5.3: Escalation, has been on the PTR for a good long while now, and with Blizzard now posting a "getting ready for 5.3" announcement, I think we can expect the new patch to drop either this coming Tuesday or the next (though I'm leaning toward earlier.)
Like 5.1, 5.3 is a "small patch." We'll be getting a few new scenarios and of course the Battlefield: Barrens stuff. Even though I hope Blizzard will find a way to give the Alliance more interesting stuff than simply helping Vol'jin, I am nonetheless excited to take my Paladin and my Death Knight to Durotar to help the Horde become something better. (On the Paladin, it's more out of a sense of optimism for peace with Vol'jin's Horde, whereas on the Death Knight, it's a great excuse to slaughter Orcs.)
I don't actually know if there will be much in the way of daily quests, and there does not seem to be an actual reputation attached to Battlefield: Barrens, which makes me curious how it will sustain itself from here to 5.4. We do know that killing 90+ enemies will now have a chance to grant Lesser Charms, so one might be incentivized to take the fight to the Kor'kron regardless of rep and quests.
I'm also happy to hear that, as far as I know, the legendary stage added in 5.3 will be a one-time event. Collecting Sigils and Secrets of the Empire is a time-consuming process that is very luck-based. A Test of Valor was their way of making sure you didn't finish 5.1's stage very quickly, but there's now a pretty insane catch-up period for anyone who is a little behind (Jarsus, for example, is on his last week of a Test of Valor but already has mostly ToT gear. Guess I'll be running Retribution a lot?) Anyway, assuming that the Temple visits will truly be a one-day event, it will be a wonderful way for people to catch up. We can assume that 5.4 will not come out for a few months after 5.3.
Actually, perhaps the most exciting thing about 5.3 coming out is that we will probably start to be hearing about 5.4 about a week later. Blizzard has been keeping up the pace this expansion - as soon as the expansion hit, we started hearing about 5.1, and as soon as 5.1 was out, we started to hear about 5.2. Then, as soon as 5.2 came out, we started hearing about 5.3.
So here's a prediction: 5.4 is going to come out some time around Blizzcon. In the past, we've often had the Blizzcon that announces the next expansion also talk a great deal about the final patch. When Cataclysm was announced, we also got a big preview of Icecrown Citadel. When Mists was, we had not yet gotten the Dragon Soul.
However, given the increased pace of this expansion, I suspect that we will actually already be besieging Orgrimmar by the time we hear of expansion 5 (though keep an eye out for names Blizzard registers. We all thought Mists of Pandaria was going to be some kind of side project, but obviously it's turned out to be a fine expansion.)
Does that mean we'll get the expansion quicker than usual? I don't really know. In the past, expansions have been announced a little over a year before their release. The problem with that is that we tend to have final patches that span entire years - half the lifespan of the expansion. Now, I'm actually all right with the final patch of an expansion lasting a bit longer - people need time to catch up, and having that little grace period is a good thing - but sometimes it just goes on too long.
I think it's a very safe bet that the next WoW expansion will be announced at this year's Blizzcon. The question becomes when it will actually hit. I think there's a very good chance it will be some time in 2014. If they've really stepped up their game, we might see it as soon as the summer.
Each expansion has lasted roughly two years. Burning Crusade came out in January of '07. Wrath in November of '08, Cataclysm in December of '10, and Mists in September of '12. If we are truly going to see the rate of expansions pick up as Blizzard is always hoping to do, expansion 5 will have to come some time before September of '14.
It all really just depends on how much work Blizzard has already done on the expansion.
Knowing very little of the specifics of game design, I would nevertheless guess that at this point, they are probably pretty far into the design of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. They might not have the whole thing tested, and there could be bosses that may be cut or redesigned, but I suspect that they have a general sense of the flow of the instance and whatever else will come with the patch.
Given, as I understand, that there's really just one raid-design team, I doubt that they have begun work on designing the introductory raids for expansion 5, other than perhaps a few brainstorms.
But I also suspect that Blizzard has known for a long time what the expansion will entail. The big, new features are probably set by now - whether we're getting a new race or a new class (Demon Hunters, Demon Hunters, Demon Hunters please) - and who the big bad will be, where the new continent will be.
The quest and world design teams are probably still working on 5.4 content. Just as 5.2 brought the Isle of Thunder (which I'd argue is their best daily hub to date, though I really wish there was more stuff to do in Stormsea Landing, and that we didn't get sent to the Lightning Mines every day,) I would guess that we're going to see some area open up in 5.4. These teams are probably working on that.
But once 5.4 is in the bag (and to be fair, the "design" might be done, and passed on to the "development" side of things) I imagine that these people will be hard at work putting together the new continent (or planet?)
Expansions take a long time. Really, everything depends on how long it takes for 5.4 to come out. Earlier in this very article I predicted that we'd see 5.4 land some time around Blizzcon, but actually, that might be a little to conservative. Assuming 5.3 arrives next week or the one after that, we could see 5.4 dropping as soon as July or August (somehow attacking Orgrimmar in the middle of a blazing summer seems right.)
If that's the case, and Blizzard seriously wants to avoid a year-long patch cycle, we could be seeing expansion 5 closer to a year from now.
Still, Mists is far away from overstaying its welcome, and I'm in no rush to see the expansion end, but novelty is exciting, and I'm always curious to see what the future holds. (Hopefully Demon Hunters.)
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