Ask WoW Insider: The rate of release
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 22nd 2008 at 5:00PM
James G. has been debating an issue with his guildies for a while now, and he wanted to put it to you, the readers of WoW Insider:Basically, Blizzard said shortly after the release of Burning Crusade that they would ideally have one expansion released each year. Do you feel they can keep up with this or that they will ease back between expansion releases in future?
He says that Blizzard has been learning and improving the whole time the game's been out about how to make content and release it, and that they should be more than capable of making an expansion every year or so. His guildies, however, point to the big gap between 2.1 and 2.4, and claim that even if Blizzard can release content faster, there still needs to be time for people to play it.
What say you, readers? Obviously, Blizzard is likely releasing content as fast as they can (and let's be fair, no one is really holding them to that "once-a-year" thing -- their games are quality enough that we're ready to play them "when they're ready" anyway). But is Blizzard releasing content too fast for people to play through it, too slow to keep people interested, or just right?
Previously on Ask WoW Insider, you answered questions. Want your question answered? Send it along to ask@wow.com, and you might see it here next week.
Filed under: Patches, Expansions, Ask WoW Insider, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
yazah Sep 22nd 2008 5:07PM
They definitely have a rough time. The hardcore will burn through content in mere weeks, while casuals require years.
It is definitely a challenge to provide consistant content updates that keep people playing, but are not so daunting that newer players have the feeling that they will never get there.
Papuchon Sep 22nd 2008 5:15PM
Too soon for a casual player, too late for a hardcore player.
I am a casual player, and seeing my 4 month s2 grinds will be thrown away in a few weeks and I am not a lvl 70 yet.
War is winking at me.
Eternalpayn Sep 22nd 2008 6:37PM
You woulda been 70 had you have not spent your time grinding that s2.
Papuchon Sep 22nd 2008 10:50PM
A 70 with greens or blues is no fun at BG's... Specially when you are in a BG run by Horde and u are Alliance.
Fobok Sep 22nd 2008 5:16PM
For the raiders, just a little too slow I think, but only by a few months. For everybody else? Extremely too slow.
Starting about 3-4 months ago you really started hearing stories of raiding guilds being on farm with the Sunwell and feeling they've run out of stuff to do. I'm not a raider, so I don't know how common such things are, but I know at least one of my guild's raiding teams is in such a position.
For everything else, we need more content too. I'd love to see a Sunwell-like patch every major patch, with a new 5-man and a bunch of new solo (daily, I guess) quests. Is it realistic? I doubt it, but still.
Really, for the non-raiding customers at least, accelerating the expansions would be very welcome. Too many people I know have stopped playing after getting a bunch of PVP epics and max faction with Shattered Suns just because there's so little to actually do if you're not a raider. If the expansion had come out 4-5 months ago, most of them would never have left.
dpak Sep 23rd 2008 6:18PM
I dont know what server you are on, but in checking the various sites (craftier, wowjitsu, etc.) a VERY small percentage of the wow population has actually got "sunwell on farm".
Alex Sep 22nd 2008 5:17PM
I just hope that if they do release one a year from now or even a year and half, they don't bump up the max level. The climb from 70 to 80 will take me, personally, 2-3 months due to RL stuff. I want to enjoy the game and all of its instances before having to level to 90.
sephirah Sep 22nd 2008 5:33PM
3 months to level, 6 months to enjoy the content, 3 months to get bored.
Lur Sep 22nd 2008 5:38PM
WoW currently uses a vertical expansion mechanism. The level cap is raised to provide a gear reset for casuals and new players. This also allows them to add new abilities, spells and talents to the classes.
If they used a lateral expansion mechanism, like some previous MMOs, you would have casual and new players too far behind to ever catch up with new content.
Imagine, if in the current game you/guilds had to:
Strat/Sholo/Blackrock Spire Gear to get
Molten Core Gear to get
Onyxia/Blackwing Lair Gear to get
Ahn Quiraj Gear to get
Naxx 1.0 Gear to get
BC Non-Heroic Gear to get
Kara/Gruul/Mags Gear to get
SSC/TK Gear to get
Hyjal/BT/SW Gear TO BE
Ready for Naxx 2.0 in WotLK.
This would suck...
Hakker Sep 22nd 2008 8:55PM
what i wish they would do is instead of progression through leveling, if they did progression through story. Id rather play, say a ~40 hour storyline, instead of at most, ~2 hours of story and ~38 hours of mindless grind quests/etc. What im trying to say is, it'd be cool (atleast for me) if they made the game play more like a multiplayer RPG instead of a grindfest, having more storyline/cutscenes, and even CGI presentations rivaling that of the previous games (Warcraft 3, starcraft). Now to me, that would be cool.
Ancro Sep 22nd 2008 5:18PM
The trouble, then, is to convince people that the endgame is not so far off. The easiest way to do that would be to have players start at, say, level 40 (and not just Death Knights at 55, I mean everyone). They don't want to do that, so they took a better route: encourage new players to hook up with old players for the dual benefit of XP and actual experience at the game. That can be abused, certainly, but as far as getting players up to 70 ASAP, I think that goal has been fairly well accomplished.
I don't think it would be feasible to pump out a whole new expansion once every year, both in terms of producing it, but also allowing the majority of players a chance to get through it. It took a very long time between the release of the Black Temple for most guilds to see it - and that was even with the 2.3 removal of attunements! I would think that, however, it would be much more feasible to have major content patches like 2.4 was, in that you can produce new content without having to build an entire continent like Northrend, or later the Maelstrom and Emerald Dream expansions.
Atomicwaist Sep 22nd 2008 5:33PM
I completely agree with you. I loved that they added this whole new area for us to explore. Granted it was done to help tie up the Blood Elf story, and Kael, but it still proved that they can add a dynamic new area without the need of an expansion.
Although I can see where they are coming from as well; giving player just enough new content to keep them playing, or give player a whole new continent to explore? I personally feel that there should be an expansion every 2 to 2.5 years. The main game went 2 years before BC came out, and if they do more content patches like Sunwell then they very well could keep the core interested that long without a new expansion.
And just a tiny thing on the Emerald Dream (or NIghtmare depending on who you talk to) I feel that should be a content patch, unless they can add enough stuff to make it worth the price of admission.
Kyudo Sep 22nd 2008 5:23PM
1 year is way, way, way too fast.
It works out for the casuals as they'll find new stuff to grind and new levels to work for.
It works out for the raiders who are hardcore and burn through content.
But us "casual" raiders get screwed as we don't invest as much time into raiding as the hardcore guilds would. Especially since raids usually reset once a week, we can only have X amount of tries per instance in one year. So what, 52 tries total? And given the fact that not all of my guild will be level 80 the first week, or even the first month or two. Then there are the ones who have shifting schedules that throw everything off... Now you've only got a few weeks to get into the first dungeons.
On the flipside, they did remove attunement-- and now there are 10-man raids. I guess we'll have to see how easy it goes.
Either way, once a year...? That's such a short time, at least for us working adults. :(
Celton Sep 22nd 2008 9:36PM
I have never ran out of fun things to do. I have taken a few months breaks here and there, but besides that, I've played non-stop since WOW launched, and I play about 20 hours a week. I can't imagine how much someone would have to play to run out of content and things to do, especially if you factor in alts. I appreciate not having to buy an expansion every year. I wouldn't mind if they released more content as patches like they do now instead of a big expansion every year. I've got a lot of epics, and I'm exalted with a lot of factions, but there's so much I still have to do and now Wrath is coming out! I'm definitely looking forward to Wrath, but I'm definitely not bored with BC either.
Kz Sep 22nd 2008 5:26PM
I prefer Blizzard speed up the releases. Once a year would be fine with me. It's been almost 2 years since BC was released. I ran out of interesting content some time ago.
However, I do not think Blizzard will do a major release every year for the simple reason players, especially raiders, stop playing WoW 4 months prior to a major release. The primary reason players stop playing is due to the level cap being raised by 10 thereby obsoleting all current release gear. Blizzard can't afford players not playing 4 out of every 12 months. Maybe Blizzard could find a way to solve this problem enabling a major release every year, I just don't know how.
airwalke Sep 22nd 2008 7:55PM
Yeah, but as with the last expansion, a lot of gear from the later instances lasted well into the late 60s to level 70. With a lot more people this time around with Tier 5/6 gear, none of that gear is going away until they're about to hit Naxx 2.0. There's still plenty of reasons to raid now, even with the Northrend-quality gear.
Celton Sep 22nd 2008 9:36PM
I agree. Once a year is a very short amount of time for the amount of content they've been releasing in each expansion+patches.
Tom Sep 22nd 2008 5:33PM
I think 2 years is fine as they keep adding some small content in along the way, and the things they couldn't fit into the initial expansion.
Toucan Sep 22nd 2008 5:33PM
I care less about how often a paid expansion comes out, and more how often any sort of enjoyable patch comes out.
I play casually so it would be nice to see patches contain things for everyone, and things for people who are making serious endgame progression, like the raiders amongst us.
I will say as a longtime player of Runescape, you often get what you pay for with constant regular patching and updating. The thing that would worry me most in adding too much too often for casual players of WoW is that you eventually hit a moment of diminishing returns. Eventually things are being added for addition's sake, and they less and less contribute to gameplay, progression, or as I worry most with WoW, to meaningfully exposing lore to the players.
I would prefer if Blizzard was careful about this no matter what they do. Even if a dungeon like BRD never has to be run again, if it is well done and part of the lore, there is an attraction for me to go through it, overpowered and all.
But if things are added just to be timespenders, I think you can get yourself into trouble product wise.
With what they have planned for Wrath, I think I will finally be able to get into 10-man raiding in a decent way. We'll see how the itemization works, though.
Hefren Sep 23rd 2008 11:16AM
I agree, the rate of expansion releases is fine for most of us. However I would like to see more major content patches. Vanilla WoW had 13 or so major patches while BC only had 4. These patches keep the game fresh between expansions.