Monday Morning(?) Musings - World of Warcraft - Blizzard Release Theories for the Next Year

Welcome to Monday Morning Musings (which doesn't always happen in the mornings...) where every week I sit down and talk about a discussion topic that involves a lot of theories that may or may not happen. we're continuing on from last weeks discussion about theories on future expansion thoughts with what I think the next year or so has in store for WoW players.

Patch 5.4 - September

Two weeks ago we saw Patch 5.4 the Siege of Orgrimmar drop and many speculate that this is going to be the final patch of this expansion. We didn't have any Heroic Mode only bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar or any real lead in to the next expansion other than what we have from Ra-den and Wrathion. This makes me believe there is a strong possibility that we will have a Ruby Sanctum situation.

Blizzcon - Early November 

We know that we are getting expansion information at Blizzcon this year. Patch 5.4 is out now and if we didn't get an expansion announcement we would either have to go a year with Patch 5.4 (with a 5.5 probably) and either have them announce the expansion outside of Blizzcon (which I don't think they've ever done since Blizzcon started) or wait until Blizzcon '14 to announce it. Not happening, we're getting the next expansion announcement this year.

I believe we will have our second annual pass. The first annual pass worked out really well and if they want to stop the dropping subscribers locking them in again is their best bet if we have another flop like Cataclysm. Cataclysm no doubt screwed over Blizzard big time because it upset pretty much every part of their subscriber base. Unless the next expansion does something really amazing, without another Annual Pass I think that subscriber numbers will continue to decrease. They may continue to decrease anyway but here's hoping we can get back on the rise again!

If they do decide to do another Annual Pass there are a lot of things that they can do to sell it. Hearthstone is really hot right now, everyone wants in. They can give guaranteed access to the Beta and maybe even offer some limited edition cards for when it releases. They can go with the same route they did before and offer automatic beta into the WoW expansion beta. Or they could do something involving Blizzard All-Stars which, if they're going to continue on with doing it, they're going to make an announcement about this year.

Beta Release - Late December/Early January

I feel like it won't be long now before we see a Beta. It'll be about five months of Siege of Orgrimmar which is already being killed much faster than they expected. After 4 months of LFR/Flex and 5 months of Normal/Heroic Raiding even if people aren't finished with it they are going to want something more to look forward too. On top of that, they will need something to combat Wildstar and Elder Scrolls Online. Elder Scrolls Online is coming out December 2013 and with a 2014 release date I think we will see a much more dense beta in the near future.

A beta like they had with MoP will get them a lot of coverage as well as keep players interested if they are able to get in automatically with the Annual Pass (should they decide to do one again).

Patch 6.0 or 5.5 - Late March/Early April

It's still up in the air whether or not we will be getting a Patch 5.5 but I believe either way the same things will be in the patch. Whether there is a raid in the patch or not we are still going to need some time before release of the expansion (just like we always do) to get used to the new changes. As I said above, I will be going more indepth about what I think will be in the patch closer to Blizzcon but with the changes I think will be happening we're definitely going to need at least a month. We're definitely going to be having an item squish and a lot of players are worried about it because we've been so used to big numbers for so long. Giving players enough time to adjust so they know how much their numbers should be in a raid situations is good. Will also need time to recalculate stats like Haste Breakpoints for Resto Druids.

Expansion - Late May/June

A lot of people think this is a little two fast but by the time June roles around this will be 9 months. This is what happened with Dragon Soul and we all know how that turned out. They cannot make this mistake again. Even with 14 bosses they are dropping very quickly even for the non-hardcore guilds. On top of this, a lot of the guilds that weren't able to clear Normal Modes previously will be switching to Flex raids and downing content a lot faster than before. They need to get the content out if they're going more casual friendly. 9 months without content will not fly anymore if they're going farther and farther away from the Vanilla model.

This is the best time of year for a Blizzard fan because this is on the eve of when all of the information starts flowing and I cannot wait to speculate about it all! Next week, we will be going more in depth about why I think we need a Patch 5.5 and what it might contain!