Posts with tag ReleaseDate

This is blasphemy, I know. I'm messing with the natural order of things when I suggest something like this. But here's what I think: Blizzard should give us a release date.

Excuse me while I duck all those tomatoes. Check out this forum thread, in which Neth voices her feelings about having to deal with players asking about a release date all the time. She gets as far as saying "later, but sooner than much later," which basically means next week or the week after.

Fine then. But, in cases like this, why doesn't Blizzard just go ahead and say a release date? That would shut everybody up, we could all move on with our lives, and Neth wouldn't have to deal with that stuff. And it doesn't even need to be accurate-- if Blizzard said "2.2 is coming on September 18th," and then it dropped on the 11th (which is when Blizzard really planned to release it), then everyone would actually be happy that it came out early. And yes, Blizzard doesn't want to have to explain delays to us, but delays are delays-- surely videogame fans have gotten used to it by now.

I'm not saying they need to change their whole company-- they're not going to give us a date for Wrath of the Lich King, and I'm fine with that: I'd rather see it "when it's finished" (and we will see a release date for it anyway, eventually) But for something like 2.2, where testing is almost complete and they must have some clear idea of when it will drop, why not give us a target, however off it might be? Even "before November," in my mind, is better than all the question ducking that Neth and the other CMs are doing.

The push back to a January release was disappointing to say the least. And many forum posters have been speculating -- if it were pushed back once, couldn't it be pushed back again? Well, Nethaera says no. Replying to a post citing a January 16the release date (via a European press release), Nethaera says, "This is a solid date. It will not be pushed back." Considering Blizzard's usual reluctance to say anything concrete, I tend to believe them when they do. (Naivete, perhaps.)

[Thanks, Yz and Tom!]

It's been a whole 20 days since we last speculated on the release date of Burning Crusade, but since then we've gotten lots of new looks at exactly what Blizzard is planning to put in the first expansion: a new PVP system, a 25-player limit on new instances, lots of flying mounts, new pets for hunters, ten new levels of talent skills for all, a whole new profession (with lots of buffs and customization), and a new continent that's a quarter the size of the game right now. That's a lot of stuff.

In fact, is it too much stuff for Blizzard to fit in before their expected fourth quarter release date? Most retail outlets still have the date at or around November 28th, but Blue hasn't gotten any more specific than Q4 2006, and heck, the beta test hasn't even been announced yet. With only 19 weeks left in the year, Kadulous on Feathermoon doesn't think Blizzard is going to make it, and the timid answers by Neth in the thread don't raise our hopes too much. Even considering just a month of beta (and that's cutting it extremely short as it is), that doesn't seem to leave Blizzard time to print the CDs, much less polish up the game to their standards.

What do you think? Will Blizzard get Burning Crusade wrapped up and under pine trees by the holidays? Or will it be Christmas in July 2007 before anyone has the chance to pay to step into Outland?

While we regularly get tips on the supposed release date of the game - no, we still don't know for certain. Amazon.com says October 15th, Best Buy says November 9th, and EB Games & GameStop both say November 28th. Why the conflicting dates? Well, Blizzard hasn't announced an official date, and it's harder to sell pre-orders without some release date - so all of these retailers are guessing in the dark. However, that doesn't mean one of them couldn't be right - Blizzard has said that they're aiming for a Q4 2006 release, which doesn't rule out much of the ongoing speculation. (Though the date could always slip, you know...)

There's been a lot of speculation as to when The Burning Crusade expansion will be released - different retailers list different release dates, and Blizzard has not made anything public yet.  However, CM Eyonix dropped a little tidbit in the forums today which may provide a clue as to when we can expect to see the expansion hit store shelves, telling us that they plan to do a talent review for all classes before the release.  With three un-reviewed classes, and predicting six to eight weeks between patches, this pushes the expansion out four and a half to six months.   September or October, anyone?