Burning Crusade delayed?

Rumors are flying that Blizzard will miss the "Q4 2006" release date for the Burning Crusade, and release the expansion only in January 2007. I don't know if that is true. On the one hand releasing it before christmas would make better business sense, this is the prime season for computer games. On the other hand Blizzard is known for releasing things "when they are ready", which is often later than you think.

Of course Blizzard isn't saying anything, as usual. The only release dates you can read are from the different online retailers. And the fact that they all give a different date proves that they are just guessing as well. I remember that Blizzard announced the official release date of the European version of World of Warcraft only one week before the actual release date.

The source of the rumor of a delayed release is probably the beta. Now that depends whether you consider the current BC beta as being "closed" or "open". Starting the "closed" beta in mid-October would indicate that the game won't be ready by end of November. But if you consider that inviting 100,000 players per continent is pretty much an "open" beta, they could just make it.

Playing the beta sure showed me that some things weren't finished yet. I have items with a big red question mark as icon, the real icon not having been designed yet. I met an orc guard whose graphical representation was just a small, checkered 3D cube. I had the beta freeze on me once, but of course that could have been my computer. The current beta is certainly playable (and less bug-infested than lets say Star Wars Galaxies), but I'm not sure it up to Blizzard's stringent quality control.

Some people argue with the time it takes to produce the "gold master" and produce all the CDs. But of course that isn't much of a problem with a MMORPG, you just put a nearly finished version on the CD and patch it the day it goes live.

So the only thing we really know about the release date is that we don't know anything. Blizzard might surprise us and mid-November announce an end-November release date. Or we all wait until end-November and only get a press release saying that the release is delayed to Q1 2007.

While everybody is burning to see the expansion (excuse the pun), Blizzard gets my respect for their willingness to delay releases on quality reasons. There are far too many half-finished games released, and especially MMORPG often are nearly unplayable on release. One company releasing their games and expansion only when they meet high quality standards and are nearly bug-free is a refreshing change. Even if waiting is sometimes hard.