@antialias02: Consistency would be a problem. Multiple teams would result inevitably result in a little schizophrenia. Although I haven't played WOW in years so I can't say how it right now but it had a significant coherence that many MMO's lacked.

kingmanic

@qhue: I think you're missing the point. He's saying that they have the same people doing both so that all the content has a uniform feel and level of polish.
If you hired on a whole new dev team you'd likely end up with notable contrast between the main game and the expansion, which while it could be a good thing is more than likely going to put off people who've signed on based on the first part.
The point of an expansion is to extend the original, so keeping the original folks working on it only makes sense. Plus Blizz isn't going to trust their cash cow to a bunch of new hires.

bluestreak108

@waza: WoW, and a lot of MMO's, do both. So far there's been at least a couple major content patches each year; battleground PvP, new dungeons and so on; basically anything they can do effectively without altering the existing setup much. If there is a philosophy. it's that patches are meant to enhance gameplay, while expansions, well, expand it. Worth thinking about though, CoH has done a great job using nothing but free content patches.

cynopt

@qhue: There some truth in this. You'd think Blizzard might hire on a couple more people to just work on the expansion stuff, no?

antialias02

I was wondering which MMO to go with when one of my friends explained it to me thusly:

"If you want a MMO with a lot of players and new content, go with WOW. If you want a MMO with not so many players and little new content with the only advantage being that it's not WOW, pick anything else."

That's pretty much what it comes down to. You either want to play WOW or you don't.

OMG! Ponies!

wait so are they delaying WotLK even more?

willz0rz

This is why Blizzard will always reign supreme. They're completely committed to delivering quality content. Every release stems a huge following that lasts for years. Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, WoW... the list goes on.

I can't wait for WotLK. I just started playing WoW this past fall, and I'm about to ding 70 with my warlock. I can't wait to do some endgame stuff for a few months, and then go and explore Northrend with some buddies on our quest to level 80!

dj_fantastica

@Nik in NOLA: True, but with millions of players and lots like me who never cap, I think they can afford to do this.

KaneTaker

i still don't get why MMOs need expansion packs

you keep paying 15$ a month for updates, new content, for a "stable" server

why the hell do they want to make me pay an extra 40~50$ for having that new content now

waza

@Nik in NOLA: True, but generally just until the xpac arrives; not to mention Blizz can always open up a few pieces of the working code early since their putting out most if it in a series of patches ahead of the expanion.

On the other hand, releasing it too early means bugs, which is the fastest way outside of unreasonable time and gold sinks to send folks packing forever. Nothing like spending the week coordinating 20+ people for a raid, only to find out there's a scripting error that's going to keep you from getting more than halfway into the dungeon.

cynopt

No. You don't get to pull down $100+ million in monthly revenue and 10s of MILLIONS of dollars in pure profit each month and get to say that the developers who work on content are the same ones who make patches and that you just don't have the workforce to make things faster..

You hire more people and you reinvest real money back into your product to make it better instead of relying on consumer apathy to continue filling your coffers.

qhue

@Nik in NOLA: This was a slight problem in Vanilla WOW as far as I'm concerned (but what do I know, their subs kept going up and up), but if you compare the content now and then, TBC is no where near as old and a hell of a lot more end-game content.

Flawless101

Less expansions, more content patches.

That's what I would aim for.

Project Thanatos

@cynopt: Till its done is good for traditional games, but I'm not sure its good for MMOs. You run the risk of people maxing out the content, getting bored and cancelling the subscription.

Nik in NOLA

each year, the vampire rises again to feed on the lifeblood of its minion hordes. each year, the willing victims gladly sacrifice shards of their own souls for the addictive thrill that keeps them alive...

More at 11, CNBC reporting.

ZinkO: Beat Incursion

I may return to WoW one day, if I develop an addiction to crack and feel the need to move up to harder stuff.

Chances

yea I did expect a lot of hate but then again we're early right now so give it a while. Go Blizzard... I love WoW especially now that I don't slave over it like I used to. I log on about once a month now... waiting for that expansion.

offsafety

its really unusual i would of thought eveyone would be hating on blizzard cus I wuv them mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm blizzard

SteveeVader

@PsycheE: indeed true but I don't find mmo's addictive bcause I only hop on during my college breaks or uni ones so luckily I can play for a set time and leave it

SteveeVader

Glad to hear it, "til' it's done" is the first commandment of good game-making. Even if they do miss the holiday season, that will just make them more inclined to free up a few people to work on a nice big world event to build up to the actual launch.

cynopt

Good on Blizzard. This strategy always comes with the best results. Reaching dates just isn't valid when a game does not have a certain amount of polish to it.

Refused

@PsycheE: I do play consoles I have most of the lastest 360 releases but I can't keep buying a new game every week or two cus i find console games don't grab my attention as much as a pc one. It's probably the interface, I practically grew up programming so I love keyboards and not controllers and if theres errors i know what to do and i just like communities on pcs more than xbox live

SteveeVader

yeah EA complex fucking sucks I can't believe people buy that crap, cus they are literally the same look at need for speed which has been the same since underground 2 and that was quite awful
I think blizzard would be the only annual thing i would buy from cus they always deliver me a great product and has yet to fail me
GO BLIZ GO

SteveeVader

@SteveeVader: your missing out some great console crap then. WoW was only fun till I was decked out in BWL gear, then with nothing to do and realizing the time wasted; you can never hop back on. Of course this was almost two years ago, but once you get about 32 mmo's with the best equipment you can get, you start to see the vicious cycle.

PsycheE

I'm actually looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King, if only to interest me for a few months. While I really enjoyed The Burning Crusade, I must say that I find some of the changes they made to the game horrendous.

I used to enjoy doing things in the game, having a chance to win, fighting against people in battles that were survivable even if you were 5 on 2. Now, it isn't even fun to try.

Hopefully they change things back to the way they were at least a little bit, and if they don't, the game shall still be fun for a while.

Grecaun

still Diablo 3 looks awesome

SteveeVader

I am so glad I got out when I did. It was probably the most fun I ever had playing a game, but it is hard to balance wanting to do endgame content and wanting to not turn into a divorced basement dweller.

Letsgohokies

I can respect that. Don't ship it until its ready. This is why Blizzard games do so well. No need to make WoW 2009, WoW 2010, etc. *Glares at EA*

Ghost1984

totally blizzard is a quality company and I have met Jeff Caplan myself and he's a very down to earth guy who I think is more trustworthy than oother people e.g. tretton or gates lol.
WOW today for me is an excelllent online experience and I still enjoy it more than the console crap

SteveeVader

Unlike EverQuest that would like to bleed you dry every six months or so with a craptastic expansion. Yeah, this time we'll add... uh, *throws dart at dartboard* ... Frog people... we'll call 'em Frogloks... yeah...

IndustrialJones

Yearly expansions would be good, however it would take some SERIOUS new features to get me back into the game.

Helioz

go blizzard!
can't wait for the next expansion

silvery_eagle

And lo, did the Fans decry their brazen Idol, all the while lifting it upon Altars of green Cash money.

[ZTF]

@Letsgohokies:
That's why I'm glad I married someone that as into as I

Its great to see a company that actually wants quality over quantity. Of course it helps that they already make billions with what they have but at least the core team sounds like they know what they are doing.
Cheers to them.

GrapenutsRobot

I know blizzard is really dedicated to quality, which is a very good thing, but they way they arrange their teams is inefficient and stupid... Why would make the expansion team the same as the patch team? No wonder it takes them forever to fix the classes, or when they do, they just create more problems, probably because they're more focused on the expansion than the patches...

Pbombas

I have a bit of a problem with Blizz releasing 'Hero Classes,' but telling us we are only getting one. Then why call it that? Why not just call it 'Hero Class?' I know that the majority of this IS marketing, but they could, at the very least, release two hero classes per expansion.

ArgentAngel

You hire more people and make the team larger and more capable of doing more things. If it was that hard to get people to work on highly polished "Blizzard Quality" material then how do they manage to develop Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 at the same time?

You dont hire a whole new development team, you augment the team you have with new people and as they grow you divide into multiple teams and hire yet more people. Its no different than any other business except this is a business that needs not make serious investment in itself to retain customers. People make fun of the Madden franchise and yet the WoW team is doing less work and pulling in more money...

I would love, for once, for a gaming 'journalist' to actually press for answers in an interview instead of tossing slow floaters over the plate and regurgitating press releases.

qhue

while the annuel thing is nice i would like to point out things like sunwell which have recently been added to the game, now becouse a new exspantion renders the area competely pointless upon release as lvl 75 greens will be better than the drops there, no one will ever get the see it apart from the elite few guilds that have manged to gear up enough to attempt it, reguler exspantions are nice, however try and keep them away from new content patches becouse it will just be a naxramas all over again

STARSBarry

Throwing more people at a problem does NOT make the problem go away.

Here's a lovely example: Microsoft keeps launching teams and teams and TEAMS of people at Windows and look what we got... Vista... :P

Blizzard seems very much like Pixar, a *relatively* small group of people putting out daunting amounts of actual QUALITY product. They may not get it done when WE (or their overseers) want, but when it does come out it's to universal acclaim and appreciation.

Furiursa

Multiple teams....is not the way to go, to groups with already a lot of hands reaching into the pot. Now

Increasing the size of the current team that works on all of it in general is the way to go. What i mean is don't have a team for expansion and a team for content patches, have 1 team for both but just expand it a bit.

and you know what? Blizzard I am sure has already done that, the problem is everytime you have to make bigger/better and it takes more time to quality check it etc. Take WoW - > TBC, that was a 3.5 year gap no? now TBC -> wotlk? 2 Years. Shorter time to devolp and shorter content, i think there was like 13 content patches in wow classic? Granted those "content patches" are more like little patches now like 2.4.2, 2.4.3, 2.4.4 instead of 2.4 2.5 2.6. So yes you're seeing less patches but your not seeing a dip in quality and only a slight dip in quantity.

So wall of text aside i just re-iterated with blizzard is already doing and already knows what to do, they know how to make money, they know how to release quality products.
remember 1.2 1.3 = 2 5man dungeons and tweaking original game. 1.4/1.5 = pvp, 1.6 = a real raid 1.7 20man, 1.8 = outside world encounters/prepping for 1.9 the next 40man 1.10 weather 1.11 = 40man, so in 11 patchs you got 4 raid zones with 1 being there from the getgo. in TBC you had 2.5, 4 after the first big patch now your up to 5, so less "patches" more content per patch.

Zaos

Blizzard:

It print's money!

Shocky-

@ArgentAngel: New content is neeew. They're releasing Death Knight at first to see how things go. They are gonna give us more Hero Classes in the 3rd expansion or a content patch, a blue poster said so themselves.
As to why we don't get 2 hero classes per expansion, who knows, maybe in the future.

SensAzn

I am all for this design but blizz doesn't even follow through with it. I mean there was a good amount of stuff in BC that was supposed to be in at launch that they just latter added as "content" updates.

taftsearlobe33

@IndustrialJones: How is WoW any different?

Yeah, this time we'll add... uh, *throws dart at dartboard* ... evil elves... we'll call 'em Blood elves... yeah...

Colage

I'll be ending my subscription when Lich King comes out I don't feel like starting over again.

Murderdolls

@Flawless101:
That's sort of what happened with me before TBC. Maxed out the character, stopped playing, and had problems going back when TBC was released. Bought TBC, reupped for 6 months or whatever it is, and never really got the money's worth because I got so far out of the game's loop that I had problems making time for it.

@cynopt:

Depends when you got into WoW. I got in a year after launch and quit after TBC was released (stopped playing around March, subscription lapsed in July/August). I just ran out of content about 6 months before the expansion went into beta, but I knew people that ran out of content quickly and were either maxing out the patched-in content or ignoring it.

WoW's patches were better than other games though. Some of them would have certainly been enough for an EQ expansion. But IMO, you hit a point where you have to draw the line between patching and developing expansions. Perpetual patches are great, but I personally got really bored waiting for TBC and wound up getting out because of it. Found better uses for my time.

Nik in NOLA

Highly polished experiences is why Blizzard wins @ great games and devoted fan loyalty.

It is contrary to the (most adopted/used/forced to use) has-to-be-ready-to-ship-by-this-date-no-matter-what that the majority of companies use for their development cycle.

Slust

A good sign in my opinion. Just ask EA Mythic about condensed Dev Cycles.

Oban

Damnit, every time I see WoW being discussed I suffer withdrawal symptoms.

Nothing beat this game pre-expansion, leveling with friends in the huge, expansive world was like the best multiplayer experience ever. Too bad they ruined it by focusing on raid bullshit.

Mr. Mastodon Farm

wait - there were people who actually believed blizzard would actually hit a start date that they set at announcement? folks...

but to reiterate other posts - blizzard is quality and can take their time. this always leads to great work. thats why they are blizzard.

captronj

@qhue: If you had any actual experience in managing a team of software developers you would know that throwing money/developers at a project does not necessarily speed things up, and can often times cause more conflicts/problems than it helps to solve.

People can gripe all the want about having to wait a bit longer for their next WoW fix, but they need to just trust Blizzard. If ANY game company has earned the trust of the people by putting out nothing but top quality games, it's them.

sigma7

@Mr. Mastodon Farm: What are you talking about? There is still tons of non-raid content to do, i mean i consider raid the 25man stuff, not 10mans. It's just people blaze past the older content to get to the newer stuff, and that'll happen when wotlk comes out as well.

Zaos

@Mr. Mastodon Farm: 'Raid bullshit' represents the most fun I have ever had playing videogames. And vanilla-WoW had loads of Raids in it anyway so I don't know what you're talking about! Get a load of Northrend, you'll wanna explore it, it's gorgeous.

Jamie_W

Blizzard give me a pvp expansion, dont wait a year AND a expansion to fix classes, and I'll come back to WoW.

Lokku

I wish Jeff Kaplan was my boss. /sigh

warf0x0r

@Lokku: forgive my spelling :)

Lokku

@Jamie_W: I also hate raiding with a passion. I guess It's ok if you have the time to waste 4+ hours pressing 2 buttons(most classes anyway), wiping, and doing it next week. And all the raid preparation b4 that. raids are quite tactical if you are going in blind, but there's always guides out.

I remember getting Rag, and nef down when i was an officer of a hardcore guild. The sense of achievement was great but Im not worth it for the stress and time on it :P I dont miss raiding one bit.

Lokku

though as a wow player i would love to see an expansion were you could interact with horde as alliance and vice versa, they worked together to save the universe in warcraft 3, youd think you could at least become neutral so you arent listed as "rape on sight".

underground_slacker

dont ship till its ready. i can live with that, beats the e.a style of "get that money making mother fucker out there as fast as possible, then shut any online or support services 2 months later.

underground_slacker

Basically some people (gamers) are just impatient. Blizzard is know to create high quality games, polished at least. In a way I'm glad it's not like Everquest when you got something every years (at least that's what it seemed like). When you start pushing things out fast you don't give players any time to really explore what you just offered as a company (this does not include the ones that rush and do everything asap). I'm still doing BC stuff, barely even touched the stuff.

macr0planet

@Lokku: who needs pvp when you got Arenas?

taftsearlobe33

@taftsearlobe33: *gags* I hope that was a joke :D

Lokku

The worst time in the world is when you're playing a character and you see how much they're getting improved in the expansion (Paladins and Hunters spring to mind, both the classes I play). You just wish they could patch the changes in and save the expansion for the new zones and the like.

Ladi

I recently returned (again) and charged my druid up with some outdated arena S2 balance gear and was truly amazed at the powerhouse I'd become. My faith renewed in my chosen class, I eagerly await the continuation of the story.
While most of Outland's dungeon's passed me by, WotLK will probably captivate my interest more as I'm curious to see whether the outright end of the Lich King is nigh or will there be a group, desperate to retrieve the once virtuous prince from inside the monster. Or perhaps a return of Uther as part of the encounters against him.
That and it has snow tauren and giant walrus-men, plus the delicious duality I'll get as my rogue slaughters for Hemet Nessingwary and my druid cleverly undermines him with DEHTA.
The fact for me is, Outland was a diversion. A mere bump in the road before the REAL story of Warcraft continues. Now I want to travel to the North and fight the Lich King on his own grounds before the Emerald Dream finally makes it's appearance.

Mattz

I'd believe this if they really took quality in something like.. oh.. Paladins on WoW :P I mean, I love Blizzard, their games are entirely enjoyable.. but someone in Blizzard really doesn't like Paladins and loves Druids/Warlocks lol...

Viciouschan

@qhue: They can't just hire a bunch of random people. Some blizz exec even mentioned in an old interiew, that they have positions stay open for years, because they couldn't find anyone qualified and up to their standarts.

mizeriq