I dont see this happening..

With patch 2.3 we get Zul'Aman, and then patch 2.4 we get the sunwell..

how are blizzard supposed to release 2 major content patches and still give guilds time to go through the sunwell in just under half a year?

Seems impossible to me

It'll get delayed and delayed until its ready. I would be suprised if it was around May-Augest time.

Sunwell clearing will open the possibility to built a bridge to northrend, only 100 guilds need to clear sunwell before northrend will open.

I could go on but that won't make any sense. Maybe 2.3 will launch sunwell as well ?? Who knows...

It's not going to happen. At Blizzcon they only said they had 10% of the expansion done. I really don't see them finishing WotLK before Christmas of 2008.

1. Blizzard "lies": they are most likely more than 10% done with making the expansion, testing and reworking it will take more time. 2. Content patches and expansion is not the same devs (or whatever took the most time, cant remember who said what) I think. 3. Developing this expansion was supposedly going to be a lot faster since they dont have to create two new starting areas. 4. Its possible that they are planning to ship it by X-mas, unlikely that they will make it.

With the current release cycle there is 8 months until patch 2.4 (Sunwell) - So no!

Would the expansion be out this year Sunwell would have been released before summer. (Naxx, for comparison, was released 20th of June 2006)

Yeah. Bunk news here. 2.2 STILL isn't out yet - and we have a 25 raid and 10 raid on the way before WotLK. We won't see all that, PLUS Beta testing, in just 3 short months. Uh-uh, no way, I still think Fall/Winter '08.

Naxxramas was an instance with 15 encounters in a 40man raid environement, Sunwell is an instance with 6 bosses in a 25man environement, so it's basicaly cleaned 2 week(+/- 1week) after release depending on the attunement required, it's nothing comparable to naxxramas.

Hint:

releasing an espansion before christmas will hurt vivendi revenu...

2.5 millions custumer spending 50$ on a Wow expansion, day 1... before christmas mean 125 millions less to spend on vivendi product (cd, dvd and video games)...

When those custumer might buy vivendi product instead of WoW expansion... they will buy wow expansion after christmas anyway...

I don't believe that WotLK, will be ready by February 2008, and its not because there are at least patches 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 in between now in the expansion, because as far as I know patch 2.2 is done maybe next week, and patch 2.3 has Zul'Aman all done only needs testing, the only thing that will take time is the guild banks, that don't have the idea behind them all done yet.

For sunwell it will take its time to go out.

Next to that is the content patch for the expansion and the retuning of all servers to take this new expansion, not to mention the development of the Death Knight, that's not nearly done, as they changed in little time how you would get your hands on one and don't know for sure how many areas there will be, only that they liked to be 10 one of them underground.

If I were to point a date, that would be between May and September next year, despite they may push it a little earlier to face other MMO's that are going to be released next year: Age of Conan and mainly Warhammer.

Sunwell won't take more than 1 or 2 weeks to clear for the top PVE guilds. And all the others won't even try it because it is supposed to be harder than Black temple. And who raids Black Temple anyway, besides the top guilds.

I think it's going to come out in Jan - March next year. They HAVE to let it out by then because that's the time Age of Conan and Warhammer Online supposedly start - and if Blizz isn't bringing the Addon then lots and lots of people will switch to these new, hyped, games.

MCloud is right the`re seriously taking into consideration fucking up Warhammer AoR coz Conan is non-existent anyway...imo if blizz shows up again that its the money hungry monster that we all know the Expansion will launch in feb. or around that time.But if their politics maybe..just maybe changed a bit and actually they start to give a damn about the Customers and our futurein this game the expansion will come a bit more late and more polished up cause we will still kick WarHammer`s ass. Cheers

Not gonna happen, imo.

For gods sake they can't even get voice chat out and it has been in public testing for months now.

I have no confidence in their priorities anymore.

Lastly, I will be buying WAR and AOC before the expansion, me thinks.

I expect a release date of early March 2007 but what we have to remember is that they have been working on this since they released TBC. The toolset is now refined enough to just copy + paste most of what they need to do and the only problem, in my honest opinion, that the devs may run into is the balance of the Death Knight. Everything else is basically more of the same.

Also, To the people ranting about 2.3 and 2.4. 2.3 is effectively finished. They have said that the instance of Zul'Aman is complete the encounters need slight fine tuning but I expect this to ship no later than the end of October 2007. 2.4 will ship November/December and then they have 2-3 months to ship the 51=point tress before the release of WotLK.

Sunwell will contain items only a few levels higher than Black Temple and thus we can safely assume that the boss encounters will only be slightly more difficult. Also, there are only 6 bosses and if the trash is kept to a minimum then it is not alien for several guilds to clear Sunwell well before the release of WotLK. Has anyone thought that maybe, just maybe, this 25-man isn't designed for everyone and may be Blizzards way of giving Nihilum and the like something else to do? hmm?

Also, I looked up the patches for WoW and there was only 4 months between 1.12 and 2.0.1. If Zul'Aman is as prepared as they are claiming, it should only be 1-2 months between 2.2 (which adds very little content and merely a VoIP system) and 2.3. 2.4 will come late November/early December and then they have 3.0 which will merely add the new 51-point talent trees. So an expected release date of late Feb/ early March is very, very understandable :-)

@ Heydan: I'm offended by your comments. Blizzards Customer Service is rated as one of the top Customer Service dpets out of any MMOG out there. HAve you ever played Eve, or Guild Wars and had to wait up to a week to talk to an actual person? Every experience I have had with Blizzard has led to a resolution within hours of submitting a ticket....and they have 9,000,000 other players to work with :-) Not bad...you could do no better.

What do you propose? Call centers in India?

I was going to write something long and lengthy but what Lythria wrote is bang on the money.

if i can calc right about blizz's release for the PTR patch 2.2, 2-3 weeks away and 2.3 november/december so who knows? :P

They have actually been working on this since before TBC launched. I am expecting Beta around late October, early November. When it actually releases will depend greatly how beta testing goes.

And if you go amazon.co.uk they give a January release date!!!!! although Amazon are notorious for making dates up

Putting into consideration, upcoming patches that are yet to be released, which also need testing (2.2,2.3,2.4), that WotLK still needs to be completed and tested and with patch 2.3 comes Zul'Aman which then needs time for people to complete or experience it, i doubt February is the release date. Yes, there is less to do in this expansion and that took a year after announcement to be released but this will probably be a few months under a year after announced and is likely to be released in May-ish. Oh and then theres the patch that gives us the 51 point talent tree. ;) But don't get me wrong, im not complaining if its early! :D