1. I stick to my summer '08 predictions, as I doubt WLK will take longer to develop than TBC did.

Posted at 9:51PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Medros

2. Spring/Summer '08 for beta with a planned release for holidays '08 (like for TBC - around Thanksgiving/Christmas time), but delayed until early January '09

it's possible that downloader is an internal piece of software for their test environment, but it's useless to anyone outside of Blizzard's network.

Posted at 9:57PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Arras

3. I agree with Medros. I think they learned a lot from the release of BC and that includes speeding up the process of getting good content out. It's been shown that /played time is down and this could've been the case longer than we've known. Getting people back into the game is probably one of their primary concerns so a sooner rather than later release is probably the more realistic choice.

Posted at 10:02PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Barod

4. I like what amazon.co.uk says.


http://home.insightbb.com/~tristan.smith/wotlk.jpg

Posted at 10:27PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Tristan

5. "Early 08" is MMO speak for "Sometime mid 2010".

Posted at 10:32PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Wildhammer

6. Anyone can code this, come on now...

Posted at 10:33PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Thane W

7. So if you go to ejeet or whoever they are and look at some of the other screen shots they have you can see this is a total fake.
the supposed client download has none of the Blizzard trademarks and is rife with spelling and grammar errors. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole

Posted at 10:34PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Arras

8. @1

I would not start planning for 2008 Summer, I was at Blizzcon and only "a part" of a region was a available for players to mess around in. I say earliest realease date if Blizzard threw caution to the wind would be November/December 2008, and at a more reason date some time around January-March 2009 as from what I saw with the new graphics they are adding such as the new flame effect this alteration could have unseen problems until beta goes live, just as what happened with sound engine. Its a pain but if it means the game kepts up todate with new graphics and stays on the cutting edge, its a price developers and players will have to endure.

Posted at 10:39PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Raogrimm

9. @6 yup, 10 minutes in visual basic

Posted at 10:54PM on Oct 11th 2007 by vlad

10. The last expansion took way too long because blizzard was working to work on the infrastructure when the game became more successful that what they thought it would.

I think people jumped all over the expansion like crack and burned through it so quick because there was no non raid content updates since launch.


A lot of people I know will probably return for the expansion but most are on hiatus until then.

Posted at 11:12PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Liel

11. It's really hard to tell, because a lot of this stuff can be excused by it being an alpha.

Posted at 11:33PM on Oct 11th 2007 by Merus

12. "sketchy guild site host named Ejeet Networks " I hope that when you say Sketchy you really mean your jeolous. because bashing another company is really poor business ethics. This is not the way to report anything. you want to report on a possible leaked alpha for Wrath of the lich king then do so , but don't be bashing anyone else in the process. its like if i made a submition to some online new company and said wowinsider was hired by slave labour in china.

whoever wrote this disgusts me and if i had my way i would have him fired . but since i don't i will settle for this comment post.


Snide remarks such as "watch out for the automatic music player on their site, too" are also very un called for .

And better yet for the most unprofessional award.
"Personally, I call shenanigans-- their first screenshot says version .1, and then the Properties screen they have says version 2.0.3.70, so which is it? They also claim that since the Properties screen says "{c} 2004-2008 Blizzard Entertainment," that's proof that we'll see Wrath in 2008, but that's hardly true as well."

This is True unprofessionalism at its best.

as far as i am concerned wowinsider is a farse and shouldn't report anything more than how a sewage truck overturned on a freeway.

WoWinsider you really need to learn some ethic.

Posted at 12:42AM on Oct 12th 2007 by Whomp

13. Blimey Whomp what the hell do you come here for then...

As for your "Snide remarks such as "watch out for the automatic music player on their site, too" are also very un called for."

I couldn't disagree more strongly, a large number of ppl that visit this site, do so from work where load and frankly obnoxious music is usually undesirable.

Posted at 12:58AM on Oct 12th 2007 by Pook

14. @Whomp

Guess what buddy, this is a blog not a newspaper. That usually means more informal and full of personal opinions and views. If I were you I would get my act together grammatically before you go after someone else's writing. He needs to "learn some ethic"???? Get off this site moron...

Posted at 1:19AM on Oct 12th 2007 by C.A.

15. You're really underestimating what this expansion is going to need to test if you think 2009...

This game has NO new races, a SINGLE new class (arguably the most difficult thing) and only a single continent's worth of new zones. The PVP isn't instanced, so it doesn't even need a real test. They patch in the raids once the game is released (as usual) so they don't even need to finish those. The bulk of the expansion and testing is simply Death Knights. You're only testing 10 levels, 25ish in the case of the Death Knight i suppose, so you need nowhewre near the length of testing that it took to get a Blood Elf from 1-70.

The beta for this will be mercifully short. I wouldn't be surprised to see a month or two at most of the portion of the beta most people get to experience. Remember that they did have a closed beta for quite a while with BC that didn't have plenty of content active so it's not like they won't start testing before it's done...

2009 is a really really doomy gloomy prediction. I'd say anything less than a fall 2008 release will be nothing short of disaster, and realistically it'll be out by the Summer. I think we'll see Sunwell patched in around Dec/Jan and 6mo later, we'll have the expansion. Longer, and the'll probably lose anyone who gets bored and stops subscribing between now and then permanently to other games and they know it.

Posted at 1:24AM on Oct 12th 2007 by Dave

16. I hope you're right, Dave, but my gut agrees with Arras-- scheduled for holidays 2008 but delayed to January. I'd love to be wrong and spend the summer in Northrend, though.

Posted at 2:07AM on Oct 12th 2007 by Mike Schramm

17. Blizzard have said many times that they plan to release an expansion every year and even with their "its done when its done" policy I cannot see them not releasing this expansion in 2008.

Posted at 4:12AM on Oct 12th 2007 by Karail