It’s been a big day for fans and players of World of Warcraft, with Blizzard announcing quite a few things that have caught the eyes of the player base. After an unfortunate delay, Blizzard announced today that the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion would release on November 23rd.
The developers didn’t stop there, either – they’ve also announced November 10th as the beginning of their Scourge Invasion prepatch event. Finally, they also announced the release of Castle Nathria, the first raid of the expansion.
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But that release is raising a bit of concern from players. Set to release on December 8th, players are concerned it might be a bit too close to the Holidays.
Even more past that, there’s the release of the Mythic difficulty of Castle Nathria, the hardest difficulty – and the one with the most rewards. On December 15th, players will be able to challenge the Mythic difficulty for Castle Nathria, beginning the race towards World and Server First.
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The main concern here is that players are worried it’s a bit unfair to the players that would be working towards World/Server First achievements, one of the biggest races of any given content drop. How are players meant to focus on the competitive nature of the game when the holidays are in full swing behind them?
Blizzard’s response to this was simple – it’s unfortunate, but it isn’t something that they intend to fix. While they try to make it not happen, they ultimately aren’t going to punish other players that don’t celebrate holidays.
“We do try to avoid these conflicts whenever possible, and the ideal answer would have been to release the game, well… right about now, but it just wasn’t ready,” game director Ion Hazzikostas tweeted today.
“Launching but delaying the raid further would ruin overall pacing; delaying the whole game to avoid the Mythic conflict wouldn’t be right for everyone who’s been patiently waiting,” he continues.
Hazzikostas speaks true – as unfair as it might be for those that celebrate the holidays, it’s significantly less fair to players that have no intention to celebrate. As unfortunate as it is, why would other players have to wait to go do content just so others can celebrate personal holidays?
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While Blizzard certainly didn’t want this, given their original release date, the delays pushed it towards this unfortunate situation. Hopefully, players are able to find a healthy balance between real-life commitments and keeping up with the in-game content.