Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Flisher — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:57 GMT

Way too soon, collector box content isn't announced, and Sunwell is the pre-requisite for the campain setup of WoTLK

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

gonzojoe — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:56 GMT

1) Blizzard
2) Releasing (anything) early.

These two things can not coexist.

that is all.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Shaile — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:55 GMT

lol no.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Zyuu — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:54 GMT

I tend to agree with all the comments so far. Always interesting to know what people think, though. :)

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Ravanas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:53 GMT

Personally, I think we'll see WotLK about 3 to 6 months after we see the opening CGI movie.

Right now I'm betting on seeing that at Blizzcon, and thus the general consensus for the release of Wrath being correct - late Q3 or sometime Q4.... if they don't push it back to Q1 of next year like they did with BC.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

h41fgod — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:52 GMT

I believe it is "sort of done" and that they are just waiting to see what WAR (which they most likely by now have at least one industry spionage beta tester in, probably got one in AoC as well, so they know that they dont have to worry about it) can bring that they dont have. So, in 2.4, they realized that the artifact of the old honorsystem with the honor calculations had to go, because WAR does it instantly. They are probably redesigning that "pvp outdoor area" too, because it was rubbish compared to WAR (and before you call me a WAR fanboy, think of Halaa, but with catapults instead of flightbombing).

They did it with LotRO and TBC, they will do it with WAR and WotLK.

EDIT: DUH, read the entire article, and I agree to the fullest extent will all he said. Id put the exact launch date at May 15.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Mendorian — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:51 GMT

An add-on that will be sold to at least 7 Million customers can't go under the radar. It simply can't. Blizzard has to satisfy an unprecedented demand, and they have to deliver it with a decent quality. 7 Million boxes have to be made, 7 Million DVDs have to be pressed, 7 Million booklets printed. And companies like Brady Games would catch wind of it sooner than anyone, trying to get exclusive rights for a game guide. It was possible for the Harry Potter book printers to keep the secret of the books, but they could never have made sure no one knows what they're printing.

I know for sure that there hasn't been even a friends & family alpha yet, not to mention a beta, closed or open. The F&F Alpha started about 3-4 Months prior to launch of BC.

In my opinion they just need something to do for the raiders. Hyjal and Black Temple are loosing their exclusiveness by the minute, the top 20 guilds on every server so far have access to them (personal estimate for Europe). Zul'Aman was a joke for those (and many other) guilds, except for the timed runs, which are still challenging.

Btw, they don't really need to wait for WAR. It's a completely different game. Even if it's a closed beta you can be sure that Blizzard employees have long ago evaluated it, and there hasn't been much of a change between Beta 1 and Beta 2, stability issues aside.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Kody — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:50 GMT

I'm going to dispel these rumors before Blizzard even has to:

A) Wrath of the Lich King isn't even out of alpha yet, if it's even started, so releasing it in 2-3 months would be an utter disaster considering alpha for The Burning Crusade started in August of 2006 (maybe even earlier).

B) That speculation is way off on the length of time players had access to Naxxramas before the first expansion. Naxxramas came out during summer of 2006 (I want to say June, but maybe it was July), and the expansion didn't come out until January of 2007. That's a lot more than a month.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

radioactive21 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:49 GMT

Here's why I think WoTLK will be released in FALL 2008

STARCRAFT II

Blizzard needs time between launches mostly about a year so that two products dont ruin each other, be it by over working the staff and thus service is crap or one game blows the other one away making one a failure.

Early 2010 for Starcraft II is most likely the launch date, which makes WoTLK launch at the latest fall 2008.

May 2008 will be WoTLK BETA, which will run for about 3 months till the end of summer and be released in time for the holidays.

After the expansion is released Blizzard needs time to work out bugs and problems so that takes about 6 months or more, leading to Spring 2009 where Starcraft II beta info is released.

Summer 2009 Starcraft II beta is released which will run well into fall with a launch in Janurary of 2010.

Here's the kicker, do not forget about the NEW AGE MMORPG. IF (BIG IF) another game comes by and really hurts Blizzard (ie Spore) all schedules will be accelerated to make room for the new MMORPG to be released.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Fatherland — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:48 GMT

....besides, the late Naxx release was considered such a bad idea that they are redoing it 2 expansions later. My guess is they wont be making that mistake again...

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Dannytsuddenstrike — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:47 GMT

To be honest i dont realy care when it is out. what i dont agree with is small bitslike naxxramas being a 'tier 7' raid (like Karazhan is a 'tier 4' raid) this will make it one of the easy raids. FFS kel'thuzad is Arthas's right hand man, Arthas even called him a friend inside the frozen throne. i think it should be at the same sort of place as ssc and tk along with that big neruban city. 'tier 9' should be sommething like caverns of time the release of te lich king, were u have to stop illidan kael and vashj getting to arthas and that spider dude. at the end u battle illidan on the citadel and then the lich king is released by arthas. (for the duratin of this dungeon u will be transformed to undead like u r human for escape from dunrholde) and after that icecrown citadel, and arthas himself

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

klmay65 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:46 GMT

No way the expansion is coming out before Thanksgiving.

You know something of the size of an expansion will have an extensive external Beta period (none even announces yet).

The world wide invitational is in June, and they would not release it before that. In fact, I would expect to see the official Cinimatic make a debut here.

2.4 is going to be a big patch and it is in PTR now. I would expect to see that released around April or May and not the expansion.

I think this story is just a way to generate traffic on the "Random Battle" web site.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Berelain — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:45 GMT

No no and no.

Blizz have stated several times that they regret the short time people had open to them in Naxx. I think we're going to see a patch 2.5 before we see a 3.0, and I can't envisage WotLK seeing a release date before September.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

skorn — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:44 GMT

I thought I heard Blizz say once that there isn't going to be a external beta for WotLK....

Could make it a lot harder to predict when it comes out.

Speculation: Wrath of the Lich King out in April/May?

Indelible — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:29:43 GMT

What? So you expect a 3-4 month PTR span? I don't think so somehow :-P