Well, if Blizzard follows the usual, they will anounce the next expansion on the next blizzcon, probably to be release on end 2010, at least this is what we saw happening before.

Any ideas about possible subject new features and stuff?

Im hoping for some kind of woodworking profession, im sick of not being able to do bows and staves, and also, but this i dont think will happen, player and guild housing, offcourse an instanced everquest 2 like system where we could port each one to each house from the same door or something.

Probably we will see 1 or 2 new hero classes, i doubt there will be new races though. We'll see about that

It's almost certain that they will revamp some graphics on the game, I hope it will be more extensive than what they have been doing till now

 I'm going to do somethign and say ifthey make new races they should do the races nobody cares about!

Satyrs kobolds etc Not going to happen but a guy can hope to play a walking pig.

Originally posted by seventy7l

 I'm going to do somethign and say ifthey make new races they should do the races nobody cares about!

Satyrs kobolds etc Not going to happen but a guy can hope to play a walking pig.

I hope not, I really think they should introduce ATLEAST 2 <----  new classes (if they do any classes at all)

NO LEVEL CAP INCREASE PLEASE!  (I recall in a press release they said not every exp pack would raise level cap)

A LOT of new content (if there isn't going to be a level cap increase they sure better have something spectacular in mind.

IF there are two new classes (which there better not just be one, so unbalancing to the server populations)  Then one should be a  DPS / Tank and one should be a Healer/ DPS or Healer/ Tank.   Having everyone reroll DK made it impossible to find healers for a while.

The two big theories, given the lore and direction of the game, are a Maelstrom/Great Sea expansion and a Emerald Dream expansion.

There are a lot of theories out there as to why one might be a better guess than another, but I personally think it will be the Great Sea.

I do expect a level cap increase. With WOW, that is almost a given. WOW is about progression and everything in the game is based around levels (gear, trade skills, etc...).

I expect we will get 1 hero class maybe 2. If it is the Great Sea, I expect it to be along the lines of a Privateer class and if the Emerald Dream, then either a Demon Hunter or ArchDruid class.

There will probably be another crafting profession and maybe gathering too. The gather lumber quest in icecrown makes me think that lumberjacking could come in and then something along the lines of wood crafter (makes wands, bows). This could also be a precursor to housing as wll in a later expansion or patch.

I don't think the Lore will allow for a new race just yet but who knows.

It is a sure bet that we will find out everything at Blizzcon. Blizzard really has nothing else to announce - the unannounced MMO is still probably too far away and we know the games in the Starcraft and Diablo IP's already.

In terms of release date, it is very hard to guess but I think maybe January 2010 at the earliest. My guess is March though.

3.2 is testing now and will probably come by August 1. Blizzard tends to patch on a 3-4 month schedule. By assuming that, 3.3 should be come around October-November.

Beta will begin around this time as well. Beta will last around 4-6 months (WOTLK beta lasted roughly 5 months). This would put the launch sometime in Q1 2010 (January to March).

Of course the above are just MY guesses and assumptions. It's Blizzard so who really knows.

EDIT: I did some digging. Here is a list of the major content patch since right before BC:

BC BETA: October 2006

Patch 2.0.1(Prior to BC launch) = 12/5/06

BC LAUNCH = January 2007

Patch 2.1.0 (Black Temple) = 5/22/07

Patch 2.2.2 (Voice Chat) = 9/25/07

Patch 2.3 (Zul Aman) = 11/13/07

Patch 2.4.0 (Sunwell) = 3/25/08

WOTLK BETA = Jul 2008

Patch 3.0.2 (Pre-WOTLK launch) = 10/15/08

WOTLK LAUNCH - November 08

Patch 3.1 (Ulduar) = 4/14/09

Patch 3.2 (Coliseum) = ???

Patch 3.3 (Icecrown Citadel maybe?) = ???

----

So looking at that....what can we determine. All things being equal (which is a HUGE assumption) but for sake of argument, it seems that the trends are: a longer patch period for the first major patch after an expansion, a shorter period for patches between expansions, and a much longer period for the patches just prior to an expansion.

Patch 3.1 went on the PTR in late February 2009 and the patch came on April 14th. That is almost 6 weeks. So let's say that the time frame holds for this patch (actually since the dungeon is different [less difficult to test than Ulduar I would assume], let's say 5 weeks). The PTR was just made available if I read correctly so that would put patch 3.2 around August 1st.

So Patch 3.2 = August 4th (hypothetical)

Let's assume patch 3.3 is Icecrown Citadel and the last new content for WOTLK. It has been roughly 2 months between Patch 3.1 and the PTR for 3.2. So we can guess that 3.3 will be announced at Blizzcon in some detail and then maybe on the PTR around October 1st. Let's give it 6 weeks for testing since it will be huge (most likely) so the patch could come around December 1st (figure some time off for the holidays).

The beta for BC was ~4 months and the beta for WOTLK was also around 4 months. Let's say that beta for the next expansion begins in January, beta could run 4 months which would put release around April-May 2010. However, given the fact there was such a huge time period between 2.4 and 3.0 (roughly 7 months) we may not see the expansion until July 2008 or later.

Now of course there is so much to take into account. When are other games releasing from Blizzard? Blizzard has a lot of money and resources at its disposal so they could be further along in the expansion's development than they were with BC and WOTLK. So in reality, it is all speculation but I think the above is a good guess. Again it is all my speculation and guesswork and nothing I said could be even remotely accurate. Remember, with Blizzard, all we know is "SOON".

It very unlikely that the next expansion will be announced at this years BlizzCon.

Its much too early to announce(probably a year away from release) and it would draw attention away from StarCraft 2 which is Blizzard's next big release.

You have to remember that BlizzCon is not just WoWCon and Blizzard is a business that has other games.

Except what you're forgetting is that Blizzard announced that unnamed MMO project that is unrelated to WoW.

Blizzard is the kind of company that has it's games and it will not compete with itself, because it doesn't make sense to do that. Why split resources to make two different games that are similiar when you can focus on one?

My guess is that wotlk was the last expansion WoW will see, depends on how far off this other project of theirs is. If they started developement six months ago then we could see one more expansion.

Once this other project is off the ground though I seriously doubt we'll see any new major work for WoW. The game is aging badly at this point and Blizzard knows it. With Aion coming out in the west WoW is going to get some real competition over here. It's already got ~4 million subscribers over in the east and it's only been out a year.

Blizzard probably has projections of what to expect the market to do over the next few years. -When- WoW begins to decline they won't bother to invest resources into large expansions anymore. This is simply because those resources would be better spent into their new projects.

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan

Except what you're forgetting is that Blizzard announced that unnamed MMO project that is unrelated to WoW.

Blizzard is the kind of company that has it's games and it will not compete with itself, because it doesn't make sense to do that. Why split resources to make two different games that are similiar when you can focus on one?

My guess is that wotlk was the last expansion WoW will see, depends on how far off this other project of theirs is. If they started developement six months ago then we could see one more expansion.

Once this other project is off the ground though I seriously doubt we'll see any new major work for WoW. The game is aging badly at this point and Blizzard knows it. With Aion coming out in the west WoW is going to get some real competition over here. It's already got ~4 million subscribers over in the east and it's only been out a year.

Blizzard probably has projections of what to expect the market to do over the next few years. -When- WoW begins to decline they won't bother to invest resources into large expansions anymore. This is simply because those resources would be better spent into their new projects.

Just a different opinion than yours,

Blizz next mmo is already spoken by them that it will be a totally new ip. So like what you've said, they will not complete against itself, thus releasing a non-fantasy mmo they can have a bigger share of the market, players that like fantasy and players that dosen't or just sick of it...

I remember corectly, yes Blizz did say not every x-pac will have an increase of levels, but they also said they will release at least another 5 x-pac. So if that's correct, minus the already 2, we should be expecting another 3 more. (I will try to find the link when i reach home.)

Aion: Its a asian game which may not really have a big impact it have over european players, given that the looks of the chrac, no mob tagging etc... it may not pull too many players away from WoW.

But say it does take away 2 mil players from WoW, Blizz will still have around 9mil players. So its still very profitable to release new expansions...

That said, i truly hope thay increase the level cap, bring back quest to travel back to azeroth, maybe by phasing technology and release both new classes and race.... That will be one hack of an expansion.....

Originally posted by arctarus

Just a different opinion than yours,

Blizz next mmo is already spoken by them that it will be a totally new ip. So like what you've said, they will not complete against itself, thus releasing a non-fantasy mmo they can have a bigger share of the market, players that like fantasy and players that dosen't or just sick of it...

I remember corectly, yes Blizz did say not every x-pac will have an increase of levels, but they also said they will release at least another 5 x-pac. So if that's correct, minus the already 2, we should be expecting another 3 more. (I will try to find the link when i reach home.)

Aion: Its a asian game which may not really have a big impact it have over european players, given that the looks of the chrac, no mob tagging etc... it may not pull too many players away from WoW.

But say it does take away 2 mil players from WoW, Blizz will still have around 9mil players. So its still very profitable to release new expansions...

That said, i truly hope thay increase the level cap, bring back quest to travel back to azeroth, maybe by phasing technology and release both new classes and race.... That will be one hack of an expansion.....

 

 

Aion was designed to be a blend of Asian and wester-style gaming with traditional RPG elements and it does it very well. The vast majority of WoW's subscriber base is in Asia and the majority of the 4 million accounts over there were stolen from WoW.

2 million players stolen from WoW in the west would basically be the entire western subscriber base. Europe has about 2.5million accounts and NA has about 1.4 million accounts. The Asian markets combined have about 7 million accounts.

So let's say Aion has already stolen about 3 million accounts from WoW, this may or may not be the case, but it's likely. Aion is already being well received here in the west and I could easily see it stealing a million westerners. The Asian market still hasn't gotten wotlk and won't for about another six months, if not longer. So it's entirely likely another million or two accounts will leave WoW over in Asia by summer's end, maybe more.

Aion won't kill WoW, but it will take a sizeable bite out of it. I said this six months ago, comes as no surprise that I was right.

No single thing is going to be what brings WoW 'down', off of it's pedastel. It'll be a series of games that come along and Aion is the first in that series. The next may be FF 14, but we won't be seeing something that will take away such large numbers from WoW for at least six months. Global Agenda may pull a small-medium crowd out of WoW, but my guess is not more than 150k or so.

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan 

Aion was designed to be a blend of Asian and wester-style gaming with traditional RPG elements and it does it very well. The vast majority of WoW's subscriber base is in Asia and the majority of the 4 million accounts over there were stolen from WoW.

2 million players stolen from WoW in the west would basically be the entire western subscriber base. Europe has about 2.5million accounts and NA has about 1.4 million accounts. The Asian markets combined have about 7 million accounts.

So let's say Aion has already stolen about 3 million accounts from WoW, this may or may not be the case, but it's likely. Aion is already being well received here in the west and I could easily see it stealing a million westerners. The Asian market still hasn't gotten wotlk and won't for about another six months, if not longer. So it's entirely likely another million or two accounts will leave WoW over in Asia by summer's end, maybe more.

Aion won't kill WoW, but it will take a sizeable bite out of it. I said this six months ago, comes as no surprise that I was right.

No single thing is going to be what brings WoW 'down', off of it's pedastel. It'll be a series of games that come along and Aion is the first in that series. The next may be FF 14, but we won't be seeing something that will take away such large numbers from WoW for at least six months. Global Agenda may pull a small-medium crowd out of WoW, but my guess is not more than 150k or so.

Nope. 

Blizcon will - of course - communicate on the next expansion. They already said they would communicate on their next expansion plans for the BG's in an article in Wowinsider.

Patch 3.2 is live today on the PTR.

That means it will be around the end of July to go live.

Add 5 months of a typical "boost" cycle and you can be sure we all fight the Lich King (in casual and hard mode) at Christmas time.

Expect this winter again a boom in players on line (just like the way it happened in Dec 2007), .... with not even an expansion launched.

Since TBC the gameplay in World of Warcraft is simply at its best right in the middle between two expansions. Huge content patches take care of this.

The expansions are only there to boost the gobal marketing. It is ALL a question of marketing these days. The expansion relaunches the game while the patches relaunch the gameplay.

So the next expansion will come around the end of August/beginning of Sep 2010, giving a 7 month prelaunch hype.

---- new console mmorpg ----

I wonder if they will not announce their plans on consoles (in the news this march). Wow is heading into very short playing sessions of 20 minutes BG's and small dungeons.  From a commercial standpoint it could be a real winner. Instanced BG's and small dungeons on line with a Wow setting. They don't even need to rewrite the engine. And waiting times to group would be zero (with linked servers). It all depends how far the new Xbox is ready.

I would not be surprised if they wouldn't launch news around that because simply they can't wait any longer to confirm the talks with Microsoft.....

---NO news on the new mmorpg PC game----

Because that's only for 2012. 3 years hype is much too long.

Bliz has already potentially lost China and all it's accounts, the lawsuit with the9 has the whole thing frozen.  How many of those Chinese players will go back to wow if they have to wait 3 or more months or worst case have to level 1-80 again.

With that in mind their plans for WoW may be very likely to change and their focus going to their secret MMO rather than continuing WoW further.

Originally posted by SonofSeth

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan 

....

So let's say Aion has already stolen about 3 million accounts from WoW, this may or may not be the case, but it's likely. Aion is already being well received here in the west and I could easily see it stealing a million westerners. The Asian market still hasn't gotten wotlk and won't for about another six months, if not longer. So it's entirely likely another million or two accounts will leave WoW over in Asia by summer's end, maybe more.

Aion won't kill WoW, but it will take a sizeable bite out of it. I said this six months ago, comes as no surprise that I was right.

No single thing is going to be what brings WoW 'down', off of it's pedastel. It'll be a series of games that come along and Aion is the first in that series. The next may be FF 14, but we won't be seeing something that will take away such large numbers from WoW for at least six months. Global Agenda may pull a small-medium crowd out of WoW, but my guess is not more than 150k or so.

 

Nope. 

What a laugh.

Aoin runs on ... 160 servers in the "east". That's a potential of 1.600.000 subscriptions. 10 K subs per server of which 1/3 to 1/4 are on line. That's facts.

What a typo could do in an article on IGN.com. (1.5 M and the guy typed 3.5M). Since then fans (who didn't even play the game) have been dreaming.

If you show me the number of servers in a fantasy game (you know the ones with real landscapes and gravity, not empty space like EVE) and I show you the number of maximum subs that game has. War has exaclty 30 US/Oceanic server of which 5 ... are medium and the rest on low. So that' a a potential of 150K subs, but most don't log in anymore.

BTW: for those twisting their tales out of pure excitement: look at the doubled rating of the new Wow providor for China on the stock exchange.

Bllizzard is just regrouping their different providors to create the famous Battlenet accounts over there (and regrouping their SC, D, WC, Wow games). So they had to choose which one of their two providors would deliver the central services (they did exactly the same in EU a few months back).

For the rest this guy is just inventing things. There are 2.5 million subscriptions in NA (not 1.4) and we heard that story of Wow killers just one time too many in the past. And no,... "polish" is not the reason they all fail (look at LOTRO).

Copycat of the market leader only reinforces the market leader. Guys who have been following this industry for 3 years now, know exactly  what I mean.

There is a full graveyard of Wow killers - commercially wise - and Aion will be the next in line to be shot.

And I won't even have pity: who wants the industry in the hands of a Korean copycat.

World of Warcraft Expansion: The Undermine ? , yeah....Yeah it's a fanmade movie......still......
 

One possible way Blizzard could take the game, is gomes in space if they ever get the area 52 rocket launched.

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by seventy7l

 I'm going to do somethign and say ifthey make new races they should do the races nobody cares about!

Satyrs kobolds etc Not going to happen but a guy can hope to play a walking pig.

 

I hope not, I really think they should introduce ATLEAST 2 <----  new classes (if they do any classes at all)

NO LEVEL CAP INCREASE PLEASE!  (I recall in a press release they said not every exp pack would raise level cap)

A LOT of new content (if there isn't going to be a level cap increase they sure better have something spectacular in mind.

IF there are two new classes (which there better not just be one, so unbalancing to the server populations)  Then one should be a  DPS / Tank and one should be a Healer/ DPS or Healer/ Tank.   Having everyone reroll DK made it impossible to find healers for a while.

 

I"m with you there..  I would like to see 2 new classes and races with new zones from lvl 1-80.. 

I would design a whole new land mass (continent) that has 2 starting cities (Horde and Alliance) with limited zones going from 1 to 80.. with new dungeons at different intervals.. I personally would love to see an asian themed race as one of the two new reaces.. I wouldn't mind a non-humanoid race as well..

As for classes.. I wouldn't mind a cloth melee class like a ninja.. It would actually go well with a new asian themed race.. The other class? hmmm maybe another hybrid class.. Mail or Leather is my preference..

Originally posted by arctarus

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan

Except what you're forgetting is that Blizzard announced that unnamed MMO project that is unrelated to WoW.

Blizzard is the kind of company that has it's games and it will not compete with itself, because it doesn't make sense to do that. Why split resources to make two different games that are similiar when you can focus on one?

My guess is that wotlk was the last expansion WoW will see, depends on how far off this other project of theirs is. If they started developement six months ago then we could see one more expansion.

Once this other project is off the ground though I seriously doubt we'll see any new major work for WoW. The game is aging badly at this point and Blizzard knows it. With Aion coming out in the west WoW is going to get some real competition over here. It's already got ~4 million subscribers over in the east and it's only been out a year.

Blizzard probably has projections of what to expect the market to do over the next few years. -When- WoW begins to decline they won't bother to invest resources into large expansions anymore. This is simply because those resources would be better spent into their new projects.

 

Just a different opinion than yours,

Blizz next mmo is already spoken by them that it will be a totally new ip. So like what you've said, they will not complete against itself, thus releasing a non-fantasy mmo they can have a bigger share of the market, players that like fantasy and players that dosen't or just sick of it...

I remember corectly, yes Blizz did say not every x-pac will have an increase of levels, but they also said they will release at least another 5 x-pac. So if that's correct, minus the already 2, we should be expecting another 3 more. (I will try to find the link when i reach home.)

Aion: Its a asian game which may not really have a big impact it have over european players, given that the looks of the chrac, no mob tagging etc... it may not pull too many players away from WoW.

But say it does take away 2 mil players from WoW, Blizz will still have around 9mil players. So its still very profitable to release new expansions...

That said, i truly hope thay increase the level cap, bring back quest to travel back to azeroth, maybe by phasing technology and release both new classes and race.... That will be one hack of an expansion.....

 

 

I don't think we're going to find any "WoW- Killers" outside of Blizzard. I hate to say it, but the formula for WoW just seems to work and overy other MMO hasn't even come close to their numbers (except for Everquest, I think- please feel free to correct me). Blizzard won't throw away 11 million subs a month and will keep developin new content for wow as long as their bringing in truckloads of money ($50 Vanilla + $50 BC + $40 WotLK x 12,000,000) plus the $15/mo x 11,000,000 is a tone of money no matter which way you look at it.

But, we'd all play Starcraft Universe - and you fucking know it :P

I would love to see some info on their new MMO. Perosnally I think their gonna release it around the same time as SW:TOR. I have a feeling they think that game will compete heavily.

As to the next expansion:

-new races!!

-TWO new heroic classes (hopefully they learned not to release just one, HELLO WORLD OF DEATHKNIGHT)

-PLEASE, PLEASE more content from 20-60!! Yes starter zones are good but how many times must we go into STV!!!??!!

-don't raise the lvl cap but add content horizontally, not vertically!!

-new professions!!

-and holy shit add frigin guildhalls and housing WTF already!?!

You guys wishing that they won't raise the level cap are dreaming.

The next class, if they add one, would be from the theme of the xpac, Archdruid for Emerald Dream, something like that.

There is only so much they can do with the current mechanics and engine of the game. A real graphical update would be great but I don't see that happening.

I'll be mostly interested in other blizzard products to be honest. Hope to see some more updates on Diablo3 and if they show anything on their mystery new mmo (I pray for it to be sci-fi or even cyberpunk themed).

Hey, believe it or not Blizzard knows what they are doing. They dont need "arm chair quarter backs" telling them how its done.