We’re sorry to bring you some disappointing — but not altogether unexpected — news: Blizzard announced today that it will be delaying World of Warcraft: Shadowlands from its October 27th release date until “later this year.”
In a post on Twitter, Executive Producer John Hight said that the move is to allow for more time for polish, balance, and endgame testing.
“Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home,” Hight wrote.
While a new release date has not yet been set for Shadowlands, at least now we know when the 9.0 pre-patch is arriving: October 13th. This will contain the new leveling experience, the Exile’s Reach beginner area, additional character customization options, and the pre-launch Scourge event.
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) October 1, 2020
A formal press release also reassures shareholders that “Activision Blizzard’s business momentum continues to be strong and the Company does not expect the change to have a material impact on its financial results for the year 2020.”
Final Fantasy 14 and a WoW pre patch head to head–’bout time.
Well I won 20 bucks . Told one of my guilds members it was gonna be the 13 because ffxiv has a patch the same day 😏
I’m fine with that
Delaying a game has got to be the most Blizzard thing I’ve seen in a while. What’s next? They’re going to make Jaina like the Horde again!?
Well, right. Covid is a thing.
Also a thing is that the community has been pushing back hard against an arrogant dev team that continues to tell us how we want to play. I’m glad someone stepped in to stop it.
A delay doesn’t stop that.
Still wonder why blizzard ever tried to drop the “Soon” tm
Icy Veins had a “This will be the shortest pre-patch ever!” article earlier today before the announcement…that aged poorly very quickly : P
I gotta wonder though…pre-patches are always a shitshow in the game and break the hell outta it. Usually for the better in terms of fun and enjoyment, but with plenty of warts as well. Looks like they usually last around a month, so I genuinely wonder if Blizzard is going to feel pressured to balance the pre-patch for live servers while working on the expansion if it goes 2+ months >.>
First…
…I mean, is this a first for them? o.O
Warning delays? I guess so. But having delays, not so much. Pandaria had a huuuuge content drought from SoO to WoD.
So this is in fact unprecedented then.
And as a close friend and long term WoW player stated, this is an abject disaster for Blizz and their PR. Along with the (maybe?) unrelated, Khadgar episode (something that’s never happen to them WoW side either), one should be asking: What the Hell is going over there in Irvine?
COVID? I’m highly sure a lot of the workforce has to work from home.
And, remember: Kotick fired 800 people. Blizzard employees on that too. Of course gutting the people by that ammount will show on quality, which is actually been happening for a while ago. 8.3 was bugged to hell and back, which is unprecedented for Blizzard standards.
No, there’s been dozy of a bugged patches previously. And no offense, but that’s not really new nor interesting. As they tend to get those ironed out in a usually post haste manner.
The latter part though…
…that’s something to sink the teeth and pigtails into. As it strongly suggests the chickens have come home to roost. /bleh
Where did i say it was interesting? It wasn’t. It’s basically a mass sickleave for long periods of time.
And there’s a difference between buggy patches and having core features bugged to hell and back. Blizzard quality has been decaying for a while now, and it can’t be denied. Again: Gutting 800 people for sure had a effect on the company.
That 800 didn’t include any developers, Activision basically gutted Blizzard’s publishing department and they are still doing it (takes longer to get rid of people in Europe).
But since Mike left, lots of senior/experience devs have been leaving, either for Mike’s studio or elsewhere. This is pretty common in the industry, when leaders leave, people tend to follow them, and Mike was one of the few remaining leaders from the old time.
A lot of the veterans then signed up with Mike Morhimes new company instead of going back to Blizzard when they offered them less money to come back.
I think as a “We have an actual launch date” followed by a “We’re delaying the launch date” it’s new for Blizzard.
It’s not the first time they had a stated timeframe though and then announced a delay. Burning Crusade was being talked about as a Winter 2006 release before they announced in October of that year that they were delaying it to January of 2007, ultimately for similar reasons – continuing to work on polish and such.
Blizzardwatch post says Burning Crusade delayed, so this is not the first time.
This is what was said:
Source: https://blizzardwatch.com/2020/10/01/wow-shadowlands-release-date-delayed/
Either way, let’s not play this one down. It’s extremely rare that Blizz would delay an expansion date. Even rarer, one with such a vague and sketchy timeline.
Not playing anything down, honestly either way i don’t care, in time or next year, the pre-patch is what i care about, and glad it’s not delayed.
Fair enough!
The only other time they delayed an expansion was Burning Crusade.
Good, the pre-patch is the important thing here and it’s coming soon, this is the thing many people wanted to know.
Honestly, I’m more excited about the pre-patch than the expansion. I know SL is going to be excellent, but ultimately it’s just a change of scenery for a few weeks now and then. But the pre-patch changes the way everyone plays, all the time, everywhere. This is the real meat of the thing!
I agree, and the delay means that a lot of folks will have plenty of time to roll up alts and enjoy the new leveling experience without having to choose between that and the expansion.
I’ll be one of them. I’m looking forward to thoroughly exploring a few expansions that I always felt rushed through before because they were outleveled so quickly.
Right? Peer pressure, MMO style. :D Also, if you’re an altoholic, there’s always that guilty feeling you get from ditzing around on your alts instead of powering your main through the new stuff. :D