Those hoping that that World of Warcraft would expand once more this Fall are in for some deflating news: Azeroth won't be experiencing the great Cataclysm until sometime in 2010.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime confirms the story over at WoW.com.

I would have been surprised if it was coming out before 2010.

Were there people thinking it would come out in 2009?

Come on, its already usual for Blizzard to take forever to release its expansions

Nothing anyone said in any panel or any interview would have given anyone the idea that Cataclysm would ship in 2009.  We haven't even seen Icecrown Citadel yet and aren't likely to for many more months.  Anyone who actually thought Cataclysm would come out in 2009 is an utter and complete idiot.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone since you havent even seen the rest of the LK content yet. Those 5 new levels better be worth it is all I know. More info should be incoming before end of year. I see a late fall release though. TOR vs WOW and who has more nerds following...the upcoming months should be priceless entertainment here on these boards anyways.

I would be surprised if it came out in early 2010. My guess is Novemberish, just like WotLK.

I would say late 2010 at first.  Alot of the "ideas" talked about from devs at Blizzcon were not fully developed and alot of things can come up.   Personally I think other MMOs coming out in the next year or so have a great chance of getting a good following since alot of ppl know that next 8-14 months will be pretty much the same in WOW.  Good time to find something fresh tbh.

Originally posted by wathombe

Nothing anyone said in any panel or any interview would have given anyone the idea that Cataclysm would ship in 2009.  We haven't even seen Icecrown Citadel yet and aren't likely to for many more months.  Anyone who actually thought Cataclysm would come out in 2009 is an utter and complete idiot.

 

 

It's a bit strong to call players who where hoping for a gluttony of new things to do idiots, perhaps over-zealous and impatient but not idiots.

Blizzard definately takes their time over their expansions and releasing the info at Blizzcon for the masses to salivate over was probably the tipping point for many long temr WoW subscribers who are desperate for something meaty to get stuck into, rather than piecemeal updates.

However Blizzard does things on their own terms and makes sure the experience is worth waiting for, my own son has been overly excited since hearing the confirmed news of the expansion, however fortunately he also wasn't expecting it too release this year as he knows much better than that =).

As an Ex-Wow player I'm happy they have retured to the old world content, more MMO's should follow their lead rather than creating new lands for ppl to get further and further away from the old stuff and creating a desolate place to adventure in.

Blizzard takes forever to launch Xpaks? Hardly. Maybe if you're 10 years old once every 2 years is 'forever'. :D

I think it's reasonable to expect a release for the holiday season of 2010, judging from the last 2 Xpaks - assuming there are no major problems.

Considering the effort it probably is taking to re-work Kalimdor and the Eastern kingdoms, I wonder if the conjecture made a while back that WoW was now being run by the 'B' team was a bit off. Maybe the 'A' team was busy working on 'Cataclysm', heh.

Anyway, we have plenty of interesting stuff to play with until then. 3.2 is just recently released and we still have more to come.

;)

It will be released to compete with TOR obviously.

Originally posted by ThalosVipav

I would be surprised if it came out in early 2010. My guess is Novemberish, just like WotLK.

This has been their typical pattern, announce expansion at Blizzcon and release it towards the end of the following year.

Not sure why anyone expected anything different.

Originally posted by okor

I would have been surprised if it was coming out before 2010.

I agree.  There's absolutely no need for it since WotLK released in November.

Blizzard owns the MMO market now and has plenty of room to take their time.  They're known for waiting to release things until they are sharp.

 mm say september 2010!that give them a year to do all they said in the blizzcon,i would be surprised if it was ready in 2010 if it was a regular expension maybe 

but the scale their goal is make that very difficult to start or finish in 2010 

and if they were to release in 2010 they would probably delay it to august or september just in time for when people play video game 

i might be wrong but me i believe it will be august 2011

It will be released around the time of TOR and FFXIV

I can honestly say that this is the first time I am finally sad to see a wow expansion. The visuals are great and I agree with the previous poster regarding old world content revisted being very cool.

Unfortunately with this expansion comes more stat consolidation, more streamlined talents aka no "uniqueness" as a player, hunter pets are all gonna be the same, etc etc

As a veteran MMO player this is a game catering to the casual player and more importantly new subscribers. Heck if I ran Blizzard I would do the same thing so I can't be mad. It reminds me of your favorite band "selling out". The music is still decent but you can never look at them with the same awe and admiration.

Goodbye WOW it was a great run we had some great times....

HELLO SITH WARRIOR RAWR!!!!!!

The fact that Blizzard takes their time to release games is one thing that I admire.

They lost their patience with WOTLK and they released an unfinished product lacking of original raids and that, together with other things, turned off many WoW players.

On the other hand this way they'll have to directly compete with Bioware's Old Republic and Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XIV. Daring move I have to see. We will see what the future holds.. things are getting interesting :p

Originally posted by drbaltazar

 mm say september 2010!that give them a year to do all they said in the blizzcon,i would be surprised if it was ready in 2010 if it was a regular expension maybe 

but the scale their goal is make that very difficult to start or finish in 2010 

and if they were to release in 2010 they would probably delay it to august or september just in time for when people play video game 

i might be wrong but me i believe it will be august 2011

2011? Isn't that a little too far off? They probably have been working on this since Wotlk shipped, and when 3.3 reaches live servers they can focus almost all of the dev time on the expansion.

I assumed it would ship in fall of 2010.

Well that was kinda obvious. Anyone who knows Blizz knows they tend to release stuff a good year or more after it's announced.

Being that I still play WoW, I am a bit disappointed by the "dumbing down" of WoW even further. I couldn't agree more with Timmay805... May the Force be with us all

Originally posted by MikeB

Those hoping that that World of Warcraft would expand once more this Fall are in for some deflating news: Azeroth won't be experiencing the great Cataclysm until sometime in 2010.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime confirms the story over at WoW.com.

And this is a surprise that it isn't coming out this year?...

They will probably release it whenever SWTOR or FFXIV go live so they keep their players tied to WoW.

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I can honestly say that this is the first time I am finally sad to see a wow expansion. The visuals are great and I agree with the previous poster regarding old world content revisted being very cool.

 

Unfortunately with this expansion comes more stat consolidation, more streamlined talents aka no "uniqueness" as a player, hunter pets are all gonna be the same, etc etc

As a veteran MMO player this is a game catering to the casual player and more importantly new subscribers. Heck if I ran Blizzard I would do the same thing so I can't be mad. It reminds me of your favorite band "selling out". The music is still decent but you can never look at them with the same awe and admiration.

Goodbye WOW it was a great run we had some great times....

 

HELLO SITH WARRIOR RAWR!!!!!!

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Being that I still play WoW, I am a bit disappointed by the "dumbing down" of WoW even further. I couldn't agree more with Timmay805... May the Force be with us all

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Shhh, dont say heretic things like that, Zorndorf will come talking about himself in third person, accusing you that you hate WoW, call you TOR fanboys, state that TOR will fail like AoC, WAR, DF blah blah, insist that WoW is the gratest game ever, will post the number 60% and wow2 and send you to the outer hell.

Here we go...

Originally posted by wathombe

Nothing anyone said in any panel or any interview would have given anyone the idea that Cataclysm would ship in 2009.  We haven't even seen Icecrown Citadel yet and aren't likely to for many more months.  Anyone who actually thought Cataclysm would come out in 2009 is an utter and complete idiot.

 

 

And any game company that thinks I'm going to run another alt through Outland and Northrend again are complete idiots.

starcraft 2 will be out before Cataclysm.. or atleast I hope, realy need an RTS fix.

Originally posted by protoroc

It will be released to compete with TOR obviously.

If TOR is released earlier than 2011 I'd be upset, that game looks like it is still 2 years off.

2010? I don't believe it.

They're basically making a brand new freaking MMO with this thing. It will be pushed back to 2011 and I wouldn't mind one bit considering the level of polish blizzard has given us with previous expansions and major patches.