Breakfast Topic: Does 2.0.1 Indicate the Expansion Might Not Be Ready?
by David Nelson 
Dec 8th 2006 at 8:00AM
Well, this patch launch has not been smooth, even by the rather meager standards of the patches that have come before it. The downtime hasn't been horrible, but some promised features are not working as intended, and there have been bugs, bugs and more bugs.Being the natural pessimist that I am, it got me thinking...if this is what was "ready" from The Burning Crusade expansion, um...what kind of shape is that expansion in? Will it possibly be ready for it's January 16th debut? Now, as I understand it, this patch contains basically the backbone of the expansion, so maybe this is really the hard part, and adding The Burning Crusade will not be nearly as traumatic. But, as I have mentioned before, I know nothing about producing software. With that said, my belief that the Burning Crusade is definitely hitting on January 16th has gone from no doubt (which was probably naive in the first place) to something a bit less sure.
So what do you guys think? Is this patch a harbinger of things to come? Either a messy expansion release or a possible delay? Or am I reading too much into 2.0.1?
Filed under: Patches, Breakfast Topics, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Orin Dec 8th 2006 8:14AM
I'd like to think that Blizzard will pull it together, but from two years of past bad patch experiences in WoW I doubt they will. Maybe it will be multiple days of downtime, maybe fubar'd gameplay, who knows.
Kugala Dec 8th 2006 8:12AM
This patch does mainly seem to be game mechanics (Talents, Honor, etc). Most of what's left for the expansion is data (New Maps, quests, etc), aside from new spells. So yeah, I'd actually expect BC to be less buggy than this; more typos and such than anything else.
Tholrom Dec 8th 2006 8:53AM
I actually think they're doing the smart thing and working out hte bugs now *before* teh expansion. Once the expansion hits, there will be a few bugs...but I'm guessing a lot fewer than if they tried to impliment all of that *and* all the big MAJOR changes that came in this last patch. :)
Acacia Dec 8th 2006 8:58AM
The "Befodre the Storm" patch is infact one of the first Beta patches. Numerous changes and bugfixes have since been applied in Beta, so I'm not worried :)
Steve Dec 8th 2006 8:59AM
This patch actually IS the expansion. All the code is there, and we have everything to play the expansion. Basicly what we see now is what people will see at the end of January if they Don't buy the tBC. Nothing will change for people who don't buy the expansion. For those who do buy it, more new items will be unlocked (Jewelcrafting/Outlands/Races/ect.). But we have the code, this is the expansion!!
Yz (Echo Isles) Dec 8th 2006 9:17AM
I agree with comment #1. This is the mechanics. The expanson should be heavier content/less mechanics (although I do expect some mechanics items, due to newraces, MOBs, abilities, etc...).
Overall, I have to admit I am somewhat amazed by the response of the playerbase to bugs and issues. I think we are a bit spoiled by WoW. Compared to its predecessors, and, heck, it's current competitors, WoW has set the standard for stability in the market. WoW does far more player testing for a longer period of time than any other MMO out there.
It's not perfect. The full gaming population will put more stress on the system and code than the test population. That's guaranteed, every time, unless you want to wait longer for changes than a playerbase is willing to tolerate.
The folks who have been playing these games for a number of years, as well as those who take the time to think about all that's involved, tend to be a bit more patient about these things.
Let's put this in relative terms: Take the school project you ever did. Multiply the size of that project by 1000, 10,000, even 100,000. Put a lerge group working on it - the majority of whom were probably average students (not everyone is an A student). Now, with that much work and that many people, what are the odds that the final product will be an A+ paper with no errors?
Jusk Dec 8th 2006 9:25AM
Ive been in the beta a while now, and it is far less buggy than this patch.
Brim Dec 8th 2006 9:27AM
Basicly there will be bugs and other 'gamebreaking' imbalances. We'll keep whining and we'll keep playing.
Frankly, I don't care about the bugs really. I just shape into a tree and look for little happy treefriends to add to my 'Bob Ross' state of mind.
Oh yeah.. And heal stuff.
Morkins Dec 8th 2006 9:29AM
I'm never *too* bothered by downtime, cus I know what a massive undertaking patching a game as large and as popular as WoW is. People moan about Blizz not hitting deadlines, but truth is, they're never far off and even when they do slip, it's only due to the massive amount of variables a game of this nature has that simply cannot be ironed out during testing. Until it goes Live, you will never experience every possible situation due to the vast difference in computer specs and so forth.
As for the expansion, this patch was a rather buggy first beta from weeks ago, almost shoved into the "real" game at the last minute to keep us sweet after the expansion was delayed. Since this patch was in beta, there have been numerous changes (some good, some bad) to fix the many bigs, inconsistancies and glitches it has.
So I say fear not! The expansion will probably be out on time, but the servers most likely won't be able to take the sudden surge of people creating new races, crowding the newbies zones and so on, so personally I'm going to wait a week or two before I roll a BE or Draenei, give it chance to calm down.
Swiftlydead Dec 8th 2006 10:00AM
are you kidding me? It's been blatantly and repeatedly stated that 2.0.1 is what you get after the expansion, without the expansion -- ie: what those who don't shell out $$ for the expansion will be playing.
Drakar24 Dec 8th 2006 10:13AM
Anyone who's worked for IT in any capacity knows that Blizzard is actually not too bad in terms of their patches. They have a massive amount of code, and installing the code on fresh new PTR servers is not the same as patching live servers. Bugs will arise despite QA testing. Because the user base is so much more massive than their test base. They can't possibly try everything. When I first started playing my biggest complaint was the lack of updates to the customer base. I'm happy to see that Blizzard has put that behind them. They now update on the hour when having issues, and although I'd rather be playing, I appreciate it that they at least let me know stuff is going to be down longer than they thought. AS for the expansion, I agree with some of the above posters. Most of the issues will probably be in this patch since there were so many game mechanics changes. I think the expansion will be a bit more stable than this patch.
Theadrick Dec 8th 2006 10:20AM
They've given an official release date of January 16th. Not "soon" or "in the coming months" or "Q1 2007", but "January 16th". They just don't do that if they aren't firm on the date.
Will it be ready? No of course not... no MMORPG or expansion is ever "ready". The original game is still being tuned 2 years later. MMORPGs are not static games where you buy the box and that's it... constantly changing and evolving, fixing bugs, creating new bugs, etc... nature of the beast.
Bunkai Dec 8th 2006 10:31AM
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, and I am seeing a lot of comments about what you see now is what it's going to be even after TBC release... Blizz is going to release another patch that coincides with the TBC release that will contain all of the fixes and improvements to the current bugs and add the new spells/items/max level... They have said that only new race creation and the new zones will be unavailable to those that do not purchase TBC. All other additions will be available, thus the requirement for a coinciding patch release.
Dave Dec 8th 2006 11:37AM
This is a twofold thing:
#1: Massive stress testing of the patch, on Azeroth, which is something many people didn't (and won't) bother with in the beta testing. Who wants to spend beta time in Barrens? This is a chance for the engineering people to get a good number of the more horrible kinks of the expansion worked out a month before it comes out (or more if you're pessimistic about it).
#2: Marketing. Genius. Put all the expansion in the game and lock it up before it actually hits. Every single time your horde character sees Paladin Trainer, you think "man, I want a paladin!" or "wow those blood elves look awesome!". Find a new jewelcrafting pattern, and you're thinking "wow, that would be awesome to make, I need the expansion!". Showing us the new talents at the trainer? 41 point talents that ramp up one tree while horribly pigeonholing a character to be utterly useless in two trees?
It's all a very very good reminder that there's an expansion coming up and that you should really think about buying it right now so you can have all the stuff you want but can't touch right now.
Forbidden donut syndrome or something I think, but it works, and it's genius.
Druid dude Dec 8th 2006 12:56PM
I have to agree with posters 1 and 6. The deep game mechanics have hit with this patch. It seems like the expansion will be mostly just new content. Look at all the stuff that changed with this patch: Talents, several fundamental combat mechanics and calculations, just tons of of foundation-level stuff.
Seems like they got the hard stuff out of the way. Well, actually I wouldn't say quite out of the way since raiding is still so bug ridden its almost not doable, but you get the idea.
I am pretty pessimistic about patchees and stuff, been playing since release day and have seen more screwups from patches than I can count. But I don't think that the expansion is going to be the patch disaster that this is right now.
And on that subject, instead of calling this patch "Before The Storm" (or whatever), wouldn't it more honest to just call this The Storm? LOL!
Adam Dec 8th 2006 12:21PM
there's been worse downtime before. The expansion will launch on Dec. 16th. Of course there will be server issues and lots of downtime but it'll still launch. Think of all the quitters who will be coming back to add fuel to the fire. It will be a catastrophe.....but it'll ship.
Adam Dec 8th 2006 12:22PM
^^^ i meant Jan 16th.
WTB edit feature
Anonymous Rogue Dec 8th 2006 1:22PM
Hey, what do we know? According to Tseric (in a deleted but now infamous thread), we're all "armchair developer(s)". We don't really have the knowledge required for an opinion. So, we will just have to wait and give them our money when the expansion comes out, since they know what they are doing.
Aaron Dec 8th 2006 12:33PM
I'm not too surprised at the chaos on the Live servers right now since this was, as others have stated, the expansion basically going live. In a lot of ways the next month might as well be the stress test/open beta for the expansion.
Serious chunks of the game got redone with this patch so issues should be expected. I'm going to guess though that the expansion with go a whole lot smoother, though I expect a fair amount of zones being overloaded at first.
crsh Dec 8th 2006 12:40PM
I'm fairly certain the current build of the game is the expansion build, but it's still missing the Outland content. Using WoWModelViewer shows nothing for the new races and Outland mobs.
The BC CD/DVD installation will add the models, textures, etc (that wouldn't fit in a ~400 MB patch), the game client was simply made ready to accept it without a hitch; once the content is available, they just issue a patch to unlock the access to it in the game client.