Front page of Mmo-champion has an interesting picture. Take a look! (Mmo-champion is usually pretty spot on, they don't post anything without decent evidence. He explains why he posted it below)
Blizzard Product Slate "Leak"
People are pretty excited about a new picture going around the web, supposedly a leak of the schedule of Blizzard's release for the next year. I don't usually comment that kind of things but ..
Source
The image appeared on MMOGamesite.com, apparently this is an english MMO site based in China and I already know a lot of people will hate me for reporting that news. The document itself is probably a slide from an internal presentation to executives and/or shareholders, and seems to be 8 months old according to the date at the top.
Battle.net 2.0
BNET2 - Well, that's the Battle.net we now use on WoW.
BNET2MapMarket - This is pretty self explanatory, but I'm a little surprised by the timeline.
BNET2 3rd Parties - The end-game with Battle.net is as far as I know to compete with Steam. One of the best way to do that would be to use the new platform to distribute a popular game, and if that game was an upcoming Call of Duty title the Activision/Blizzard merge would suddenly make a lot of sense, right?
Starcraft 2
Nothing really new here, but I have no idea what SC2 Phoenix is.
Diablo 3
Target release date in a year makes sense. The 2 expansions aren't really a surprise but I wouldn't take it as a confirmation, that's usually the kind of stuff you mention in company meetings with the higher-ups to make everyone happy.
World of Warcraft
WoWMobile - Done/in-progress with the mobile Auction House and the upcoming extra features.
Cataclysm - Well, we all know about that.
WoW Brazil - Portuguese translation of the game. I already heard a couple of rumors about that and at this point I'm 99% sure it's true, this is one of the reason why I think this document is legit. (The 2 others being the TCG Game and Titan)
WoW X4 - 4th expansion in a year and a half sounds very plausible.
WoW TCG - TCG Game, this part will probably remind you of one of my old posts ... The Future of World of Warcraft: TCG
WoW Movie - I'd say the timeline is off because the document is a few months old, before Sam Raimi decided to work on other projects before the Warcraft movie (but I still want to believe).
WoW X5 - 5th expansion a year and a half later, nothing surprising.
Titan
Yeah, that's Blizzard's new MMOFPS and I might have hinted at that in the past but I don't have a lot of extra information about it and the release date is just an estimation. Don't assume that it will be released by the end of 2013 based on that document, it would be very stupid.
Conclusion
The document is probably legit, even if it's already a little old it still confirms and backups a couple of information I already mentioned, and mentions the portuguese translation for the first time in public. Don't take it as a hard fact and don't bring it up too much on official forums but I think it's an interesting piece of information.
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Although, anyone could've guessed most of the dates. The one that makes it look real is the brazil release and the battlenet features. You can't really come up with those, while they make alot of sense and sound legit.
Oh and you beat me to it with this post, about 3 minutes
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
In my opinion it looks fake. How could Blizzard possibly have a projected release date for games that aren't even announced to the public yet? That's just not how they roll over there.
And it doesn't matter whether anyone think its a fabrication or not; there is no proof and we can't take it for granted. This is just an image. Anybody could do something like this. I don't care what "trusted source" came up with these.
So that said, what use is this? I still don't know. Any discussion about "when do we expect X to be released" is exactly the same thing. Its about expectations.
Heck, even if this is true, its still about expectations, 8 months old, and is not supposed to be perfectly accurate.
In my opinion it looks fake. How could Blizzard possibly have a projected release date for games that aren't even announced to the public yet? That's just not how they roll over there.
Its absolutely insane for a company NOT to project when their things -might- come out. These are not release dates. They are expectations. "If things keep going as they go, -this- will happen.". Doesn't have anything to do with hwo they roll.
Which...makes me think: wouldn't it be moronic to release two things of the same franchise in the same quarter, let alone the same year? Even if they're very different genres, they won't make as much of a profit as if they released them in separate years and gave them time to marinade.
It would be like releasing Diablo III and World of Sanctuary in the same quarter.
i seriously doubt that the Starcraft II expansion will be released late 2011. more likely Q2 2012. It's still in concept at most, some units have been modelled and that's about it. Diablo III is far far closer to its release.
As i listened to the Blizzcast episode 15 earlier today, i realized how easily they could finish with Diablo III. Only hard work to do is finalize the Demon Hunter skill tree and that's it. They mentioned in that specific post that one of the major (the most impressive in fact) zones of Cataclysm was just a rough drawing a year ago (and that's not even the final zone - not to mention dungeons/raids stuff that come after the zones are complete so they don't feel "out of place") and how Jay said that all the locations in Diablo III are done ("you can walk from the start to the end of the game) and there are bosses - that don't have their AI implemented yet but that's no biggie - i see Diablo III being released earliest late June or latest around September 2011. Anything else would feel disappointing.
It almost fits in line with a 2012 release. Since we all know that's the year. *cough*
Damn you HAMSTER! June 28th 2011!!!!!!!!!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Did anyone else read the disclaimer at the bottom?
Yeah. Honestly, I think it's a bunch of B.S. But that's me.
Thats just the mod of mmo-champion. He adds disclaimers and makes such comments -all the time-
Comparing WoW design to D3 design isn't really accurate. WoW is a released game and alot of mechanics have been worked out a thousend times. Where as D3 major mechanics/concepts could still be on the drawing board.
Not to mention the WoW dev team is about 3 times the size of the D3 team.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
Hammy- you have been warned. Don't forget that ScyberDragons eat hamsters for breakfast.
He does! I've seen him do it! Watch yourself hamster!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
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Edit: Titian confirmed! 12/18/2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jos4UWnDM88&feature=player_embedded
Cheers, Sinister Demon.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Although, anyone could've guessed most of the dates. The one that makes it look real is the brazil release and the battlenet features. You can't really come up with those, while they make alot of sense and sound legit.
Oh and you beat me to it with this post, about 3 minutes
And it doesn't matter whether anyone think its a fabrication or not; there is no proof and we can't take it for granted. This is just an image. Anybody could do something like this. I don't care what "trusted source" came up with these.
So that said, what use is this? I still don't know. Any discussion about "when do we expect X to be released" is exactly the same thing. Its about expectations.
Heck, even if this is true, its still about expectations, 8 months old, and is not supposed to be perfectly accurate.
Its absolutely insane for a company NOT to project when their things -might- come out. These are not release dates. They are expectations. "If things keep going as they go, -this- will happen.". Doesn't have anything to do with hwo they roll.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
*runs off crying*
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
It would be like releasing Diablo III and World of Sanctuary in the same quarter.
Interesting...
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
Sure. Its the trend, these days.
As i listened to the Blizzcast episode 15 earlier today, i realized how easily they could finish with Diablo III. Only hard work to do is finalize the Demon Hunter skill tree and that's it. They mentioned in that specific post that one of the major (the most impressive in fact) zones of Cataclysm was just a rough drawing a year ago (and that's not even the final zone - not to mention dungeons/raids stuff that come after the zones are complete so they don't feel "out of place") and how Jay said that all the locations in Diablo III are done ("you can walk from the start to the end of the game) and there are bosses - that don't have their AI implemented yet but that's no biggie - i see Diablo III being released earliest late June or latest around September 2011. Anything else would feel disappointing.
Damn you HAMSTER! June 28th 2011!!!!!!!!!
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Recruiting for East Realm
Also recruiting for Sc2 on both EU and NA servers
Bod home Page
Thats just the mod of mmo-champion. He adds disclaimers and makes such comments -all the time-
Comparing WoW design to D3 design isn't really accurate. WoW is a released game and alot of mechanics have been worked out a thousend times. Where as D3 major mechanics/concepts could still be on the drawing board.
Not to mention the WoW dev team is about 3 times the size of the D3 team.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
He does! I've seen him do it! Watch yourself hamster!
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged