading in the opposite direction.

 

[Thoraxes]

There's hints about the Emerald Dream being included with this in Tirisfal right now.
There's a small area with a circle of mushrooms, fey dragons that sing, and a bear in mountainous west Tirisfal that supports the Emerald dream right now.

It's tied to it that's for sure.

 

[johnsmith]

Cataclysm has been out less than a year, I didn't say they need to stop adding content, they just need to stop cashing in on expansions and do the patches they promised.

Cataclysm was officially announced 2 years ago, Blizzcon 2009 in August. I was there. They will announce the new expansion at this year's blizzcon 2011 in October. They're going at the same rate they have been since the beginning. Wrath was announced in 2007, again at blizzcon. Burning Crusade was announced in October 2005. Every 2 years like clockwork.

Nothing has changed. Relax.

 

[Majine]

If the leaked Blizzard schedule continues to be accurate (which it probably won't, stuff gets pushed all the time) this is set for Q2 2012.

That puts it in line for a Blizzcon reveal, right?

Edit

I guess that's that, then.

They aren't going to announce an expansion and release it 3 months later. It's usually 1-1.5 year between announcement and release.

 

[Brazil]

As much awesome as it'd be, I don't think this is it. Pandaria... Is too much fantasy even for WoW canon.

But what do I know.

And, OP, honestly - you're a former WoW addict, so you shouldn't be making assumptions as to the way Blizzard is treating the game right now. If anything, they should be pumping out new content at a faster rate, because Cataclysm is really lacking in that department.

 

[2th]

if they give you killer pandas i will start playing WoW.

 

[Alex]

I wonder if Blizzard plans to add this as a filler type expansion before their next big expansion?

More like they quickly want to wash Cataclysm out of the picture, they know this expansion has been a bit of a dud. The random, sporadic nature of it all and the remaking of Azeroth (utterly gigantic waste of time) really took a lot away from meaningful development this go around.

Now with some lessons learned and some actual competition looming, maybe we'll see some good things at Blizzcon.

 

[Loxley]

As much awesome as it'd be, I don't think this is it. Pandaria... Is too much fantasy even for WoW canon.

But what do I know.

And, OP, honestly - you're a former WoW addict, so you shouldn't be making assumptions as to the way Blizzard is treating the game right now. If anything, they should be pumping out new content at a faster rate, because Cataclysm is really lacking in that department.

Yep.

 

[Kalnos]

They aren't going to announce an expansion and release it 3 months later. It's usually 1-1.5 year between announcement and release.

They have been stating a desire to release about an expansion a year though. It would be more of an EQ style here at the end if so, rather than giant expansions.

 

[Nirolak]

They aren't going to announce an expansion and release it 3 months later. It's usually 1-1.5 year between announcement and release.

They do intend to release expansion packs faster, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the next one in Spring/Summer.

Brian Karimzad - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Yes, just how did the return to the prelaunch levels of subs, after Cataclysm, compare to your expectations? And do you have any color on how things have trended since that competitor came online in March?

Michael Morhaime

Okay. As our players have become more experienced playing World of Warcraft over the many years, they have become much better and much faster at consuming content. And so I think with Cataclysm, they were able to consume the content faster than with previous expansions. But that's why we're working on developing more content. We launched our first update last week and we have another update that's already in test. The response that we've gotten so far from players has been very positive and we really think that we need to be faster at delivering content to players. And so that's one of the reasons why we're looking to decrease the amount of time in between expansions.

Brian Karimzad - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Okay, so you may have more frequent paid expansions though they may be a bit lighter than a typical one has been?

Michael Morhaime

Well, we're not ready to talk about the content expansions at this stage but we are looking at ways to speed up the development process. In terms of additional competition, we knew that this year was going to be a year where we faced new competitors. It isn't the first time, though, that we have strong competitors enter the MMO market. What we have seen in the past is, we tend to see our players leave for some period of time, perhaps try out the new MMOs, and then good percentage of them historically have returned to World of Warcraft. And so, so far I haven't seen anything to indicate that this will be different.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/268...1-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Pandaria as an expansion sounds sort of dull to me. I wish it was the Emerald Dream to be honest.

We shall see at BlizzCon though what they've got cooking.

 

[Majine]

They do intend to release expansion packs faster, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the next one in Spring/Summer.

I believe we will have it announced before Diablo 3 hits, to prevent them from loosing too much attention on WoW, but eh. Maybe end of 2012.

 

[Nirolak]

I believe we will have it announced before Diablo 3 hits, to prevent them from loosing too much attention, but eh. Maybe end of 2012.

That would not be a speed increase though, which would go against their stated goals.

 

[GhostWriter24]

According to www.MMO-Champion.com it is a bit upsetting with the trend of Blizzard churning out expansions at a faster rate

Um, what? Two+ years between WoW expansions is perfect.

 

[Allard]

I just don't see the "vast majority" of WoW players being excited about spending another $40 for an expansion when they just did that, on top of paying a monthly fee. How many content patches have they released for Cataclysm? And they have already re-hashed two instances, while they added and tweaked some of it's content, it's still re-hashing it.

I'd rather they announce the next expansion as early as possible so there is minimal disappointment in regards to Blizzard releasing the last story raid/content of the current expansion and then waiting 6-8 months for any new legitimate content because they focused on getting the next expansion out far too late into dev cycle. Even now we know little about what is in the future for Cataclysm outside of a couple 'possible' raids they loosely talked about and even then no timeline. They announce an expansion at their con, announce the remaining raids/content for cataclysm and all subscribers currently go away happy. If that leaked dev calendar stays the course, we should get a new expansion 1.5 years after Cataclysms release, that is still a long time for most other expansions on the market, and unlike cataclysm they won't need to also completely redesign the old game content on top of making new content, so hopefully we get more endgame content right out of the door.

As for the lore surrounding Pandaria, couldn't the cataclysm also make that territory bigger then was hinted at in the past? Like new continent, or huge island that suddenly appears near it. Also the Emerald Dream could easily be tied to it if they want. Honestly, the idea of exploring areas that have not had a chance to be really heavily alluded to makes me excited, because that means Blizzard can go wild and implement areas completely different then anything we have seen or heard thus far in game.

 

[Alex]

Pandaria as an expansion sounds sort of dull to me. I wish it was the Emerald Dream to be honest.

We shall see at BlizzCon though what they've got cooking.

Does Warcraft really need an entire expansion of Druids and Dragons, though? I mean haven't we had enough of that?

Personally don't give a damn about Pandaren, but Pandaria would be great. Northrend was an absolutely incredible continent in terms of art and visuals layout, so I'd imagine an Asian themed central continent would be pretty breathtaking as well.

Either way though we already knew that we were getting a new core themed expansion, so it won't be like Cataclysm's random, peppered in zones though. FIRE WORLD, WATER WORLD (though I do love Vashj'ir), EARTH WORLD, FOREST WORLD, EGYPT WORLD, it's like a darn platformer rather than an MMO.

 

[Valnen]

Um, what? Two+ years between WoW expansions is perfect.

Not to mention that they announced before BC that they wanted yearly expansions, they just won't rush them to meet that goal.

So if they can manage to make yearly expansions, they will. And have announced that intention from the very beginning. And to nip something before it starts, don't blame that on Activision either. They said that before Vivendi bought Activision.

 

[Lafiel]

Um, what? Two+ years between WoW expansions is perfect.

It's not really perfect with the way they release content updates tho, no new content for like 8 months or so until the next expansion is pretty damn barren.

 

[Allard]

Does Warcraft really need an entire expansion of Druids and Dragons, though? I mean haven't we had enough of that?

Personally don't give a damn about Pandaren, but Pandaria would be great. Northrend was an absolutely incredible continent in terms of art and visuals layout, so I'd imagine an Asian themed central continent would be pretty breathtaking as well.

Either way though we already knew that we were getting a new core themed expansion, so it won't be like Cataclysm's random, peppered in zones though. FIRE WORLD, WATER WORLD (though I do love Vashj'ir), EARTH WORLD, FOREST WORLD, EGYPT WORLD, it's like a darn platformer rather than an MMO.

Yeah I also really hope the next expansion is more unified. At first I was glad they were exploring the unseen regions of the old content, but with all of them sprawled out, no unified narrative other then 'the cataclysm' and the elemental planes, and even smaller focus on more content for current players (They spent more time revitalizing the old world, and only people who want to make alts can really count that as content, and then they added all those heirloom items and you can zoom past all the new content and miss almost all of it because you level too fast to enjoy it XD) it just ended up a mess. Focused narrative of a region completely new should at least keep people interested for longer then Cataclysm did. Also my favorite time to play WoW is a couple months leading up to and after an expansion hits. They always make the hype such an even in game that you just need to 'be there'.

 

[erpg]

Well, I hope current players enjoy this one more than I enjoyed Cataclysm. I'm personally never going back.

 

[Khal_B]

I can only wish for a Demon Hunter

damn you Diablo!

 

[jim-jam bongs]

 

[DimmuBurgerKing]

Before Cataclysm, this would've thrilled me. Now all I can think is, "Whatever. Where are you, TOR?"

 

[Valnen]

Before Cataclysm, this would've thrilled me. Now all I can think is, "Whatever. Where are you, TOR?"

If you don't like WoW, you probably won't like ToR. ToR is basically WoW with more story.

 

[Kalnos]

Not to mention that they announced before BC that they wanted yearly expansions, they just won't rush them to meet that goal.

So if they can manage to make yearly expansions, they will. And have announced that intention from the very beginning. And to nip something before it starts, don't blame that on Activision either. They said that before Vivendi bought Activision.

I blame Chris Metzen.

 

[pillarofdawn]

As a WoW fan and player on Hiatus, I would rather see a fucking xpak in the Emerald Dream rather than fucking Panderia. Did Blizz all of a sudden forget that this was an April fools joke >.< I also kinda found Cataclysm to be idk how to put this......uhhh I guess lacking in creativity. It feels like they just picked an evil character at random and said "lets have players kill him this time." They could create entirely new villains to follow as they did Arthas. I think that they have either gotten lazy or less creative :/ In short I think that WoW is killing Warcraft.

 

[Valnen]

As a WoW fan and player on Hiatus, I would rather see a fucking xpak in the Emerald Dream rather than fucking Panderia. Did Blizz all of a sudden forget that this was an April fools joke >.< I also kinda found Cataclysm to be idk how to put this......uhhh I guess lacking in creativity. It feels like they just picked an evil character at random and said "lets have players kill him this time." They could create entirely new villains to follow as they did Arthas. I think that they have either gotten lazy or less creative :/ In short I think that WoW is killing Warcraft.

Pandaren have been in Warcraft since Warcraft 3. They are not a "joke", even though they were used as one at one point.

 

[Morn]

BC, WoLK, CATA, and MOP

 

[Gravijah]

Would re-sub for Pandaria.

 

[Dysun]

Doesnt seem like they could make enough content for that to be a whole expansion...

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Does Warcraft really need an entire expansion of Druids and Dragons, though? I mean haven't we had enough of that?

Personally don't give a damn about Pandaren, but Pandaria would be great. Northrend was an absolutely incredible continent in terms of art and visuals layout, so I'd imagine an Asian themed central continent would be pretty breathtaking as well.

Either way though we already knew that we were getting a new core themed expansion, so it won't be like Cataclysm's random, peppered in zones though. FIRE WORLD, WATER WORLD (though I do love Vashj'ir), EARTH WORLD, FOREST WORLD, EGYPT WORLD, it's like a darn platformer rather than an MMO.

I agree with you that druids and dragons has become stale. To me I just feel that Pandaria on it's own isn't enough for an expansion. It needs something else in there with it.

As I said earlier, we will see at BlizzCon what's going into this expansion. I'm sure once they show it off I'll warm up to it but right now I'm just not feeling it.

 

[mysteriousmage09]

I'm sick to death of WoW, the game lost it's spark years ago. They need to show Titan at Blizzcon.

Sure WoW Cataclysm was pretty damn cool in the new zones and dungeons department but they make everything so damn easy now days you just breeze through it all. No matter what they do for a new expansion for the game will just follow the same pattern no matter how cool it is.

Months of hype
Game comes out and is awesome and new stuff is fun
Everything beaten in 2 weeks
Waiting for months for a new raid

 

[zugzug]

Sorta makes sense, I mean when your game/idea/MMO is losing interest because everyone calls it boring distract everyone with your biggest draw....BAM! Pandarians! Quick buck is quick buck.

Since they really goofed up on Goblins badly and failed to make them unique.

 

[suzu]

Could be a mini expansion (DLC) thing. Something less costly than a full expansion.

 

[Allard]

As a WoW fan and player on Hiatus, I would rather see a fucking xpak in the Emerald Dream rather than fucking Panderia. Did Blizz all of a sudden forget that this was an April fools joke >.< I also kinda found Cataclysm to be idk how to put this......uhhh I guess lacking in creativity. It feels like they just picked an evil character at random and said "lets have players kill him this time." They could create entirely new villains to follow as they did Arthas. I think that they have either gotten lazy or less creative :/ In short I think that WoW is killing Warcraft.

Part of the problem with Blizzard and their 'creativity' is that they keep picking content that already is steeped in lore or territories that have been explained in such detail that there is no surprises, and nothing to care about once you get there. The Burning Crusade Expansion and Wrath of the Lich King took you to places that were alluded to, but also had enough 'surprise' to the region that it brought with it significant advancements in the lore of the world. Cataclysms big surprise was tearing the world up, and sprucing up old zones, but it was still the old zones redesigned. The surprise was 'that's neat' and didn't linger very long as it was gimmicky, the other zones added were alluded to or woefully generic based around an obvious theme (Elemental Egypt etc.). The biggest potential they had with the expansion is opening up various islands into the game, and they blew it by making them starter zones you can't enter ever again once you are done with them. They basically added little to nothing to the game other then a foot note.

A whole new region that is only alluded to but the history and all the surrounding territory is a complete mystery is just what this game needs right now. They can make new villains worthy of praise or surprise, create areas unlike anything currently available because only Pandaria has a description, and it is a very small one at that, it's a complete blank slate. An expansion into a relatively unknown region, that actually opens up the world and adds a completely new factor into the games story is imo just what this game needs going forward, clearly rehashing old world content and villains from the past isn't working anymore, they need something to break the mold.

 

[Sober]

Could be a mini expansion (DLC) thing. Something less costly than a full expansion.

If so, that's really milking it, considering subscription money is supposed to go towards server maintenance and content patches (however few and far inbetween those are).

Is Pandaria actually big enough for an expansion pack?

I would have guessed them chasing down Kil'jaeden in the Twisting Nether, but at that point they would pretty much be out of people to fight except Sargeras.

Pretty sure Blizzard just loves retconning everything they've written anyway, why stop now?

Would not be surprised if Metzen wants to set up WoW 2 by having another Big Bad that's worse than Sargeras show up.

 

[SillyEskimo]

Do Pandoria and theme the entire thing with an Asian motif. Then introduce a new monk hero class for each faction ala the DK. I think that would sell like gangbusters.

 

[mxgt]

As far as I'm concerned Blizzard has done terminal damage to WoW that can never be recovered.

Ages between new raid content, ridiculous scaling of stats and health, the world is dead (because everyone does random cross server dungeons where no one talks to eachother), allowing items that remove the nature of gear progression until later levels (fuck your heirlooms, levelling is stupidly fast and easy as it is), PvP is as unbalanced as it's ever been and many more.

I don't understand why so many people still play. The game has nose dived massively since TBC.

 

[Sober]

As far as I'm concerned Blizzard has done terminal damage to WoW that can never be recovered.

Ages between new raid content, ridiculous scaling of stats and health, the world is dead (because everyone does random cross server dungeons where no one talks to eachother), allowing items that remove the nature of gear progression until later levels (fuck your heirlooms, levelling is stupidly fast and easy as it is), PvP is as unbalanced as it's ever been and many more.

Except for stat scaling (even though it got SUPER ridiculous at the end of WOTLK and start of Cata), yeah, they pretty much ruined everything, especially trying to turn PVP into the next e-sport. When anyone asked me to do arenas back in the day I would pretty much just log off.

I don't understand why so many people still play. The game has nose dived massively since TBC.

They are either casual players (take their time leveling, have friends that also play so they hang out in game) or they are new/middling raiders (most of these are teenagers to young adults, then pretty much stay-at-home lower class moms - trust me, I have met enough of those in WoW for a lifetime) and then the hardcore raiders that put too much time into the game to justify stopping or have sponsors.

75% of these people most likely don't play any other games or care to switch MMOs or try anything new, because frankly, WoW is pretty big.

Also, the game started unsucking with Ulduar but then they went and made the stupid Trial of the Crusader raid. A 4-year old with a crayon has more creativity than that.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

It's not really perfect with the speed at which people can inhale new expansions, which makes the "no new patches for like 8 months or so" until the next patch pretty damn barren.

Fixed. I'm still boggling at Blizzard painting themselves into this corner over the last 3 years.

They are either casual players (take their time leveling, have friends that also play so they hang out in game) or they are new/middling raiders (most of these are teenagers to young adults, then pretty much stay-at-home lower class moms - trust me, I have met enough of those in WoW for a lifetime) and then the hardcore raiders that put too much time into the game to justify stopping or have sponsors.

75% of these people most likely don't play any other games or care to switch MMOs or try anything new, because frankly, WoW is pretty big.

Also, the game started unsucking with Ulduar but then they went and made the stupid Trial of the Crusader raid. A 4-year old with a crayon has more creativity than that.

*brofist*

 

[Ether_Snake]

Blizzard will never be able to make an MMO that will have as many subscriptions as WoW once had. The demographics and the market has changed radically since late 2004. There's a lot more "noise" in the market and they won't be able to do much else than try to make cash on their existing user-base, and bring a certain % of them back. But to have as many subscribers as WoW once had is impossible. For the same reason Square Enix will never make a FF game that will sell as many copies as FFVII did, no matter how good it is. Its success was circumstantial and Square and Blizzard don't have control over a significant portion of said circumstances.

So Blizzard has no choice, for the sake of shareholder value, they have to change their revenue stream according to their lower user-base, and have more products going at the same time to milk as much cash from their users as possible. But the later is not really ideal, because they should instead try to capture a larger share of the market. They basically need multiple products just to try and get as many users as they had in WoW's peak, rather than just one product.

That's why it's so important for them to try and grow the brand in markets where growth is still below its potential, such as Europe, Asia, and South America. On that end they can find growth.

 

[Majine]

As far as I'm concerned Blizzard has done terminal damage to WoW that can never be recovered.

Ages between new raid content, ridiculous scaling of stats and health, the world is dead (because everyone does random cross server dungeons where no one talks to eachother), allowing items that remove the nature of gear progression until later levels (fuck your heirlooms, levelling is stupidly fast and easy as it is), PvP is as unbalanced as it's ever been and many more.

I don't understand why so many people still play. The game has nose dived massively since TBC.

I remember when there was a constant war between Southshore and Tarren Mill, it was so fun.

But no longer. It's simply not worth it for players when they can go do Battlegrounds for an hour and get an epic.

 

[ampere]

Pandaren would be really cool to play as.

I think I'm going to take a break from WoW, but I'll probably come back to check out the next expansion.

 

[speedpop]

Earlier than expected, though Blizzcon is only 2 1/2 months away.