Awaa

It offical, TBC will be released January, 2007.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....71337407&sid=1

 

SquattingCow

Not surprising. <4 weeks to test raid content?

Edit: Not unsurprising...double neg, what the hell.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Posted this Q and A thread as well. They're providing a content patch that includes the talent trees and honor system before the expansion is out. Essentially the patch they had intended to post for people who didn't have the expansion on launch day

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=4

Will be interesting to see how this affects current encounters

Check out my friend's bitchin' Lord of the Rings Art

 

Northerner

Honestly, given what happened with the original release date, this shocks the hell out of me. I would have bet heavily on a Xmas-or-else attitude.

I'm personally glad though but more because January is a very slack month for me than anything =)

 

Tempestra

Can't say I'm not disappointed, as raiding's always painful around the holidays (more so with the recent lull of end-game guilds) and I was looking forward mostly to the 5-10 man content.

Also can't say I'm surprised...

 

Warpony

It'll definetly make it worse imho.

We've allready seen (if nowhere else, on these boards) that TBC beta and the upcoming release is DESTROYING guilds all over... Attendence falling, people quitting til TBC and more.

This gives us another 2-3 months of this utter bullshit and another 2-3 months of guilds falling apart.

I'm actually sad they lifted the NDA... Then we wouldnt know what was coming and we could raid along alot better imho.

Well well, time to adapt AGAIN :/

 

Draele

I'm disapointed, but I will be looking forward to testing the new talents in the current content...It's a better point of reference to compare builds in familiar territory.

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

Northerner

I would say they made it worse by releasing so much information so early. I know, catch-22 and all but srsly... too damn many fairweather raiders have already been plotting for that release. Officially pushing it down the road (and by the way, is this not a first ever pre-release date for blizzard?) will make that dynamic a little wonky.

I'm pretty happy because my guild seems to be recession proof and this gives us enough time to enjoy some content we'd otherwise have had to skip for certain.

 

Farstrider

Sooo chuffed I finally downloaded the Beta, thought I was only going to get a few weeks to muck around with it, now I get nearly 3 months. Yay!

John O'Groats to Lands End 2009 for Leukaemia Research

 

Warpony

Excuse me for beeing a total moron... But is the only way to get into beta to get guild-invite or "win" a key from a fansite for the moment? (And no, we didnt sign up for guildinvite so thats not gonna happen).

I'm in EU btw...

Sorry if this is a tad off-topic, but the release date now just gave me a whole world of reasons to wanna get into beta.

 

Tempestra

My good friend just got a beta invite last Friday. He didn't win a key from a fansite, nor did our guild get a set of invites. We're pretty clueless as to how he got in, but at least I can live vicariously through him (and his shadowpriest... no mage on his account - pity).

 

Ayr

Pretty good move from their part. I'd rather have good finished content 2 months later than buggy and unbalanced stuff now. It also gives us more time in Naxx, a chance to perhaps even kill KT. Also, the realisation that TBC isn't "next week" and there is still 2-3 good months of play will hopefully cut down on the "taking a break until TBC hits" numbers.

 

Ragaman

I would rather they delay release and give us a fully tuned and tested expansion, than shit out something that was buggy and broken. I was expecting TBC to be released in December at any rate, so a few extra weeks of waiting is not too bad.

Edit: Ugh I must type faster next time. I feel like I've arrived at the dance wearing the same suit as Ayr. Great minds think alike I guess. :P

"You tell her she's a bitch!!"
"I can't, she's dead"
"Then you tell her she's a goddamn whore!"

 

Holyman

As people gotta wait that long they better start an open beta or something =\

 

◊ Bekah

Puts a whole new spin on the talents, knowing they're going to be released before you can actually start leveling. I'd never really considered a raiding talent build at 60 with the new talents. What would you sacrifice for a 41 point talent...

hrm...

 

Bubba

More bombing runs!

The guilds that are still working through Naxx should see this as nothing but a good thing, as noone likes to leave unconquered content behind. If you're already at the stage where a month or so is the difference between life and death for your guild, then the Expansion coming out isn't necessarily going to cure that.

 

Shakkha

this way guilds will be down to 25ish people at TBC release, that's perfect for TBC content! ;)

 

Crossbones

Wow. Being able to go 41 deep into a tree without the extra 10 pts from leveling is going to really gimp your secondary tree, but ought to be fun to try out.

I'm wondering if there will be something stopping us from amassing honor only to wait until the xpack comes out and buy as many lv 70 TBC PvP epics as possible.

 

Vetinari

Oh, shit. My holidays from Uni start in November, so now I have 2 months of playing bloody vanilla WoW, rather than a couple weeks, and blood elf fun. If only they would release blood elves early too :(

Clearly intellect is not your primary stat.

 

burninator

http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/38233956.htm
So subscribers are getting a few weeks of public beta-testing (minus outland zones) ;)

And I wonder if stacking HOTs and the changed +healing mechanics will be patched in before TBC, this would have quite some impact on current encounters.

 

enshula

The new honour system seems to have seasons to some extent. Basically you could save up enough points to buy 1 max point cost item, and possibly ~1.5. But you could not use that item until you levelled to 70 and could not use l60 versions if you saved honour immediately.

Saving up to the cap near the end could be sensible though, i knew a lot of people who did that in guild wars which has similar mechanics.

 

henaki

This is five kinds of brilliant:
We beta test 50% of Blizzard's content.
Buys Blizzard time until the expansion comes out.
If the changes current ruin raiding, the raiders might move on to Beta testing content, or just quit until Expansion.
Diffuses the stress on Blizzards servers, none of this "Everyone downloading 2 gigs on BC release date".
Allows Blizzard to conjure up more copies of TBC.

Gur - Level 64 Undead Warlock on Hellfire

 

Judia

This is pretty soul destroying for me personally.
I geuss its ok for Blizzard, they dont have to try and hold a guild together for another 12 weeks while more and more people either quit or take extended breaks until the expansion is released. And then as 1/2 core members start to flake away, or decide its time to go level an alt up for the expansion the rest of your core are face soldiering on with 1 less friend to chew the fat with or taking their own break. We face 12 weeks of above-average attrition, with a non-existant recruiting pool. Its pretty brutal.

I think this is a terrrible move for what my 2c is worth, and expect many servers will be a ghost town raid-wise between Xmas and the Xpac.

 

Groglox

The smartest move they could make in my opinion, is the opening of Blood Elf and Dranei starting zones.

This would allow players to start leveling up their characters now and keep people playing instead of letting subscriptions run out before the expansion hits. It would also insure that people can gear up their characters to make raiding at 70 worthwhile, and all those plate and mail drops not a waste.

edit:
Requires lvl 70 I would guess.

 

Crossbones

You're describing arena points with the seasons and point caps. Honor was supposed to stick around forever so you could take your time acquiring items. Not sure if there will be some modification to that since honor isn't launching with the expansion anymore.

Yeah, I think that would be fantastic if people could have their paladins/shamans ready at 60 when the expansion launches. The only problem is that the new races were specifically stated as things you could only create if you had the expansion and wouldn't have been in the patch had it been released together with the game.

I'm also wondering if jewelcrafting is one of those TBC specific things or if that would have been in the opening day patch for people who hadn't bought TBC too.