>I wanted to let you know that we’re delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year—and while we’re still in the process of determining the right new date to launch, we felt it was important to let you know about this change in plans as soon as we could. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the team, as we’re as eager to get the expansion into your hands as you are to play it—but ultimately, we feel it’s the right decision for the game—and for our players.
>Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share. We’re excited by the Covenants at the heart of the expansion, and it’s been a thrill to see Torghast take shape into a fun new kind of WoW experience, thanks in no small part to your input.
>However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame. Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.
>Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.
>In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13 we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options. And once we get closer to Shadowlands’ release, you’ll be called upon to defend Azeroth against a resurgence of the Scourge during our pre-launch event.
>Thanks for your support and passion, and for your continued help and feedback as we head toward the finish line.
>We’ll see you in the Shadowlands soon,
>John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft
Alexander Wright
Honestly, it's good news that they're not rushing the shit out of this one into a launch state like the last 3. Warlords was broken as fuck on launch and then lolnocontent. Legion had hilarious balancing issues at launch, like warlocks not being invited to groups because without specific legendaries they were useless, and BFA is just in general a hot mess.
Will I still be able to make my elf a nig on the 13th?
Hudson Foster
Prepatch is going to break all relevant content anyway, may as well get it out so people have stuff to do and worry about finishing polishing classes as it goes on with more feedback.
It's also probably why they just sent out a bunch of beta invites
Evan Gray
Because artists creating NPC assets takes time away from rebalancing game systems, right? Hate Blizzard for all the stupid shit they do, but don't be a dumbass while doing it.
Easton Perez
I'm just glad it wasn't for some political bullshit.
Do people even still play WoW? I heard they got a boost with Classic but that it petered off after like a month, and even my friends dropped it after like 2-3 weeks.
Cameron Clark
Can't wait to farm scourge invasions for 4-8 weeks because we're unable to do our normal raids and dungeon farming for mounts do to the prepatch fucking up scaling
Matthew Perez
apparently the game is so dead that classic doubled their subscription numbers and classic doesn't even pull a million
Easton Howard
>2020 >wow I shiggy diggy.
Jayden Campbell
Still going to be shit. I have no faith in Blizzard's ability to make this expansion come together, even with delay.
Aiden Morales
Fuck blizzard i pay in pesos so I don't pay jack
Alexander Clark
>the prepatch is going to drop on October 13th >same day as FFXIV's 5.35 patch a total coincidence I am sure
Lmao garbage game garbage expansion garbage devs garbage company
blizzdrones deserve it
Aaron Garcia
Legacy raid bonus damage still applies with all the level changes. So you can still grind mounts like you were.
Justin Cooper
Nice, it needed to be delayed, the only people disagreeing are wageslaves who took days off
Carson Lopez
because it's only end game that's not finished, prepatch has been ready for months
Ayden Powell
you're pretty new if you haven't realized that blizz likes to launch their games and any expansions/big patches around the dates of competition
Wyatt Jones
This is what happens when you have diversity quotas and hire people based on whether or not they have a vagina or 'femenine penis' instead of on merit and qualifications.
Luis Howard
Why is everyone applauding failure? These fucking apes have yet again taken on too much to handle. They can't get one system right and yet they continue every expansion to make more and more complex piles of dogshit. They could release the expansion tomorrow probably if they weren't trying to balance every class and every spec for a rigid system again. It's embarrassing. No one would bat an eyelid if they just accepted they couldn't manage it and tried another way of making MMOs relevant in 2020. Yet they won't and I will die on this hill.. the covenant system will STILL be fucked when they eventually get round to releasing Shadowlands
Has nothing to do with it. They can't balance the game around covenants cos it's fucking impossible. Someones always gonna end up fucked like SP and Ele shammies in BFA and even Locks later in the xpac
