Additional in-game fixes
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 22nd 2009 at 1:00PM
There's been more in-game fixes, besides yesterday's patch 3.1.1 and the long list of bug fixes associated with it.Some of the more interesting changes:
- The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Guardians of Yogg-Saron in phase 1 and Immortal Guardians in phase 3 have had their health reduced by 15% in heroic mode, the Destabilization Matrix cast by Mimiron will now correctly hinder the casting speed of Crusher Tentacles in both normal and heroic modes.
- Players can no longer summon the Black Knight unless you are riding an Argent Warhorse.
- Critical strikes from the Hunter ability Explosive Shot should properly trigger Thrill of the Hunt again.
- The time between Mole Machines spawning in the Razorscale encounter has been slightly increased.
- The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Guardians of Yogg-Saron in phase 1 and Immortal Guardians in phase 3 have had their health reduced by 15% in heroic mode, the Destabilization Matrix cast by Mimiron will now correctly hinder the casting speed of Crusher Tentacles in both normal and heroic modes.
- Psychic Horror will now properly disarm targets at all ranges.
- The Razorscale encounter has received the following changes: the mole machines should now spawn closer together, Razorscale's Fireball damage has been decreased in normal mode only, and Dark Rune Sentinel health has been reduced.
- Players can no longer summon the Black Knight unless you are riding an Argent Warhorse.
- Some of the trash mobs in Ulduar have received the following changes: the Molten Colossus should do less damage in normal mode, the Superheated Winds cast by Magma Ragers should have a smaller radius, and a slightly slower periodic damage, and Faceless Horrors have had their health reduced.
- Freya's Gift will now properly contain Emblems of Valor or Emblems of Conquest as appropriate for the completion of the encounter.
- Kologarn should no longer permanently despawn without being killed.
- Some creatures in the Conservatory of Life have undergone the following changes: the health of Guardian Lashers has been reduced, reduced the number of charges of Elder Stonebark's Petrified Bark ability, the healing of the Forest Swarmer's Pollinate ability has been reduced, the frequency of the Forest Swarmer's Pollinate ability has been increased, the healing of the Misguided Nymph's Bind Life ability has been reduced in heroic mode.
- Ignis the Furnace master has had his melee damage reduced.
- Shadow Mastery and Improved Scorch will no longer stack with each other.
- Critical strikes from the Hunter ability Explosive Shot should properly trigger Thrill of the Hunt again.
Filed under: Patches, Bugs, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Reilloc Apr 22nd 2009 1:07PM
Sweet.
sprout_daddy Apr 22nd 2009 1:07PM
I continue to wonder why all the hotfixes. I don't remember any single period of time with BC where we had this many issues with incremental patches. Has Blizzard changed something in their QC/testing process? Why are so many things slipping through the cracks, I wonder.
Not a big deal, I suppose, but it just makes me wonder.
Jon Do Apr 22nd 2009 1:16PM
Perhaps a bigger deal than you think. As a person who has been in the software business for about 20 years, it looks to me like Blizz has lost a number of key WoW people. After all, in the software business, there is little that working on 4-year-old legacy code does to pad your resume.
In the software business, you don’t release a lot of little incremental patches in this business. It’s just not done (it’s risky, and it hurts consumer confidence). IIRC, Blizz has even expressed that they don’t want to do business with a lot of little patches.
But... following 3.0.8 came 3.0.9 to patch up 3.0.8. Now following 3.1 we have the 3.1.1 patch to 3.1. And 3.1 still has serious issues. Noting that patch 3.1 was also probably at least a month behind schedule based upon the schedule of TBC release and 2.1.
I’ve been playing WoW since vanilla, and I agree that since Wrath / 3.x WoW is in disarray like I’ve never seen.
Bionic Radd Apr 22nd 2009 1:36PM
2.4 had three fairly substantial incremental patches. Vanilla Wow had 12 major patches plus a few incremental patches for those. People keep acting like WoW hasn't changed much since launch, so the patches should go more smoothly, but that isn't the case. Blizzard has consistently pushed the boundaries of what an MMO can be with each expansion and, to some extent, with each patch.
To date, I still think Blizzard's biggest clusterfunk was the AQ launch. Nothing they've done has gone as poorly as that did. Sure, patch day sucks and the month or so following patch day is sketchy as the last of the minor bugs get ironed out, but WoW as a whole is no more or less stable than it ever was. I just think people's memories of vanilla wow are tainted to the point that they don't seem to remember all the zany issues we went through back then.
anonymoose Apr 22nd 2009 1:46PM
Actually SproutDaddy, I remember quite a few problems that imho were show stoppers that weren't addressed. For instance, priests with more than one of the spell power/mp5s gems would only get the mp5s of *one* of the gems. This was at a time when spirit did very little, and priests in general were struggling if they wanted to maintain a healing spec (and many were forced shadow to keep raid spots). So let's say you had 6 of those spell power/mp5s gems socketed--you were only getting the mp5s from one of them.
Instead, what was hotfixed? Rogue stealth animations!
JDM Apr 22nd 2009 1:48PM
"Has Blizzard changed something in their QC/testing process? Why are so many things slipping through the cracks, I wonder."
Well, if you'll notice it all coincided with Activision joining into the fray. Sure, the crappy Activision company promised they'd keep their noses out of WoW... But still, as soon as they joined in, things have gone really sour as far as stability and quality are concerned. IMO this is also partly to blame on the new (Activision-induced) habit of content being released too early. Take the 3.1 patch for a recent example: It went live with a literal ton of bugs... And the 3.1 PTR was even still going after the patch went live - wth? In the past (pre-Activision), Blizzard never released content until they were pleased with the stability of it. Now sure, bugs still showed up, but there's a big difference in 'known bugs' and 'unforseen bugs'.
Lyraat Apr 22nd 2009 1:52PM
As Bionic Radd said, part of the problem is people's memories of classic WoW. We forget the day-to-day annoyances and remember the awesome.
Blizzard probably lost people (to other companies, to the yet-unannounced MMO, wherever), but I dont think personnel turnover is the cause. WoW is enormous and complex. 3.1 is the largest single patch they've ever released. Stuff happens. Deal.
If forced to name a cause, I would blame the PTR. Everything I heard indicated "testers" (and I use that term lightly) joined the PTR solely to learn the new fights. Unless a bug prevented them from completing the fights, they didn't report anything.
AyaJulia Apr 22nd 2009 1:59PM
"It went live with a literal ton of bugs... "
Just a friendly reminder: a "literal" ton of bugs implies that there were REAL insects (roaches, ants, whatever) accompanying 3.1, and that had you weighed them, they would have come to 2000 pounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilvy7Ob6fZ0
Tomah Apr 22nd 2009 6:15PM
They can't hotfix everything, Anonymoose. A lot of things require client-side changes, which do require some level of patching.
Verit Apr 22nd 2009 2:59PM
@Jon Do
Also been in the software industry for over 10 years. I'd say it depends who the customer is. I used to work in maintainence engineering for a rather big product (that everyone here has heard of) where we fixed critical issues for large customers weekly.
Most people only got the patch every fiscal quarter.
I kinda wish they fixed some of the issues in Malygos - which hasn't been touched it seems (example, anti-magic shield not working, or him coming down to melee us in phase 2). I've wiped on him because of glitches and bugs than any other boss since molten core (worse thing that used to happen to us there was falling through the map).
Firiel Apr 22nd 2009 3:16PM
If you think the WoW patch was bad, you guys should go over to the Warhammer boards. Their patch last week was a total disaster.
I appreciate Blizzard all the more after seeing that clusterf*&^...
Arashikou Apr 22nd 2009 4:54PM
This is probably also at least partially due to the way they tested the encounters. Note that the vast majority of these hotfix issues are tweaks to balancing or design in Ulduar. They didn't let everyone test the entire instance on the PTRs. Testing was limited in both time and scope and was done via a new system that Blizz was just as unfamiliar with as us. Ergo, it stands to reason there would be some kinks in getting good data out of the testing that was done and some bugs and/or balance issues would slip through that might otherwise have been fixed.
Incidentally - has anyone else noticed that the range of things Blizz can hotfix without a patch has gone up lately? I mean, buff stacking issues used to take a client patch to resolve - now apparently Blizz can fix them in a heartbeat.
Jon Do Apr 22nd 2009 1:07PM
Though apparently Talents are still messed up for some.
And Wintergrasp vehicles are bugged, making it pretty much unwinnable for Alliance.
So brace for 3.1.2, next Tuesday...
Keyra Apr 22nd 2009 1:41PM
With another talent reset.
At least I hope.
I made a major goof but don't want to spend the gold to get it fixed...yet. I'll give it a week.
FenSat Apr 22nd 2009 1:49PM
The Wintergrasp issue for the Alliance right now is serious enough that I would have thought by now to see an article on WoWInsider on it.
For those that don't know, the vehicle counter apparently isn't resetting for the Alliance when a vehicle is destroyed. The result is that, after the initial allotment is destroyed, you cannot create anymore vehicles unless, apparently, the Alliance loses and then regains a workshop, allowing them to make a paltry four vehicles which, once again, do not drop off the counter when they are destroyed.
But...please, for the love of god, no free respec next patch, please! I hate...and I mean HATED,..the "free" respec this week and don't want to see another one for as long as possible. Having to respec multiple dual-spec characters isn't my idea of how to spend a good chunk of time.
Krick Apr 22nd 2009 2:31PM
That's ok, Alliance can cheat at Wintergrasp by going through a wall, so it all balances out.
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
Verit Apr 22nd 2009 3:04PM
@Krick...
I've seen (and have screenshots) of the horde doing it too... Don't act like all players on the horde (or alliance) are goody goody and wouldn't dream of cheating.
I've run into the vehicle bug the other day - wasn't sure what was wrong sadly, but we still won :).
snowleopard233 Apr 22nd 2009 1:10PM
I still have a mustache...
h8rain Apr 22nd 2009 1:16PM
"Working as intended".
I for you think it's hilarious. Blizzard can take their time fixing it, in my opinion.
Mattimus Apr 22nd 2009 1:14PM
They also screwed up the Argent War Horn. The Argent person who shows up is no longer restricted by your faction (in fact, most people are claiming that *only* the male Blood Elf will appear now), and they don't bubblehearth when they're finished.
Seriously, what reason or effect could possibly have caused this?