World of Warcraft players are fuming after Blizzard announced that it would be unveiling the next WoW expansion at Gamescom on August 6th, less than 9 months after the last expansion Warlords of Draenor was released.
While Blizzard had previously announced that they were going to increase their expansion cycles, considering that many in the WoW community felt that Warlords of Draenor was lacking in content the news that the developer is already working on bringing out a new expansion has left many disappointed and angry.
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Mists of Pandaria, the expansion pack that was released before Warlords of Draenor, was released back in 2012, with all expansions in WoW‘s history with the exception of Burning Crusade having stayed on the market for 2 years before a new expansion has been released. Many feel that Warlords of Draenor saw Blizzard putting in a considerable lack of effort, with a commenter on the Battle.net announcement writing: “Get those wallets out, guys! It’s time to shell out $70 for another expansion that will only have 5 dungeons, 2 raids, and 1 content patch!”
It’s likely that Blizzard want to release the new expansion before the new Warcraft movie, which is set for release in June 2016, but that won’t stop many WoW players from feeling as though Blizzard has taken their money for Warlords of Draenor whilst offering them little in return. However, there are also those who loved Warlords of Draenor who will no doubt be pleased that Blizzard are looking to a one-year cycle for future expansions, even if the developer maintaining a consistent level of quality whilst adopting this business method seems unfeasible. Hopefully the next expansion will prove a worthwhile addition to the MMO.
The expansion announcement is set to be livestreamed at 9am PDT, with Blizzard also livestreaming a special World of Warcraft developer chat at 8am PDT on August 9th.
