With the delay of WoW: Shadowlands, Blizzard has quite a problem. Because there is basically no “good date”.
World of Warcraft Shadowlands has been postponed indefinitely. Only one thing is clear: The expansion is supposed to be released sometime in 2020. But this presents Blizzard with some persistent problems, as a late release date could have significant consequences for the entire game. The blame lies with the Christmas season and the associated “Holiday Season,” which is typically used by Blizzard for the vacation of a large part of the staff.
November 11 – December 3: This date would be a minimal delay of two to five weeks and essentially the only dates that would not cause issues. However, it seems very unlikely that Blizzard would take so little time, as then a delay would probably not have been necessary or they would have announced the new release date immediately. Since a date is still pending, such an early release can be considered unlikely.
December 4 – 9: What looks fundamentally like a good date at the beginning of December could lead to problems. While there is enough time to fix initial bugs and errors, another issue arises: Raids. Around the “World First” of a new raid, there is always a great hype and many players want to be among the first to master these new challenges.
However, asking players to extend this “World First” race over the Christmas holidays has always been rejected by Blizzard. The developers never wanted to entice players to choose between family during the holidays or progressing in the raid. Therefore, the release of raid content almost never falls on a time shortly before or during Christmas.
However, if Blizzard postpones the opening of the raids, it could displease a large part of the player base that wants to “grind” during the holidays and New Year. Because then Shadowlands would simply have too little endgame content to keep them engaged for long enough.
December 10 – 17: A release so close to Christmas would mean that the opening of the raid “Castle Nathria” could easily be postponed into 2020, but would come with other problems. Because in that case, one to two weeks after release, the holiday season would begin. Typically, the first weeks after the launch of an expansion are also those in which Blizzard has to release a significant number of bug fixes and small mini-patches. With millions of players in the Shadowlands, bugs and exploits that remained hidden in the beta will surely be discovered.
January 2021: If Blizzard concludes that all previous dates are not optimal, and postpones the release again to 2021, it would bring further issues. On the one hand, the developers would have to justify another delay. Difficult, as they had already stated that it would be “later in 2020.” On the other hand, it would mean that the Pre-Patch 9.0 would be active for a whole 2 1/2 or even 3 months without any significant content.
Is there a solution? Blizzard is facing quite a big problem here, as every possible release date comes with some consequences. At first glance, it seems there is no really elegant solution that satisfies both players and developers.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that a delay was certainly the right decision. Because a good expansion that comes a little late is definitely better than an unfinished expansion that appears too early. However, how Blizzard intends to solve the problem with the new release date remains to be seen.
What release date would you approve? When would you like to start playing?
