World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade delayed to 2007

ROFL @ special mention.

it doesn't really seem to make good business sense to me. despite it previously being still over a month away (projected old date was 23rd of November) there were many signs of people sort of giving up on the game until then.

especially with the closed Beta now running, people are getting information on the types of gear that are easily gained (either greens, or quest rewards) and showing proof that these no-effort level 62 gear is on par with, or significantly better than, the stuff that people strove for through Blackwing Lair, Temple of An'Qiraj and in some cases, even Naxxramas.

it seemed to be a combination of the futility of getting those items, coupled with the fact that Blizzard have reduced the raid size from 40 to 25 that is giving guilds a lot of stress.

therefore given that it's now missing the christmas market, how many people will get something else for christmas, start playing that while "on break" from WoW, and not come back?

on the one hand, it's nice to see that company's don't always release broken games and have a Day One patch on standby (*looks at Battlefield 2142*) but on the other, given that WoW (and MMORPGs in general) are perpetually being patched, upgraded and fixed anyway, it probably wouldn't have mattered all that much in this case.

unless it truely was broken, or even incomplete, i can't help but think that Blizzard might be shooting themself in the foot.

then again, with 7 million + users, even if half of them drop off, it's going to make WOW:TBC somewhat popular anyway.

(and does anyone else love the irony of the xpac's acronym? WoW:TBC)