Another WoW Release Date Article

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:39 am

WoW Release Date? [October 25, 2004, 08:14 am EDT] - 2 Comments
The Detroit Free Press (thanks PlanetWarcraft Forums and DeadlyRAge) says they have learned the release date for World of Warcraft, Blizzard's upcoming MMORPG:
One of the most anticipated PC games of the year now has a launch date.

"World of Warcraft," the online world game from the makers of the incredibly popular "Warcraft" strategy game series, is scheduled to launch the week of Nov. 22, the Free Press has learned.

Most stores have predicted Nov. 15 would be the launch date for "World of Warcraft," guessing that Sony Online Entertainment's behemoth "Everquest 2" would come out on or near the same day. But Phil O'Neil, president, North America, of "Warcraft" publisher Vivendi Universal Games, said the game will actually launch a week after the company's other hot holiday title, "Half-Life 2," which debuts Nov. 16.

This is in my opinion a crying shame, as just a couple more months of development time could have made a world of difference to this game. I'm sure it'll still be wildly successful, but I can't see how it could possibly be ready to the standard of prior Blizzard releases when they used to say "screw the timetable - we'll release it when it's done."

Sith

knob · Post by **knob** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:02 am

Well, there's a lot more at stake now. If they wait 2 months and give EQ2 all that time to iron out any problems it has and for the players to become attached, that's going to hurt WoW.

And I still stand by what I've said before: I'd have payed to play the alpha version of the game. Maybe I'm less harsh, but I don't see anything significant that needs immediately needs fixing that can't be easily done between now and then.

The only problem is... Neither EQ2 or WoW have had a Gone Gold announcement, and they're supposed to be out within the next 10 - 20 days.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:35 am

Valael wrote:And I still stand by what I've said before: I'd have payed to play the alpha version of the game. Maybe I'm less harsh, but I don't see anything significant that needs immediately needs fixing that can't be easily done between now and then.

They've spent months tweaking the Mage and Warrior talents, yet they'll only have a matter of weeks to balance the talents for Paladin and Hunter. How happy are paying players going to be if a) they're playing Pally/Hunter and have their talents nerfed after retail OR b) they're getting pwned by Pallys/Hunters because the talents are unbalanced?

PVP is incredibly immature (by which I mean unsophisticated, not childish), yet it's meant to be a major aspect of the game.

They JUST introduced the durability system. They've got more instances and content to release. They continue to rebalance items. In other words, they continue to change both major and minor aspects of the game. For me, any game that's making major changes needs time to see them tested. EVERY major change that's been made to the game in the last year has seen adjustments made after the players had a chance to respond to it (sometimes major adjustments). The servers are still unstable after new patches go live. New bugs are introduced with every patch - often bugs that severely hamper a class or one of its key abilities.

These aren't (in my mind) the marks of a product that's ready to be sold to the public.

I understand the competition with EQ and the value of the holiday season. I guess what makes me sad is that those things have NEVER affected the release date of any prior Blizzard game. They released it when it was ready and not before. I don't advocate holding onto WoW for another year or anything, but to me a February release of this game would have been ideal.

Maybe I'm wrong - maybe they'll somehow get it all balanced and perfect in the next 3.5 weeks. But if they did, it would be completely out of character with the trend I've seen since last November.

Sith

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:07 am

In Blizzard's defense, they're most likely running an internal build that is far ahead of what the beta testers are playing. The bulk of the balancing and introduction of core components is going to be done on the inside.

So, they finish up the talents internally, press the gold disc. Beta testers have 2-3 weeks to pound on it, and if anything bad pops up they patch it at launch.

That's not to say the game will be 100% bug-free and finished when it launches, but it's not inconceivable that the remaining talents will be in and in adequate shape.

Hamlet3145 · Post by **Hamlet3145** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:08 pm

I'm sure the talents will make it in but . . . there still hasn't been a peep about the end game PvP system. Instanced battlefields, etc.

knob · Post by **knob** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:56 pm

They've spent months tweaking the Mage and Warrior talents, yet they'll only have a matter of weeks to balance the talents for Paladin and Hunter. How happy are paying players going to be if a) they're playing Pally/Hunter and have their talents nerfed after retail OR b) they're getting pwned by Pallys/Hunters because the talents are unbalanced?

You mean the same thing that happens in every MMO, and will happen in every MMO regardless of how well it's tested?

I guess I'm too laid back. Being nerfed doesn't bother me. I'd rather get nerfed than be overpowered.

Balancing is something that happens in every MMO. If it's such a problem that they're rushing it, you should make a thread on EQ2. They're just as rushed to get things in before release.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:51 pm

Valael wrote:You mean the same thing that happens in every MMO, and will happen in every MMO regardless of how well it's tested?

Yep. And I guess that's basically the source of my disappointment. You could say the same about PC games in general - they develop 85% of the game, release it, then fix the 15% that's broken in a post-release patch. You could make the argument that this is OK and should be acceptable, or you could get pissed and say "no, if I'm paying for this crap I want it to be done on day 1." You could also have held up Blizzard as a perfect example of a company that refrained from producing shoddy work, ignoring holidays and industry dynamics and just plain not releasing the game until it was ready.

Now, though, they're bowing to the pressure to "just get it out" despite the glaring issues. And nope, I don't buy the "internal build" defense for two reasons:

1. We've had devs in the Beta forums say things like "The guy in the office next to me is working on [issue x] right now." So we know that they don't have some magical internal build that's months ahead of everything else.

2. We've consistently seen them make sweeping changes to things, usually after getting feedback from the testers. So even if they have unreleased things that are hanging out on some internal server, they're not really "done" until they've been playtested. I can't think of a single major feature that didn't get dramatically changed after Beta implementation (rest system, death penalty, talents) but I can think of several that changed many times and there are still sweeping changes being made.

I hope WoW is a huge success in spite of my concerns, I'm just recognizing that something important is being lost if Blizzard is willing to put market pressure above game development - a choice they've always refused to make in the past.

Sith

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:38 pm

Updated - yet again Blizz slaps down any attempt to pin an exact release date on WoW.

WoW Date Update [October 25, 2004, 5:44 pm EDT] - 12 Comments
The WoW Beta Gameplay Discussion Forum (thanks Ant) has word from Blizzard putting a damper on the speculative release date found on The Detroit Free Press (story). Here's the deal:
We appreciate everyone's interest in determining when World of Warcraft will ship, but while we are rapidly approaching the open beta period and we are confident that we will meet our goal of shipping the game before the end of this year, nailing down an exact ship date is a little more complicated due to a number of factors. As soon as we have a specific date to announce, we will be excited to share the news with everyone. Please don't consider any announced release dates official until such an announcement comes from Blizzard. This is true for all announcements related to Blizzard games.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:51 pm

Why not wait until you (general) think a game is done before you purchase it?

Ale

Raven · Post by **Raven** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:42 am

Updated - yet again Blizz slaps down any attempt to pin an exact release date on WoW.

They're just pissy because Vivendi is stealing their thunder. Believe what you want, but I'll take the word of the publisher over the developer any day of the week.

I mean, really. Who are you going to believe.

The person who signs the check, or the person who cashes the check.....

Blizzard will probably release one more patch, go gold, have open beta in early Nov, and release on the 22nd, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 11:24 am

Raven wrote: Blizzard will probably release one more patch, go gold, have open beta in early Nov, and release on the 22nd, just in time for Thanksgiving.

I'm getting nervious about WoW.

For months they were steaming along, releasing patches regularly and keeping the community informed. On Oct 7, they announced open beta was "coming soon".

Since then, there's been nothing. Blue-text commication on their boards has dropped dramatically, they refuse to give a release date and open beta signups haven't even started yet.

Meanwhile the release date for EQ2 has moved up a week.

I loved the WoW stresstest and I'm anxiously waiting for release, but I'm starting to get some real bad vibes on this one...

knob · Post by **knob** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 11:42 am

I thought for sure the game was going to be coming out around the 15th, but the closer it gets, the more likely we're going to see it pushed back as Blizzard does their typical tweaking.

I don't know, I am a bit of a Fanboy (Just as YK is for EQ2! Cheap shot), but I have a feeling that the complete lack of activity on the website is a sign of them busting ass trying to get the game ready for release.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:24 pm

Exodor - I'm pretty sure the reason for that "Open Beta" announcement was due to a print magazine ad that directed people to go sign up for it. Since those ads need to be commissioned well in advance, they apparently guessed at a date and missed.

Sith