Going by BC/Lich,2011 cata?

Post by 131092

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Post by GenXCub

Blizzard has stated that 3.3 is the last content patch though. BC just happened to have a 2.4. They originally wanted to have 1 per year, so I don't see any reason why they can't speed it up.

I don't know if you can call 1 release a trend. (1 because you can't gauge the BC release, as it came out 2.5 years after GA release, and then 22 months later was LK, so if you even want to call it a trend, it's that they are coming out faster).

Post by Drefanator

But yet, people are going through raids faster, leveling faster, pvping more etc. There are more people, Blizz has to make patches and expansions come out faster. Because we demand it as players. There will probably be 1 or 2 minor patches and we should expect Cataclysm to be out my mid-late spring.

Post by 375923

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Post by Adamsm

It all depends on how fast Icecrown Citadel falls, 2.4 was released when the major raiding guilds just steamrolled Black Temple. If that happens with Citadel(and from what we've been hearing about it, I doubt that), then there will probably be another content patch, and then one more patch for the pre-release.

Post by 449945

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Post by 46491

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Post by GenXCub

Patch 2.0.3 went live 13 months after BC was announced.

Patch 3.0.2 went live 14 months after WotLK was announced.

I'd put Cataclysm as going live in September of 2010.

The problem with that estimate is the amount of content. 2.4 was released in July 08, giving just under 4 months until LK's release. If 3.3 is released before Christmas (which isn't a bad estimate), that would leave 10 months of time in 3.3 before Cat (unless you think Blizzard is lying about 3.3 being the last content update).

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Post by HiVolt

that would leave 10 months of time in 3.3 before Cat (unless you think Blizzard is lying about 3.3 being the last content update).

This would allow for more players to experience the end-game of Wrath. Plus, as Adams said, we don't know how easy it will be for players to actually clear out ICC. For all we know, it could be four months until a guild even gets to Arthas, let alone down him.

Post by Adamsm

Aye, how long was it till the first guild took down Yogg-Saron? Or the new Anub?

Post by admielke

If you look at the time between announcement and release of BC and WotLK (roughly a year and half or more) we could be looking at a 2011 Q1 release for Cataclysm.

This means that 3.3 cant be all that's left.

Could you wait till 2011 if Cataclysm follows the expansion release trend?

November 2010. This is my guess and it is the guess of most people. I figured around August 2010 from Season 8 will end then. Season 7 ends in February.

Post by 484277

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Post by Monday

I don't think 2011 because it seems too long. Icecrown Citadel will last a fair amount of time, but I don't think it will last a year. I think May 2010. I don't know if Blizzard would lie about 3.3 being last patch or I think some people would be upset or angry.

if its released about christmas time, thats only five months. Five months is too short for the final patch. I'll put it in august, September, or at the latest, October of 2010.

Post by Drefanator

Aye, how long was it till the first guild took down Yogg-Saron? Or the new Anub?

Yogg25 on hardmode was beaten 3 months after release 3.1 (If the date is of release, and not of the PTR). ToGC25 with 50 attempts left was beaten about a month after 3.2 released. Both by the same guild, now assuming that not every guild is as pro as this, there was about 2 months between the two raids being released with some guilds still on Uld. So if ICC will probably take 4months or so before it's beaten on hardmode or whatever. That still means it'll become stale by Aprilish, give 2 months or so. We should expect cataclysm out by June-ish. Unless ICC was merely a setback and there is another raid in which will be created to fight Arthas.

Post by Ayline

My 2cent, they are probably very close if not already doing F&F Alpha for Cataclysm. We saw how much is already finished, they just need to do little tweaks and work out bugs. With this in mind, I think 4-6 months of Alpha and Beta before release.

Also, 3.3 will, more likely than not, probably be coming out within 2-3 weeks. This gives around 3-5 months of play with ICC. Seeing how it is on PTR right now, I think that'll be the right amount of time for average guilds to be doing Hard mode of some of the fights.

This puts my estimated release date in March-May. A long while ago, which makes it more likely not as much followed, slated that Blizzard wanted to release an expansion every 1.5 year. WotLK has been out a year now, It came out on Nov 13, 2008. BC came out Jan 16, 2007. That puts a little less than 2 years between releases. By that standard of 1.5-2yr we're looking at May-September window.

However, BC and WotLK both introduced whole new continents. Cataclysm is reworking existing data and adding 5-6(I don't remember exactly) new zones. That makes me think it'll be on the shorter end of the scale. They have overall less work to do. Many of the textures they used in other places can be worked in to new places, instead of having to start from scratch with BC and much of WotLK.

Also, we don't know how long they were working on Cata before announcement. They may have been working on it since WotLK was announced, for all we know.

Post by sutasafaia

Blizzard stated that the game would be released before their next Blizzcon. Also, at their quarterly financial info conference call, they stated that the xpac would be out in 2010, along with Starcraft 2. Sadly, they also said Diablo 3 wasn't, but that's neither here nor there since this is a WoW site.

The info and various links for sources can be found here: http://www.diii.net/

The source for the blizzcon thing though your going to have to find. It was posted a while ago and I haven't seen it since, but people better at search-fu than me can find it I'm sure.

Post by 484328

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Post by Erlinn

Blizzard has said, many times, that patch 2.4 was unfortunate. They had to add it because they were not done with WotLK and BT had been released for too long. They have said, many times, that patch 3.3 will be the last patch in Wrath, period. It's Wrath of the Lich King, so they want the expansion to end with the Lich King.

I do think, however, that 3.3 will be out for a while. They added (adding), a lot of stuff to play around with in this patch so my guess, if we're taking guesses, is that Catacylsm will be released some time next summer.

You need to remember that you cannot use the BC -> Wrath release as the basis of your theories for Cataclysm. They did the Wrath accouncement and release very poorly. They announced Wrath far too early and they didn't have much left planned for BC. With Cataclysm, on the other hand, they announced it very close to what they've promised is the "end" of WotLK, and from what we've seen, Cataclysm has a LOT of work on it already done; they had a playable demo at Blizzcon available less than an hour after they announced it. Blizzard is learning from thier mistakes. Cataclysm is closer than you think.

Post by Porcell

I've stated my opinion elsewhere, but I feel that Blizzard has gotten very comfortable in their design cycle. Every major content patch since TBC has been in the range of 4 to 6 months. TBC to BT (5 months), BT to ZA (5 months), ZA to Sunwell (6 months), Sunwell to WotLK (6 months), WotLK to Ulduar (6 months), Ulduar to ToC (4 months).

I would assume they will stick to a similar development cycle. Further, I would expect the gap from ToC to 3.3 to be on the shorter side rather than longer; my rational being that WotLK to Ulduar was 6 months because there was a lot of new content, everyone had to level up, and there was a healthy amount of T7 raid content. It's surprising to think Ulduar was only out for 4 months before ToC was put in, since Ulduar is such a large raid. ToC, being such a small raid, I would expect it to be only another 4 months until the next patch.

Therefore, I would expect 3.3 to be either early December (4 months) or early January (5 months), leaning more toward early December. From there, I'd expect another 5 or 6 months until Cataclysm, since it was 6 months between Sunwell's release and WotLK. That would put my estimate of Cataclysm's release at May or June of 2010.

Going by BC/Lich,2011 cata?

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