by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

The whopper at the end of the 2015 preview post was the prediction that Blackrock Foundry would be released in February. Assuming that the subsequent content patch can’t come out until all of the launch content has been unlocked, that means we’ve got a time frame for when Patch 6.1 will come out.

Taking a cue from how Mists of Pandaria handled its first content patch, we might be able to predict something about how this will play out. Let’s review how that cycle happened:

• Mists launched on September 25, 2012. The first raid, Mogu’shan Vaults, opened a week later on October 2nd, with the staggered LFR and Heroic versions opening over the two weeks following.
• Patch 5.1 launched on the PTR on October 11th.
• Heart of Fear, the second raid, became available on October 30th, and also staggered the LFR and Heroic releases over the next two weeks.
• Terrace of Endless Spring, the final launch raid, became available on November 13th in Normal mode, and on November 20th in LFR and Heroic difficulties.
• Patch 5.1: Landfall launched on the following Tuesday, November 27th.
• The next raid, Throne of Thunder, was released on March 3rd.

What we can tell from this process is that a) the PTR for the subsequent patch doesn’t start until after the launch raid content starts to unlock, and b) the patch won’t be released live until after ALL of the launch raid content has been available for at least a week in all difficulties.

So if we take all of that and try to predict how the Warlords cycle goes from here, it might look like this. Keep in mind that this is SPECULATION and may not be accurate in any way.

• Warlords launches on November 13th, 2014.
• Highmaul opens up in Normal and Heroic difficulties on December 2nd. Mythic and the first wing of LFR open up the following week, the second wing (Arcane Sanctum) opens up the week after that and the final wing (Imperator’s Rise) opens up the Tuesday after the holiday,  January 6th.
• Patch 6.1 launches on the PTR January 13th.
• Blackrock Foundry opens up in Normal and Heroic difficulties on February 3rd. Mythic and LFR Wing 1 opens up the following week, and the remaining LFR wings release over the successive three weeks, culminating in all wings being available by March 3rd.
• Patch 6.1 launches March 10th.

In terms of strict week counts, the amount of time between WoD‘s launch 6.1 is longer than the similar period for Patch 5.1. Keep in mind, however, that the winter holiday is essentially two weeks where no work can be done since Blizzard’s developers won’t be in the office, which is (arguably) why the Imperator’s Rise wing for LFR has been delayed for two weeks.

Having 6.1 percolate for longer internally feeds into one of the big lessons we know the devs learned following Mists of Pandaria: patch content came out too quickly, which left a long content drought at the end when everything previously had run at a great clip. If Warlords is primed to run for a similar timeframe to Mists, they’re going to space out the content patches more deliberately in order to give players time to really consume it… and to buy themselves time to ensure that they don’t get stuck with a year-long raid tier again.

So that’s the prediction: the bulk of what we saw in that 2015 preview is unlikely to show up before March at the earliest. All told that’s still in 2015, but for anyone who was expecting these changes to go live tomorrow? Prepare to be disappointed.