Q4 07' TBC expansion here we come

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I am happy they are pushing tbc back. I am also glad to see that the company values quality over marketing. That being said since this is the FIRST offical date release, we can now expect anywhere from 6 months to a year of delays this being a bliz game after all :D. So Q4 HERE WE COME!


Even if it was delayed this long, ill be addicted till then and raiding happily. GJ blizz on keeping me and your hordes of players addicted. The kids will get over the delays. Just keep putting out quality content.

*Scratches her head and rereads the following line- "Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007."*

I'm so confused! Where do you get Q4 2007? This is the closest we've been to giving any sort of date. Before we were saying we were shooting for Q4 2006. Now we are saying January 2007. The "Delays" before weren't the delays most people think. Any dates that were seen before were posted by retailers and not us other than the Q4 2006 target. We've made a change to that target for the benefit of the expansion and by extension the game and the players. We are committed to putting out a quality end result and are very excited about what we are working on but 6 months to a year more is a bit extreme to say.

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Prior experience candle. Prior experience.

Different situation in this case. ;) Shuck prior experience and enjoy the ride. We're getting there and we'll be there. Once we are a bit closer in we'll be able to give a solid date to help quell that deep dark pit of doom that people have in their stomachs.

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/pats Candle gently on the head

Poor Neth. This is a Blizzard game we're talking about. Blizzard has a ... ahem ... history with delays. Now, I'm not complaining. By delaying it, they always put that final polish on the game that moves it from "a good game" to "a phenomenal game". I wish all companies did that. But you have to understand that many of us, especially long-time Blizzard fan-boys like myself, are skeptical of Blizzard release dates.

I've been playing Blizzard games since Orcs and Humans and everything else in between. ;) I went to school years ago (no I won't say how many) with the hope of working for Blizzard some day. I am aware of the history. I am also aware of our current situation. I realize people want to keep some small bit of skepticism so they aren't disappointed. We certainly don't want to disappoint people either. Thus why we don't commit to dates until we have something players can count on.

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Your assment is incorrect.
A majority of the design/program staff that delivered the initial release of world of warcraft has moved on to other project (guildwars etc) and have been replaced.

The original team designed the world and the tools to add to it.
Now blizzard can outsource building of content for the world to a 3rd parties while maintaining an in house graphics team to produce the modeling.

The reasons behind the delay of new content is because it takes time to rebuild a team and train them to use the tools. Also explains how content patches have improved during the years. (More and better changes)

Your assessment is incorrect. The people that are here working on the game have been here all along. We have continued to add people to that team. Anything else is a fallacy that is being perpetuated.

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No one believed that article, at least not seriously. But then late last night, other gaming websites started to pick up the story, and suddenly we have Eyonix posting the press release in the middle of the night here on the forums.

Here's the thing. We had already planned on a set time and date to release the information. That time happened to be coordinated world wide. That meant that Eyonix was up very late to post on our end to assure that no one had the information up any sooner than anyone else.

There is a specific series of events that must happen for major announcements such as these. I can't go into that series of events for you but you can trust that everything occurred as it needed to occur. As I'm sure you've experienced in the past, sometimes someone gets the jump and starts talking about things before they should be. We're not going to change how we do things because of that however. We give out information as soon as it's absolutely the best time for as many parties as possible.

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lol are you kidding?

How long have you worked for blizzard or how long have you followed blizzard?

People say this because they have been playing blizzard games since warcraft the original.

And we have NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER seen blizzard hit a target date.

congratulations you have seen your first blizzard delay but don't think we haven't :)

I actually expected the burning crusade to come out next july, and i laugh that little candle doesn't understand us :)

Lets put it this way candle, we are very sure the expansion is comming out "soon"

This isn't my first delay. ;) As I said, I've followed the games ever since Orcs and Humans. I'm pretty ok with delays. It's something that as a gamer of many years I've come to know and understand as a reality of being a gamer. I'd rather a delay and a good product than a product released too soon for its own good. If anything, I'd think those of you that have been a part of the gaming world would be not only used to possible delays but would be pretty understanding of it. Gamer angst is pretty passe' these days. I've learned to let mine go. I'd love to see more people do the same and start enjoying the hobby they've chosen as it is.

Well in this case, pretty major is the team deciding that there is still more they want to do, work on, polish and make better. This isn't about game-breaking issues at all as some seem to want to imply from my prior statement. It's about making a conscientious choice to do what is best for the game and reach goals we want to reach. That means we want to use a little more time to do what we feel needs to be done to launch the expansion the way we feel is best. Things change as more elements are added as does the very landscape of what needs to be accomplished. We've got the roadmap, don't worry.

I realize people are venting their frustrations and I am not feeling the least bit on the defensive here. I'm just doing what I can to answer people's questions where I can. We will be letting people know a solid date of release in just a little while longer. Right now we're arguing about which side of the bread to butter and who knows more about the history of the bread.

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O ***! quadruple post

Forums were hiccuping before. Extraneous posts have been excised. ;)