Strange patch note choices (or, my last Orc shoulders post ever, I swear)
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 25th 2007 at 6:01PM
I can confirm for you that yes, patch 2.2 has finally fixed our Orc male shoulders. Finally, my Orc Shaman can hold his shoulders up proudly (ok, well, a little hunched down under all the weight, but still). I know lots of you readers are tired of hearing about it, but the saga is over: our Orc shoulders have grown back. Now I'll never mention it again.Strangely enough, however, this change didn't make the patch notes, and when players ask why, Neth sounds a little tired of talking about it herself. She says that while the change did not appear in the official 2.2 notes, "one graphical item of which has been stated as being fixed many times now, does not make it less accurate." I've wondered before who exactly writes the patch notes, and yet again I find myself wondering what the method is behind their madness. Some patch changes, including some boss tweaks, are clearly not included on purpose. Some huge changes (like the DOTs affected by resilience change) get the smallest of mentions. And some small changes very much awaited by players, like the anti-AFK measures, get quite a bit of ink.
Now, I doubt that Blizzard purposely left the Orc shoulders change off the patch notes-- they probably just didn't think it important enough to include. But surely there are things that they do leave off of the notes on purpose, and some things that the devs might not think are big, but that whoever writes the patch notes chooses to emphasize. Whatever their method behind the madness, I can't see what it is at all.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Odds and ends, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Acceptable Risk Sep 25th 2007 6:22PM
Comprehensive patch notes are the single greatest thing I'd like added to WoW. It's not like people aren't going to notice. It just seems duplicitous to not tell players some of these things.
Painhealer Sep 25th 2007 6:31PM
Perhaps they omitted the orc shoulder size fix as a signal to avoid dwelling on trivial, over-sensationalized topics covered relentlessly by a particular blogger and his minions...
hjungle Sep 25th 2007 6:30PM
Undocumented changes ahoy!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=7453D0FDB5F7705DC806DB25F135002F?topicId=1778015283&sid=1
Lucious Sep 25th 2007 6:33PM
tbh i never understaned why all that fuzz about the shoulders. Besides dthe fact Blizz make gear who looks like Carnival on Spain when its no Tier sets, who cares about lookin good?
Seems like girls worring about purse will match with dress
This episode made me so happy on picking a dwarf instead an Orc, Girlie faction Horde sounds with this one.
(sorry if i offend someone, but i really think silly all this shoulder thingy)
ColonelChris Sep 25th 2007 6:40PM
If it's not (internally) listed as a bug, it won't be mentioned in the patch notes if a programmer fixes it during lunch break. I can also imagine that sometimes programmers forget to write reports when they commit bug fixes to the main code trunk. Blizzard has 100+ people working on WoW only, it's no wonder that some things get lost on their way to the patch notes.
Tridus Sep 25th 2007 6:53PM
The Orc shoulder thing puts to rest the myth that Horde are more "mature" then Alliance. So much whining over a cosmetic thing...
Female Dwarf shoulders were broken for months back before BC. We didn't throw fits like Orcs did. We filed a bug report and got on with life.
David Sep 25th 2007 7:39PM
One thing I've noticed with this patch is my night elf druid T4 shoulders are bigger! Yes, I noticed it straight away and imo they look much better.
Preston Sep 25th 2007 7:01PM
"tbh i never understaned why all that fuzz about the shoulders. "
That's because you're obviously not an Orc player, and didn't have to spend months staring at a major bug every single day. If your dwarf's head armor had remained too large all summer, you'd be annoyed too because you looked stupid.
Preston Sep 25th 2007 7:05PM
"Female Dwarf shoulders were broken for months back before BC. We didn't throw fits like Orcs did. We filed a bug report and got on with life."
Uh, you guys complained just like Orcs did.
Figures the lame Alliance players would come out of the woodwork and pretend this wasn't a major visual glitch that should have been fixed on day one.
Green Armadillo Sep 25th 2007 7:45PM
Not sure how it's done at WoW, but over at LOTRO one of the CM's has the job of writing the patch notes from hundreds of little post-its documenting changes the various programmers hands her. This cannot possibly be fun, and I'm pretty sure the WoW team is bigger than what Turbine has going.
Ferocious Sep 25th 2007 7:56PM
Patch notes are made by the same AI that controls GMs across the world and regulate the forums moderation.
Yep top of the top AI systems..right,unpayed fans in 2 hours make the real patch notes and a multibilimionairre company cant do them in 2 months?
rick gregory Sep 25th 2007 11:38PM
Um... get a life? No one really cares about your freaking shoulders...
And almost no product ships with notes that document every single change - the notes would be dozens of pages long as you'd have to note each bug fixed. Once you start abstracting things from actually bug reports into higher level description (most of the issues in the notes likely are comprised of several different bug reports/change requests) it means you have someone spending time and effort.
Are your precious shoulders the right size again? They ARE? Then what the heck are you whining about? and yes, it IS whining.
mikey Sep 26th 2007 8:43AM
Yes, it IS whining of the most annoying kind. @ #6: It's not a Horde thing or an Alliance thing, it's a GUY thing. And don't lie. The female Dwarf bunch QQ'd just as loudly as these Orcs. Of course we all know that 90 percent of those female Dwarves were played by, you guess it. . .GUYS. lol! I slay me :)