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WoW Archivist: Expansion gaps
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Expansion gaps are the most reviled of all content gaps. It's not just because they are the longest -- it's because at the other end of the gap lies so much to look forward to. Expansions change WoW from top to bottom. They usher in brand new worlds to explore and bring us new ways to play the game. That's part of why it takes Blizzard so long to release them. In the meantime, we wait, mired in the old, but excited about the new. We are experiencing what is likely to be the longest expansion gap so far in WoW's 10-year history. But what about the expansion gaps of the past? How do they stack up? What did Blizzard offer and what were players' reactions to them? Read on to find out! Classic WoW to The Burning Crusade Dates: August 22, 2006 to January 16, 2007 Duration: 4 months, 25 days Subscriptions: Rising Mood: Excited The first expansion gap was also the shortest. It felt like a long time to players back then, since classic WoW offered patches and content at a blistering pace for the first two years of the game. Players were impatient, yes. That never changes. But we knew WoW was a hit and we were thrilled that the success of the game had made an expansion possible. We couldn't wait to roll a blood elf or a draenei, or take to the skies and fly for the first time. Plus, most raiding guilds hadn't conquered every boss (or even close), so they had plenty to keep them busy.
Officers' Quarters: Mind the gap
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. In my opinion, it is Blizzard's biggest failure when it comes to WoW: the Gap. The Gap between the last major content patch of an expansion and the next expansion is always far too long. The Gap is always extremely difficult for guilds. The Gap kills momentum and morale. The Gap disintegrates rosters. Why does it happen every single time? Honestly, I have no idea. The Gap bores and disappoints everyone, but at least we're used to it. We don't like it, but we expect it. However, if your guild has never faced it before, like the one in the email below, it can cause something of a panic. Hi Scott! I'm not an officer in my guild or anything, I'm just one of the players that's been around since Burning Crusade. It's a long time to have a guild running, but we're running into some issues and I'm not sure how to handle them, so I thought maybe you'd have some advice. Our guild is a progression raiding guild, but we don't work super hard at world firsts or anything like that -- we take our time and clear the content with the goal of clearing it before the next tier and the next expansion comes out. In Burning Crusade, we managed to clear Sunwell just before Wrath launched. In Wrath, we managed to just squeak in a heroic Lich King kill before Cataclysm came out. Sounds good, right? Well ... now we've run into a problem, and it's causing the guild a little strife.
