Furiously

Blizzard have implicitly confirmed that Mists of Pandaria will launch in 2012. So, now is a good time to look into the crystal ball and come up with wildly inaccurate predictions about the release date. Of course, we wont actually know that they are wildly inaccurate before the actual release date is announced.

I have never had much luck predicting the release date of a World of Warcraft expansion, so I doubt I will be able to get anywhere close this time. Based on the release cycle so far, into which we can put absolutely no trust, the average time between expansions has been roughly 23 months. Given that Cataclysm launched in December 2010, this would mean that statistically speaking (yes, I know that statistic data based on 3 data points can’t be said to be even remotely valid) Mists of Pandaria should launch in November 2012.

One of the best indicators for the release date of an expansion has been the closed beta, which has so far started 3-4 months before the release date of the expansion. The question is, when will they see fit to announce the beginning of the beta? Traditionally, they have always announced a family and friends alpha way before any mutterings about the beta ever hit the grapevine. Whilst it is intriguing to think that Blizzard will announce the beginning of the beta in their upcoming March “huge announcement”, it would also be quite a breach of their standard procedure. If we were to imagine that March were to give us exactly such an announcement, we might be looking at a release date in June or July 2012.

The final numbers pointer is the time that has usually elapsed between announcement of the expansion and its subsequent release. The Burning Crusade had no great unveiling at a Blizzcon, unlike Wrath and Cataclysm, but it did have playable demos at Blizzcon 2005. If we take that as the “announcement” date, we land at a period of 15 months between announcement and release. In the case of Wrath, the period is also 15 months (from Blizzcon 2007 and until launch in 2008). The period for Cataclysm is ever so slightly longer, namely 16 months from the announcement at Blizzcon 2009 until the launch in December 2010. As far as our lacking statistics go, this is a surprisingly constant number. Unfortunately, if these numbers are to be believed, it would mean that Mists will be launched in January 2013.

So far the numbers. At this stage I will just reiterate that none of the numbers can be used for any sort of statistical analysis or to determine any trends. Nevertheless, they do hint at the average speed of development of a Blizzard expansion. The best guess would, in my view, be sometime in the first half of November 2012. Which would mean that the closed beta, for all those nuts amongst us with the annual pass, should start sometime in July or August.

But then, what will be the big announcement of March we might ask? At this stage, I would expect some revelations about the specifics of Pandaria, especially about the Monk and the Pandaren in general. We might even get the announcement that the family and friends alpha is going to start “soon”.