Breakfast Topic: Uh, yeah, patch day
by Zach Yonzon 
Jan 28th 2009 at 8:00AM
Ok, so I didn't call it right. Adam did over chat, though, saying that changes needed to be made client side which indicated a patch. Of course, since I'd written everything up and because I'm lazy and didn't offer to eat my hat, I went ahead and said it's not a patch day. As it turns out, it was a patch day, although most definitely not one of those newfangled patches with bells and whistles and cool new features. It was a patch that resembled an honest-to-goodness patch, the kind that you sew on to holes in your pants. The kind of patch that's intended to cover up something embarrassing.Because Patch 3.0.8 had a few holes that needed some patching, we got a nice little build to fix it yesterday. Like the Warlock's Ritual of Summoning. It really is fixed. How do like that flasher demon thing? Of course, they also nerfed Arcane Mages a little (more like a love tap, really). Is there anything you found in yesterday's, ah, patch that you found interesting? Since it wasn't a big patch, it didn't come with extensive patch notes. In fact, most of the stuff in there you'll probably have to discover yourself. Kind of like a mini-game. So how are you in this post Patch 3.0.8.9506 world?
Filed under: Patches, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Saiforune Jan 28th 2009 8:08AM
The lag on my server was so terrible we didn't get our tuesday night H. Naxx clear in. =( At one point Azgalor was placed with the "Locked" status for a good thirty minutes and one of our healers was stuck out, because he had disconnected. It seemed that every fight we had three+ people got d/ced. It really sucked. We'll finish it on thursday though. =) Just really stupid beceause they can fix something as retarded as a 2 minute CD on a summon and change icons every time they add a new patch, but they can't fix the instance lag.
rosencratz Jan 28th 2009 8:17AM
"Just really stupid beceause they can fix something as retarded as a 2 minute CD on a summon and change icons every time they add a new patch, but they can't fix the instance lag. "
The only stupid thing here is the assumption that fixing a few bugs in anyway detriments progress in resolving issues in lag or assuming the two things are at all related...
It's not like Blizz began the week with a choice:
A: Fix some class abilities for patch day!
B: Fix lag for patch day!
Life is not that black and white, it is far more sensible to assume the two things are unrelated, handled by entirely different people/departments, is handled simultaneusly and is somewhat more a complex puzzle to solve.
Saiforune Jan 28th 2009 9:02AM
In my opinion, which this all is, I'd rather have the servers to be playable and enjoyable that a slight inconvience that is a 2 minute cooldown on a summoning stone when people could get their selves to the instance and not be lazy. Also, it's not like this is something new. It's be a MASSIVE problem since WoTLK released and they keep making it worse every time they change something the "fix" it.
All they did, at least for my server, was make wintergrasp slightly more bearable, and moved all of that lag to the isntance servers. I'd rather stick with the old icons and such if those developer's time was spent working on fixing my server crashes and the disconencts for half of my raid.
rosencratz Jan 28th 2009 9:17AM
Certainly, I think everyone would agree, having more playable and more enjoyable servers instead of having a mild inconvenience fixed would be everybodies choice.
My point is... that isn't the choice presented to us and probably not even an available choice for Blizz themselves.
So in the mean time mild inconveniences can get resolved whilst big inconveniences are still being worked on.
Again you make the assumption that the devs that work on class abilities are the same team/guys that work on lag issues and that it's a simple case of selecting which issues to fix in a given patch.
The choice between minor fixes and lag fixes is not a scenario that exists and thus it's silly to complain that the wrong choice was made. Everyone will agree with you that lag sucks but your complaint is silly.
kworry Jan 28th 2009 4:56PM
This probably has more to do with the amount of work involved to fix each problem than what they want to do.
You're going to see things like removing a cooldown or an icon change that takes 10 minutes to do more frequently than you'll see resolving a lag issue which could take hundreds of hours and several developers.
Skeleetor Feb 1st 2009 12:33PM
ok, i got to say: Game Developers will not ever work on Networking Administration (networking being the area a Lag issue would be fixed, Lag=poor Server talk time)
We really should't expect game developers to fix networking problems. lol
But Blizz Admins should L2Network
Treeston Jan 28th 2009 8:09AM
Aww well...
If the US servers go by any way similar to the EU servers I play on, the patch broke summoning stones and warlock stones alike for you...atleast that's what it did for us.
I'm typing this while i'm waiting for my raid to arrive at sartharion -.-
Faar Jan 28th 2009 10:09AM
It didn't break summon stones - you can summon people just fine that are in the same sub-zone as the stone itself, lol...
Just summoned a guy in Pit of Narjun to the summon stone in Pit of Narjun. Working as intended! :D
(And in case the internet won't convey the irony originally imbued into this post - yeah, EU summon stones are totally borked. Way to go patching the game, Blizzard...)
Reathren Jan 28th 2009 8:11AM
Well, one thing i noticed is that summoning stones everywhere are now bugged. Cant summon anyone more then a minimap away. They fixed the lock's summong ritual and at the same time broke normal summoning stones -.-
zweitblom Jan 28th 2009 8:56AM
It's Blizz' way of buffing locks - can't have an instance run without them anymore...
Matchu Jan 28th 2009 8:13AM
So let me get this straight. They've patched a patch that was broken in an attempt to fix the 1st patch? But in doing so, this patch (the 2nd one) has inadvertently broken something else: meeting stones?
I give up :(
Ircasha Jan 28th 2009 1:43PM
As s0meone who does software testing for a living, let me state that this type of thing is (having a bug patch introduce more bugs) . . . pretty darn common.
pringle Jan 28th 2009 8:22AM
"most definitely not one of those newfangled patches with bells and whistles and cool new features"
Uhm, lock summon? I could write an entire article on how cool the new lock summoning stone looks! It's even sweeter after a week of being repeatedly asked to summon when the cd is still ticking.
Pfooti Jan 28th 2009 8:39AM
Well, at least howling blast has a real cooldown now. It had a cooldown before, but you had to guess when it was off CD. This way, I get notifications or can look at my icon to see when it's back up. So that's good.
Sterny Feb 6th 2009 10:10PM
Lol they still r total twats for mucking up 3.0.8, and BTW wasn't it called 3.0.8.a not 3.0.8.9506? or does 9506 mean "a" ? lol and BTW almost every1 i know thought a patch was coming lol, no way around it!
Xaveri Jan 28th 2009 8:50AM
There is another change about Mages that was advertised but never came in the last patch. Yesterday I tried to create a Mercurial Stone and I had to go to an Alchemy Lab. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that suppose to be eliminated?
Were the elimination of Alchemy Labs in the final patch notes? I'm not sure where to find the definitive patch notes, since they seem to be changing its contents constantly.
Scott Jan 28th 2009 9:32AM
The change was: You can make flasks anywhere, without an alchemy lab. There was never anything about stones.
Xaveri Jan 28th 2009 12:40PM
I just checked the patch notes and you are absolutely right, my mistake. Thanks for the clarification.
cartman Jan 28th 2009 8:51AM
Fix the lag!!!! Fix the lag!!!!!!!!! Fix the lag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There you got it? No more changes of anything until you FIX THE LAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The game is getting close to unplayable, Heroics are almost funny if it wasn't so sad seeing people dc and jump erratically all around the screen. Must I say it again? you know the lag thing?
Cart
styopa Jan 28th 2009 9:11AM
My guess?
The point at which I've seen the most BRUTAL lag is related to the mounting of the 3-passenger mammoths. Single-passenger (+driver) mounts are bad too.
Anyone who's hotboxed or dual-boxed can tell you that WoW's inter-client player locations are only approximated. Am I following that toon right behind them (my client) or 25 yards behind (other client)? Add in passenger-mounts and suddenly these two players' clients have to coordinate and negotiate a location (or at least the primary has to confirm with the passenger) adding loops to every packet. Add ANOTHER passenger, and you've nearly broken IMO the WoW system with the number of packet loops required almost exceeding the ability of the prediction algorithm to keep up...thus you see lag all over the place.
I'd guess that the persistent warping you see in heroics (where mounts shouldn't be a factor) has to do with changes they made to tighten this code in the first place, requiring tighter position reporting inter-client generally.