When are we going to get some expansion news?

Obviously the pandemic has thrown a huge spanner in the works. But if not for that we’d have had 2 fan fests already. Surely they had some plans on what they were going to reveal about the next expansion for those fan fests already planned out? By now we’d likely know the title of the next expansion and probably even have had the setting and one confirmed job.

I understand that things got delayed and cancelled but can’t they do a live stream or a live letter or something? I just thought we’d have had some kind of info by now about what’s to come.

In February

Feb 5th I believe. The 14hr stream was delayed due to COVID but the announcement part many expect to be expansion news should be in there. Just remember COVID put a 2 month delay so if the last was June just add two months for a good idea of the release date.

Just my educated guess.

February 6. There will be a "showcase announcement". It was planned to have a live audience but audience part has been scrapped due to the state of covid in Japan at the moment. Also the 14hour broadcast plans have been postponed.

There will just be the announcement and then the 62nd Letter from the Producer Live on February 6th. After that I believe another info dump will happen in May.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

February 6. There will be a "showcase announcement". It was planned to have a live audience but audience part has been scrapped due to the state of covid in Japan at the moment. Also the 14hour broadcast plans have been postponed.

There will just be the announcement and then the 62nd Letter from the Producer Live on February 6th. After that I believe another info dump will happen in May.

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Previously with SB/SHB, how many months before release were the expansions usually announced? If it’s announced in February, is a release in 2021 still possible?

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Previously with SB/SHB, how many months before release were the expansions usually announced? If it’s announced in February, is a release in 2021 still possible?

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I think it is still possible. SE mentioned they are back on track with their development schedule and only incurred a permanent two month delay, so maybe Sep or Oct 2021. This is barring any changes in the development setup. Japan I hear is in another State of Emergency as of the moment.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

If it’s announced in February, is a release in 2021 still possible?

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That's the plan ; )

If past trends hold, we'd be looking at 6.0 in October.
Even if COVID's forced a further delay, I'd expect it by late November. Ready or not, since NA and Europe Christmas Expansion sales are probably a pretty significant chunk of their bottom line.

https://media.giphy.com/media/ncU3bkZ5ghDlS/giphy.gif

Hopefully soon. News about the future of the game has felt rather dry to me for a while now.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Obviously the pandemic has thrown a huge spanner in the works. But if not for that we’d have had 2 fan fests already. Surely they had some plans on what they were going to reveal about the next expansion for those fan fests already planned out? By now we’d likely know the title of the next expansion and probably even have had the setting and one confirmed job.

I understand that things got delayed and cancelled but can’t they do a live stream or a live letter or something? I just thought we’d have had some kind of info by now about what’s to come.

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In February we are getting a fairly big event and Live Letter, which everyone expects to be 6.0 news. I assume if COVID didn't happen we would of had it announced at the NA FanFest in November. There's a certain trademark that SE grabbed that people think is the name of 6.0 that happened not too long ago. I also think it's possible for the expansion to come out by the end of the year.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

There's a certain trademark that SE grabbed that people think is the name of 6.0 that happened not too long ago.

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I heard that was officially denied by the devs, though.

Patience my friend. You have acknowledged that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and it has caused difficulty and delays for the dev team. No need to pull a Cartman, and cryoprison yourself or anything. Though I will admit, the covidpocolypse is making such alternatives very attractive.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Previously with SB/SHB, how many months before release were the expansions usually announced? If it’s announced in February, is a release in 2021 still possible?

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Both Stormblood and Shadowbringers were revealed at the first Fan Fest of their respective years. Stormblood at the 2016 Fan Fest in October, with more info at the JP one in December, and the EU one in February 2017. Shadowbringers at the 2018 NA Fan Fest, with more info at the EU one in February 2019, and the JP one in March 2019)

The fact that they haven't been able to reveal it yet probably won't have too much of an effect on their goal of releasing it in 2021.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I heard that was officially denied by the devs, though.

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At this point, if 6.0 is indeed being announced in Feb, they SHOULD have already filed the trademark for the expansion's name so that Amano can do his artwork for the logo and the VisualWorks studio to incorporate said logo into their trailer. Though Yoshi may have denied the trademark in question, it is still the only one that "fits the bill" in it's naming convention as far as I'm aware.

Remember that Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers were trademarked over 4 months before they were officially announced in the NA fanfests, so even with the 2-month delay, we are still beyond where the trademark should have been made.

If it's the trademark that was denied, what can I say except: Yoshi lied.
If it isn't: The Team did a stellar job of hiding the actual title from those trademark hunters.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

If it isn't: The Team did a stellar job of hiding the actual title from those trademark hunters.

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Yeah, I've been wondering that. Are they able to officially have the trademark kept secret until they are ready to announce it, or is it 100% going to be public as soon as they apply?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Yeah, I've been wondering that. Are they able to officially have the trademark kept secret until they are ready to announce it, or is it 100% going to be public as soon as they apply?

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That'll entirely depend on how out there the name could be, if it is bonkers enough that no one would reasonably come up with it and trademark it themselves, it could be safe to just not trademark until just before announcement. Else trademark the moment you decided on name. Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, all have commonly used words meshed together so reasonable to assume others may come up with such names, but say Larboardhollow would be something you could leave untrademarked for longer because likelihood someone else would trademark that is exceptionally low.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

...if it is bonkers enough that no one would reasonably come up with it and trademark it themselves, it could be safe to just not trademark until just before announcement. Else trademark the moment you decided on name.

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This is the scenario I thought of, but dismissed because I really don't know if they'd be able to make an "out there" title work.

Be right back, making a trademark for Larboardhollow.




:3


In other news, news of the expansion would be cool. I want to see what they decided to do from here, especially given their fairly successful launch of the last expansion. Also kind of hope they sneak in some of their new FF. Although given cyberpunk I'd prefer a better release than more hype, both being most preferable lol.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

That'll entirely depend on how out there the name could be, if it is bonkers enough that no one would reasonably come up with it and trademark it themselves, it could be safe to just not trademark until just before announcement. Else trademark the moment you decided on name. Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, all have commonly used words meshed together so reasonable to assume others may come up with such names, but say Larboardhollow would be something you could leave untrademarked for longer because likelihood someone else would trademark that is exceptionally low.

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But isn’t it one of the marketing rule not to use names that have no meaning like that, “Larboardhollow”? , and lean towards commonly used inspiring names?

People say February. I personally hope they don't delay it much longer. The more they delay the higher the expectations people are going to have.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Previously with SB/SHB, how many months before release were the expansions usually announced? If it’s announced in February, is a release in 2021 still possible?

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Yes, every expansion has been released at 2 year intervals at the end of June to start of July.

Heavensward - June 23, 2015
Stormblood - June 20, 2017
Shadowbringers - July 2, 2019
*New Expansion* - July(ish), 2021

They stated a few months back they are back on their regular schedule. So i assume this. And if it makes you feel better. All previous expansion video trailers/info were released Mid-February to March/April.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

But isn’t it one of the marketing rule not to use names that have no meaning like that, “Larboardhollow”? , and lean towards commonly used inspiring names?

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That must have been before the Internet and search engines.
Nowadays using a common word just means people get lots of hits for different things when searching for that word, while using a made up word results in people easily finding your product.

if there's been a 2 month delay, its safe to say that the ETA of the expansion will be late july to early september. Which leaves feb as the announcement, and 5.5 in late april/early may and the tying off patches in the next 3 months (5.51, 5.55, 5.56)

august 24th is my estimate for the new expansion for the following reasons:

-it is the day ARR launched officially, making for a fitting anniversary
-summer holidays in the west- SE higher ups will want to emphasize that period for significant dosh £€$
-reasonable date taking into account pandemic delay and dev tendency to rush expansions

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

Yes, every expansion has been released at 2 year intervals at the end of June to start of July.

Heavensward - June 23, 2015
Stormblood - June 20, 2017
Shadowbringers - July 2, 2019
*New Expansion* - July(ish), 2021

They stated a few months back they are back on their regular schedule. So i assume this. And if it makes you feel better. All previous expansion video trailers/info were released Mid-February to March/April.

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They announced that they were back on their schedule but having suffered a standing 2 month delay.
This means their schedule is back on track but consistently 2 months behind previous cycles. So patches are still 16 weeks apart, but 2 months later than they would have been if there was no delay due to covid.

This means the next expansion is likely due late August to September. October at the latest.

Previous announcement cycles have taken place across three FanFests starting in November, then in late Jan/early Feb, and finally in April.
Instead of three FanFests, we're getting two online showcases, the first of which is taking place February 5th, and the second will be in May TBC.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Patience my friend. You have acknowledged that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and it has caused difficulty and delays for the dev team. No need to pull a Cartman, and cryoprison yourself or anything. Though I will admit, the covidpocolypse is making such alternatives very attractive.

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I see you're a lady of nicknames. Tho Covidpocolypse while good... Tom clancey's The Division is still a fav of mine. :D

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

https://media.giphy.com/media/ncU3bkZ5ghDlS/giphy.gif

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That gif is begging for another mouse to run the background while holding a sign "maybe".

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

They announced that they were back on their schedule but having suffered a standing 2 month delay.
This means their schedule is back on track but consistently 2 months behind previous cycles. So patches are still 16 weeks apart, but 2 months later than they would have been if there was no delay due to covid.

This means the next expansion is likely due late August to September. October at the latest.

Previous announcement cycles have taken place across three FanFests starting in November, then in late Jan/early Feb, and finally in April.
Instead of three FanFests, we're getting two online showcases, the first of which is taking place February 5th, and the second will be in May TBC.

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Right. However if that 2 month delay actually hurt the production we wouldn't be seeing info regarding the next expansion in February. The fact that we are getting info in February like past expansions instead of 1-2 months later means that possibly there is no delay and the expansion will still release in late June to early July.

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

Right. However if that 2 month delay actually hurt the production we wouldn't be seeing info regarding the next expansion in February. The fact that we are getting info in February like past expansions instead of 1-2 months later means that possibly there is no delay and the expansion will still release in late June to early July.

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We had info on expansions on November of the preceding year (the first fanfest) though. On the top of my mind, November 2018 we had the USA fanfest, with a showcase of the short trailer, some infos (I think they showed the Nu Mou as a beast tribe and Rak Tikka / Ahm Araeng), that kind of general info. The February Fanfest in 2019 was Europe where we had more info again (Viera, other zones etc) and then the third fanfest had the rest.
We had nothing last november, so technically we are in the two months delay. I guess the 6 February showcase will drop expansion name, partial trailer and bits of info (plot, zones, job teasing, this kind of stuff).
I really don't believe we will get an expansion this summer. We still have 5.5, which should be a pretty long patch too.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I heard that was officially denied by the devs, though.

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It depends how they denied it. If they were asked an outright question then they have no choice but to deny it.

Can’t announce it before it’s ready and can’t even smile and shake the head. They have to flat out deny it when asked.

It’s obviously not 100 percent but the timing of the registration, the cryptic message they released lately and just how it flows with the other names of expansions I’d say it’s quite likely.

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Originally Posted by Quintessa

That gif is begging for another mouse to run the background while holding a sign "maybe".

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SE is a creature of habit. I'd be willing to bet that we'll receive news within a month or so.

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

Right. However if that 2 month delay actually hurt the production we wouldn't be seeing info regarding the next expansion in February. The fact that we are getting info in February like past expansions instead of 1-2 months later means that possibly there is no delay and the expansion will still release in late June to early July.

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Did you miss the part where the first FanFest is usually in November?