Why we should expect an expansion announcement at Blizzcon
by Michael Sacco 
Apr 10th 2009 at 2:00PM
We're almost six months into Wrath's lifespan. Patch 3.1 is just around the corner, and before too long we'll be talking about 3.2. I anticipate 3.2 will come out quicker than most content patches and that 3.3 will be on its way soon after. After that, I'm willing to put good money on an expansion following it. We've had a lot of hints and solid information ready to back up a Q4 2009 expansion release, and even hints about what the content in it would be.
Here's what we know.
- There's a Blizzcon this year.
There hasn't been a Blizzard-run event in the past four years without a product announcement. Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are both already announced. The next-gen MMO is way too far off to warrant any kind of announcement. Yes, there may be a mystery fifth project, but an expansion announcement is far more likely at this point.
Those who're ready to argue with me and say "well they could be using Blizzcon to announce a beta for SC2 or D3 or announcing their release dates", remember that they didn't do this for Wrath or BC.
- There's probably no raid coming in 3.2.
All reports indicate a new Battleground coming in 3.2, along with an instance related to the Argent Tournament. If there's a raid coming in 3.2, they've been incredibly mum about it, especially given how open they were regarding raid progression in BC. I'm inclined to believe that this means that Icecrown is the next and likely only big raid coming in Wrath after Ulduar. Yes, I know that Jeff Kaplan said there was going to be a mystery raid in 3.2 at Blizzcon. I have my reasons for doubting it, but there's still time for me to be proven wrong.
What this means is that the raiding lifespan of WOTLK is likely shorter than BC's or vanilla's. This indicates a quicker expansion successor.
- Dev and Community are being very open with us regarding content additions, changes, and features.
Ghostcrawler is leading the vanguard of better communication regarding changes coming down the pipe, class theorycrafting dialogue, and new content. But what does this have to do with the expansion? Read below.
- CMs and devs are teasing the hell out of us.
So far CMs and devs have dropped believable hints about the following:
• Use of phasing in the old world
• Opening Greymane Wall
• Bringing zones that exist but don't exist to the forefront (Gilneas, Kul Tiras, etc)
Gilneas and Kul Tiras are both nations with strong ties to the sea, and both are currently inaccessible to players. Near them is the troll nation of Zul'Dare and the isle of Crestfall. Near the Maelstrom in the ocean's center are a large number of islands, like Kezan, Tel'Abim, Hiji, Zandalar and the Broken Isles. This is a ton of possible content should they go the South Seas route with the expansion. And what better neutral city than the bustling home of the goblin trade princes, Undermine?
On a different side of things, there's the ever-present Emerald Dream theory.
Chris Metzen says that Malfurion Stormrage is not only getting his own novel but will soon become an important character in the game again. This points heavily to use of the Emerald Dream, since that's, you know, where he
currently is.
The Dream isn't just a "new continent," though.
- The Emerald Dream, in lore, contains prototypes of Azeroth.
This is actually a really great piece of information. It opens up a lot of cool ideas for where we'll go and what we'll do when the expansion lands.
Remember that the Dream isn't affected by what happened to real Azeroth, so, for example, the Sundering never happened, leaving Azeroth one giant mass instead of three sundered shards. It wouldn't necessary play by the same rules as current zones, meaning some (Blasted Lands, for example) would be absent and some (where Zin-Azshari would be) would still be there now.
The possibilities are exciting and pretty much endless.
In summary, here's what my Magic 8-ball is telling me.
• We're getting a new expansion sometime this year.
• It'll be announced at Blizzcon.
• It'll involve old-world content or zones in some way.
• It'll involve the Maelstrom, the Emerald Dream, or both.
• There's going to be a new hero class or race.
No matter what, I'm excited. Blizzard has learned a lot since launch and I'm sure they'll give us an even bigger and better experience with whatever comes next -- even better than the fantastic expansion we're playing currently.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Paul Apr 10th 2009 2:08PM
A new expansion THIS year?! Surely they couldn't pull that off.
AlexW573 Apr 10th 2009 2:13PM
Maybe not this year, but an announcement this year is certainly possible.
I hope something big is announced at Blizzcon this year, especially because I'll be there if I can get my hands on a ticket :)
Thiosion Apr 10th 2009 3:09PM
http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Thio/Great_Sea_Expansion
*ahem*
If I can do that in a week, imagine what the infinite armies of Blizzard can do in a year. All that's left after the concept is model design (there are usually
Mr42 Apr 10th 2009 3:22PM
i'd bet that was supposed to be new expansion announcement, considering 4-5 months a patch's lifespan.
Cabcru Apr 10th 2009 4:05PM
@Thiosion.
Jotting down a page or two of notes is faaaaaaar removed from all the work that goes into an expansion.
Friday_Knight Apr 10th 2009 4:19PM
Thiosion:
Awesome work man. I had to sit there and read the whole page. If the inevitable expansion covering the Maelstrom and the seas is half as awesome as that its going to be incredibly fun.
Arashikou Apr 10th 2009 5:25PM
That's some awesome stuff you've conjectured there, Thiosion. Interesting concept.
But I disagree that coming up with the concept for the next expansion is the hard part, and not the actual implementation. The fact that the internet is full of pages like yours, proposing this or that idea to Blizz, should be evidence enough that conceptualizing is fairly easy. Coding, modelling, texturing, scripting... Blizz has far more people in these jobs than anything else because they make up the bulk of the work.
And even the conceptualizing isn't as easy when you're not working alone. At a large company, everyone is going to bring their own ideas of what should happen to the table, and you have to work out one plan from all those divergent viewpoints. And then that one plan has to be fleshed out with an excruciating amount of detail and carefully spelled 0ut so people can communicate it without error to the people that do the actual work. (And if that sounds horribly inefficient and wasteful to you - well, that's why adding more people to a project doesn't always get it done faster, as well as why a small team can often do something much more quickly than a large one.) And that's all assuming that your original plan is a good one and you don't find some problem with it down the line and that watching players play your current expansion doesn't make you rethink where you're going with the next one. :)
Plan Apr 10th 2009 5:43PM
What's with these bloggers posting publicly that they "know" what the next expansion is, but won't share?
Are their duties to their readers or Blizzard? Because if they're not paid by Blizzard, and they're the proprietors of well-read blogs, you'd think they'd have the interest of the readers at heart. If not, they should be getting a check from Blizzard's PR department.
Reminds me of the Mike Schramm post where he told us he'd had some sort of "off the record" conversation with one of Blizzard's IT people, and couldn't share the top secret contents of their discussion, but oh by the way, the New York Times happened to write an article with that very same information, with no qualms about releasing it.
Point is, you should decide whether you're an impartial journalist or a bunch of fanboys/fangirls.
kabshiel Apr 10th 2009 7:10PM
While they have a responsibility to their readers, they also have a responsibility to themselves. Blizzard definitely made them sign an NDA, so they'd get sued if they posted about it on their blog.
SuckItTrebek Apr 10th 2009 7:39PM
Thio, there is WAY more than just model design. Model design, especially for a polished project like WoW, can take a looong time. Animation, poly count, texture skinning, animation logic, physics behavior, AI, etc etc....
Then there's the world itself. Northrend isn't simply loaded up when you load the game-you have to design how it loads, how it streams, the textures, effects, draw distances, etc....
Then there's the quests, despite easy quest making toolsets, there's still the matter of making programming placing and testing EVERY object that could interact with a quest. Then there's balancing progression, xp rewards....
Such as items, and designing/balancing/distributing those.
I mean, really, I could go on and on about details of gamemaking, but making a game isn't as simple as deciding it's contents. You could lay out your complete design document for the expansion and it STILL would not be as simple as copying it, even for the VERY finite army that is Blizz. Go over to some Unreal Tournament forums and look at how much time and effort goes into "just" a decent player map and tell me that Blizz could knock out an entire (quality) expansion in under a year.
mitch Apr 10th 2009 7:43PM
@ Plan
Are you a little slow? It's called an NDA. It stands for Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Alpha/Beat WotLK testers were bound by it and the handful of people who "know" the next expansion will be bound by it also. It essentially limits them from saying much.
Sure, they "know" what it is but they LEGALLY are not allowed to say anything. It has nothing to do with being a fanboy or not having their reader's interests in mind. It's a legally binding document preventing them from releasing information.
Do you think they would risk fines, lawsuits and their journal reputations over some VERY preliminary information?
Zarzuur Apr 10th 2009 8:07PM
Remembering what happened with Wrath, when the PTR launched with zones incomplete, it is probable that the announcement would be about the ideas, goals and concept art.
Clevins Apr 11th 2009 12:25PM
1) Agree we'll hear at Blizzcon.
2) Doubt we'll see a release this year.
Patche in TBC took 3-4 months on average... closer to 4. Counting frm 3.1 that puts is in July for 3.2 if it's at all worthy of a patch. Assuming 3.3 is the final patch and contains Icecrown it would be out in the October timeframe. There's no way they will release the final raid with Arthas in the same quarter as a new expansion.
There's no alpha. The alpha/beta testing for Wrath took up about 6 months and from what I saw in the beta (I was in the first wave of beta invites) I don't see them magically shortening the process. Alpha would need to start in the next month or 2 to make a Q4 date.
The would also be FAR faster than TBC > Wrath. or even vanilla > TBC. Both were over year from announce to ship and in the case of Wrath the very early stages were playable at Blizzcon 07.
Will we see an announce at Blizzcon? Yes. There was no real news there last year and they need to give people a reason to anticipate it. Plus it's a great place and time to do an announce. Will they say "And it's shipping in 2009"? No. I could see them shooting for Q2 of 2010, but only if they announce beta this year or very early next year.
However, the do need to tighten things up. Wrath has no where near enough in it to last until late 2010 (though that's the same span of time from release to expansion end tha TBC saw).
Guy May 12th 2009 7:13AM
I would like to point out that NOTHING was annouced last year at blizzcon 08.(which, as much as i loved going to BC, was a big let down).
diablo 3 was annouced at the WWI 4 months before hand
Ugru Apr 10th 2009 2:08PM
I don't see how we'll be getting a new expansion in 2009, but I agree that an announcement isn't far off.
Brownjohn Apr 10th 2009 2:10PM
I like the ideas, but I don't think the expansion will come out within the year.
Also, I do believe there will be a new raid zone introduced in 3.2. It was stated, as you noted, that there would indeed be a raid introduced in that patch, plus, I believe that Blizzard wants to keep to the three Tiers per expansion that they've had so far.
I think there will be at least one new race, and a new hero healing/dps'ing hero class, much like we got the tanking/dps'ing hero class in this expansion. I think it'll be a plate caster, so all that holy pally gear will have other uses.
RipeTomatoe Apr 10th 2009 2:13PM
There really aren't any more plate healers that I can think of. However, there may be a plate DPS that uses spell power, BattleMage. BattleMages are a mix between a mage and a warrior (Just like how pallies are like a priest and a warrior) That is one class I would definitely play.
yokumgang Apr 10th 2009 2:45PM
Battle-magi are a recurring joke between me and a friend after I went OOM in SSC and started meleeing Vashj, desperately trying to keep my DPS respectable.
I can't see that being the hero class though, since they have no innate healing abilities. Archdrood seems more likely.
Llothtank Apr 10th 2009 3:24PM
i'm still hoping for some kind of monk/cleric hero class. let them fight hand-to-hand with fist weapons or staves and also have a healing tree. something like a rogue-combat tree, a priest-discipline tree and then a holy tree. It would be awesome to run up to a mob, give it a few uppercuts, then stand back and heal yourself or your party members.
VSUReaper Apr 10th 2009 3:30PM
@ yokumgang I disagree that its going to be an Archdruid. I seem to recall a blue post not to long ago say that they didnt want to create and Archdruid because it would be to similar to current druids.
I do however agree that it will be a healer. I cant imagine what kind though, seeing as most of the old warcraft classes have been created or incorporated into other classes (blademasters are the ones I see alot of people cry out for, but thats the arms tree of warriors).
I predict that it will be a plate wearing healer, but what its style would be I cant imagine with out thinking of a healadin.
I think it will wear spell power plate for the simple fact that blizz keeps stating that they despise making gear that only one class can use (hence druid/hunter weapon homogenization, tanking plate homogenization, and hunter/shaman gear homogenization), yet only one SPEC can currently use spell power plate.
It is only logical to conclude the new healer will be able to wear plate, or else they re-work paladins to no longer wear spell power plate in order to achieve their goals of homogenizing the gear.