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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Patch always breaks something

Addon breakdowns aside, why is it that a patch always breaks the fundamental game somehow? Is it because of that list of thousands of bugs in the code which still wait to be repaired? Or is it just fault in the testing procedures?

WoW is acclaimed for being the most polished MMO out there, a game which is said to be the benchmark of polish. Right, WotLK worked nicely for the last few months of the expansion. BC did the same and Vanilla, too. If you do not count the disparity of the class balance which just got a new blow by the latest, most fundamental changes to the talents and skills.

So the first question is, why is there such a long list of unrepaired bugs in the game?

Because... I don't know. New content needs A-team to work on. Daily maintenance and content patching requires the B-team to work at their best, with the glint in their eye to be included into the A-team. The C-team... There is no C-team to patch and fix the bugs which have bugged the players for so long time, some even from the launch.

And now we have some real bugs to bug the players. Mouse-over lockout. Instance entrance lockout. Instance bugs like the Anub'Arak bug in the 5-mans.

The first two however bug me the most. I login and queue for an instance for the meager 10 minutes, only to get my computer freeze to the instance load window. Total. Lock. Out. Kind of freeze. Login and find myself from where ever my hearthstone is set, with 5 minute cooldown on LFD. Wait for another 10 minutes, hoping it will go through this time.

Happened to me once yesterday, a couple of times over the weekend.

How about the Headless Horseman? Game freezes the moment I mouse-over the event activation pumpkinhead. Finally get logged in and... I have the stuff in my bag. Whoo-hoo. Only if I was the tank this would have been a disaster. So what is Blizzards word of advice in here? "Make the dps to activate the event, don't mouse over the pumpkin if you are a tank."

Great.

Now I have been playing with the tradeskill window replacements because Skillet isn't working anymore. Even though LilSparky, who's responsible for the addon currently, has stated that it will be updated in the future. However, knowing he's working on his own tradeskill window replacement (GnomeWorks), it may well be the end of Skillet as we know it. And still no other comes close to Skillet in functionality, light weight and simplified outlook.

What can I say. These both issues have one thing in common. Keep It Stupid Simple is the best way of doing it. Or at least do it so that it all seems incredibly simple to the end user.

C out
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PS. Lil'Sparky's Workshop, the tradeskill window enhancement, is updated, but I can't make it work. I have only zero prices to all products in there, so if anyone could give me a hint what to do to make it work again it would be appreciated. I like my things simple, effective, easy and working, you see.
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