The Queue: Two days -- I was off by two days
by Adam Holisky 
Jul 26th 2012 at 11:00AM
So I did a detailed analysis post of previous beta testing back in April, and there were two dates the numbers told us MoP would be release on. One was for a short testing schedule, and one was for a long schedule. The long schedule said that Mists would release on Sept. 27, which was a Thursday and made sense at the time, given all previous expansions had released on a Thursday.
But nooooooo ... Mists had to go and be a special snowflake and release on a Tuesday.
Anyway, I have /facepalmed myself. Moving on.
Metaxum asked:
So with the release of the MoP date, in your opinion, do you think its going to be ready?
Absolutely, I do.
Blizzard really operates under the slogan "it's done when it's done." They don't release games that are not polished and ready for mass consumption. Now they don't always live up to the hardcore gamers who expect them to deliver everything under the sun, but they don't release duds and unfinished products. Even the original WoW was released like this.
I'd also wager a paycheck that this date is later than what they wanted. We had heard some rumors of other release dates in the past that didn't pan out. Between what we've heard little birds whispering to us and the fact that some major redesigns are going on in the Jade Forest (and the lateness of pet battles being introduced into the beta, along with no FarmVille yet), this leads me to believe they likely delayed to finish up the polish on MoP.
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, though; we don't know for certain. How this release date came about would be a good question for Zarhym or Ghostcrawler or someone to answer.
Evoxpisces asked:
The Loremaster achievement.... will it be updated in Mists to include all Pandaria quests, or will I still be able to get the Loremaster title by fulfilling its current requirements?
If you already have the achievement, then come patch 5.0 you'll still have it. If you don't by that point, then you'll need to wait until MoP officially releases to complete the MoP component of it. Achievements are never taken away when new requirements are added.
Jaycropia asked:
With the scroll of resurrection giving a free level 80 do you think blizzard will ever give the option of buying leveled toons?
I don't feel that'd be a wise business model for them. They put a lot of work into the leveling content -- not only the actual environment and quests but also the design and progression of the class. You have to learn how to play your character somehow, and that learning takes place through leveling. Without that, you're just left bumbling around on a character.
Now, in isolated cases such as the SoR, it's OK; the obvious intent there is to get a character up to the current content in order for lapsed players to return to the game. Let them jump into the deep end. But as a global strategy of buying a max-level character? No, it doesn't work, and I hope Blizzard never goes down that path.
Busscyc asked:
For the Digital Deluxe Edition of Mists, would you be able to buy it online a few days after the release? Or is it pre-order only?
There's no indication that it would not be on sale after Mists releases.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Filed under: The Queue, Mists of Pandaria
