World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas chimed in on raid launch timing on Twitter earlier explaining how the team tries to avoid timing conflicts.
In case you missed it, Shadowlands is set to release on November 23 this year after it was announced it was delayed out of its original October 27 release date. In the new date’s announcement, Blizzard wrote,
“In addition, we’ve set a December 8 date for the opening of our first raid, Castle Nathria – which takes players into the heart of Sire Denathrius’ lair in Revendreth – along with the start of Shadowlands Season 1.”
To that end, people chimed in on Twitter speaking about the delay saying,
“I think delaying raids til jan would be just as bad. would get even more hate “OMG, we hit 60 then have to wait 2 months to do content wtf blizzard” it’s a no win situation. and if they delayed ONLY mythic, then farming heroic for several weeks before mythic, will ruin mythic”
Ion saw this and confirmed the sentiment within the team during development and release planning,
“Honestly, this pretty much nails it. We do "try to" avoid these conflicts whenever possible, and the ideal answer would have been to release the game, well... right about now, but it just wasn't ready.”
He continued that launching but delaying the raid even more would ruin the package as a whole. Furthermore, delaying the game to avoid that conflict with Mythic would simply inconvenience everyone who has been waiting for Shadowlands.
And in case you missed it, check out the new story trailer below:
