5.4

I'm just going to throw this bad boy in here: http://wowpedia.org/Soon

Won't be long now :-)

I'm just going to throw this bad boy in here: http://wowpedia.org/Soon

Won't be long now :-)

I'm not trying to fish for a date here or anything, but how come it's always announced just 2 weeks before it actually launches? I'm sure you have a preliminary date set 2 months ahead, but shouldn't you be ~99% sure when it's only a month left? Is it really that much that can go wrong so you guys don't feel comfortable setting a date earlier than you're currently doing?

We always set a tentative patch date a long time in advance, often it is even more than 2 months ahead. However, since many things are being worked on simultaneously when developing a patch instead of just one thing at a time, there is a higher chance of one or more things not being ready in time for one reason or another, and this can push the launch date.

It is not that uncommon that we are ~99% sure that everything will be ready for the deadline and make it into the patch on time, but if we made an announcement while "only" being ~99% sure and then that ~1% chance of delay actually happens, then we would cause a "crapstorm" of rage and disappointment... especially if we are talking about a patch that brings highly anticipated features with it.

Because of this we prefer not to make any announcements until we are 100% sure, but once we are 100% sure, the development phase ends and the launch preparation phase begins. As you can maybe imagine, the launch preparation phase is much shorter than the development phase, and this should hopefully explain why a patch date announcement happens so relatively shortly before a patch is launched.

tell us a expected date ( give or take 20 days between them )

That would be seen as an actual patch date announcement to many people if I did that, no matter how many disclaimers I added. So I will just stick with my original post for now.