Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Benefits to Delaying the Burning Crusade

Blizzard just recently announced the delay of the Burning Crusade expansion to a definite January release date. The decision wasn't unexpected since rumors and beta testers have been commenting on the unfinished look of the game. The delay also fits in well with Blizzard's devotion to releasing quality games and the Duke Nukem Forever development cycle. The added time to the BC development makes World of Warcraft one of the few MMORPGs to go over two years without an expansion. Numerous content has been patched in but as some have commented most of it was partially created during the initial development of the game.

The expansion is one hundred percent brand new content with several features and changes that will have a major impact on the World of Warcraft. Blizzard remains confident that perfecting these changes is worth the delay and that gamers will be kept interested in World of Warcraft. And why shouldn't they? Most of the competition has moved their new releases out of the Q4 2006 time frame in hopes of avoiding the expansion to Blizzard's blockbuster. The truth is that Blizzard loses almost no buzz by delaying the release by two months and actually gains a couple of things.

Benefits of a January Release Date:
-Avoid the buzz and newness of the Wii and PS3 systems.

-Avoid the holiday season which actually might impact MMORPG sales differently then standard video games.

-Guarantee that subscribers will still be experiencing new content when new MMORPGs come out later this year.

-Give the beta testers extended time to catch all the bugs and errors in the expansion.

-Allows them time to incrementally work on and patch in the new features of the expansion. I fully expect the LFG system, the upgraded meeting stones and parts of the new PvP system to be patched in before the expansion hits.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't have mind the delay if it also meant a delay in the changes to the honor system. A few more months to grind honor and get a rank title worth keeping would have been nice.

As it stand, I believe, they'll institute those changes in a patch before the release of the Expansion.

Not only are they taking our cake away from us, they're going to eat it right then and there.

It's all good though. (Common Alliance saying in those 24 minute AV wins.)

Relmstein said...

The Alliance may hold the Valley but the horde definitely control the Baisin.

I think you have until December before the current PvP system is restructured. I am planning on trying to get at least rank 9 in the time frame.