WOW: Burning Crusade delayed

By Tom Bramwell Published 24 October, 2006

Blizzard targets January.

Blizzard today announced that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be released in January 2007, in order to extend the closed beta test.

The developer had been saying "winter" for the game, which technically does include January, but most had expected the expansion's release to fall in November, and Blizzard acknowledged that, with president Mike Morhaime saying that the enthusiasm was "appreciated".

"We're excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content," he said in a statement. "We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve."

The current closed beta, impressions of which you can read elsewhere on the site, gives Blizzard the chance to see how its new features stand up to bombardment from dedicated fans.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • skillian #1 6 years ago

    Ah well, Hello Kitty's Island Adventure will last till then.

  • optimusprym8 #2 6 years ago

    well Guild Wars Nightfall comes out on Friday, this will keep me going til then

  • Psi #3 6 years ago

    fucking typical, may as well cancel my preorder then. shame i had most of dec off lol.

  • Laserbream #4 6 years ago

    Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. So that roar-as-of-a-million-voices-raised-in-anger that I can hear IS from forums.worldofwarcraft.com.

    *hides*

  • Khanivor #5 6 years ago

    Thank you blizzard for waiting long enough for most raiding guilds to restucture for Bc before letting us know we had been misled as to when it was coming out. Score another for your marvelous PR.

  • Darkedge #6 6 years ago

    aha
    ahahaha..
    AHAHAHAHA

    Sorry thats cruel to the afflicted. Sorry guy new fix of grind not till next year. Maybe try another game?

  • Wobble #7 6 years ago

    bastards... I'd been putting stuff off expecting an end of nov launch, now i'll have to grind that faction afterall :(

  • mezzomorto #8 6 years ago

    Hey look on the bright side (at least from Vivendi's POV), this gives them more time to get another million players hooked on the original product, thus increasing sales of the expansion, thus filling the black hole that was/is Vivendi's debt

  • mentat #9 6 years ago

    Better a delay and a working expansion than an incomplete expansion fixed through patches as per normal though, eh?

  • Psi #10 6 years ago

    "Thank you blizzard for waiting long enough for most raiding guilds to restucture"

    exactly the type of mentality that pushes me further away.

    im too worried I won't survive the re-org and I wouldn't fit in the company .. i mean guild management structure.

    i know you guys work flexi time but lol its a joke really.


    by god way turn what should be an enjoyable past time into a bloody job.

    in eq2 our guild has people coming to play with us as the whole raid mentality has changed so much over the years. it's wow's fault too :p id rather do without the fabled toothpick of doom and play drunk with my friends laughing when we wipe.

  • Psychotext #11 6 years ago

    What's interesting is a number of guilds have completely finished Naxx now which gives them nothing left to do...

  • Iora #12 6 years ago

    @PSI

    Isn't that the point that Blizzard seem completely oblivious too, or rather more accurately the millions of paying customers.

    A game should NEVER be a chore. You should NEVER think
    'uh man here i go again grind, grind, grind sigh'

    I love the media presence around WoW at the moment all praise it as a work of art. I can imagine everyone looking back on WoW in many years to come and seeing it as some sort of event. A huge cultural mystery. It is then that people will say 'all you did was grind, and you know what i didnt even really enjoy it WTF'

    Can't say that now though or you have close to 7 million people hunting you down ;)


    Delays seem to be the in thing at the moment though so this doesnt come of much of a surprise. Heres hoping that Blizzard can include some content that doesnt require military esque planning and or months of grinding to achieve.

  • optimusprym8 #13 6 years ago

    how can you kill that which has no life etc

  • Psi #14 6 years ago

    yeah Iora your right, agree totally. Thing is they've all more or less copied exactly the same setup as daoc. SWG tried to put in some new ideas and in my mind player towns etc were great, the class structure was better too.

    eq2's mentoring is a very good idea, meaning friends dont have as much a level seperation problem. However its still just the same model underneath.

    The whole genre is in need of a new approach, however the hardcore demand that little changes tbh. grind grind grind more levels please...

  • Azazel #15 6 years ago

    how can you kill that which has no life etc

    hehe :D

    Guild Wars is more my thing personally...

  • rinoaMW #16 6 years ago

    i play wow - i'm not bothered, it will give them time to polish it and iron out problems. Like stated by others here - GW is out on friday! ^^

  • Darkedge #17 6 years ago

    oh forgot about GW nightfall - I pre ordered it so long ago..

  • Iora #18 6 years ago

    @PSI

    I do enjoy playing through the quests of WoW and exploring new lands. The art direction of this game is nigh on perfect and in my opinion the main reason it has become so successful. However I try my utmost to avoid the endless grinding that greets you at the 60cap. It is however like trying to swim without getting wet.
    I will undoubtedly enjoy the next 10 levels of questing though.

    As for other mmorpg's and content. I'am an avid EVE Online player and i can honestly say i haven't grinded anything in well over a year now.

    The ideas and principles for making a dynamic, grindless mmorpg are out there already. Unfortunately money talks and players it seems don't mind, in a hypnotic state there are more than pleased to continue on.

    I sometimes wish i could do that. I don't fault Blizzard for WoW they are out to make money and by golly gum they made money. It just doesnt work the same with me I want more!

  • EmiliasHorse #19 6 years ago

    WOW needed this expansion and it needed it back in August not now and certainly not January. This is a blow indeed.

    Still never mind we can all play Starcraft Ghost until then....oh

  • wired009 #20 6 years ago

    They need to upgrade the looking for group feature sooner than later. Even if it means making a patch for it. The looking for group channel and meeting stones were both poorly conceived and hugely inefficient systems that should have been eliminated a long time ago.

  • sturridge #21 6 years ago

    maybe this is a good thing, they are probably tweaking the single player aspect of the game just in time for a christmas release then BAM... its warcraft time.

  • Pike #22 6 years ago

    Will give me time to both reach 60 AND play NWN 2.

  • yagisencho #23 6 years ago

    Well, at least this affords several million addicts the opportunity to spend holiday time with their families.

    (To be fair though, the servers were running at less than half capacity last Christmas.)