Breakfast Topic: Patch frequency and you
by Matthew Rossi 
Jun 9th 2011 at 8:00AM
As an old fogey, I see the pluses and minuses to both. When Ulduar dropped, I was very happy; it was a good patch with a good raid. But when the following patch basically not only wiped out Ulduar in terms of raid attendance but also delivered a less satisfying experience, the big downside of content bomb patches was exposed. Smaller patches may not always deliver as much content, but at least we're not forced to wait as long for the next thing.
So how about you? Do you eat your content one bar at a time, or do you wedge the whole thing in your mouth and chew?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Revnah Jun 9th 2011 8:05AM
I was still a fledgling during Wrath, but I know many people were frustrated with the long wait after ICC dropped, and then nothing much happened (apart from ONE new boss in Ruby Sanctum) until Cata. But I think Blizz might be overcompensating for that. I have alts, and I hardly get to play them because my raider main is so busy. Our guild is doing well but we're not a top world-wide guild, we're currently at 8/12 heroic and working on the rest so for me to think of the next raid arriving as early as this month, is a little too soon. I would have been fine to wait until, say, August.
I realise this is a matter of personal opinion and the respective guilds' pace though, but you asked for our 0.02$ and this is mine :-)
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2011 8:09AM
I think it really depends on what the patches contain and how much the game needs the content. I was fine with 4.1 only having the two new Zul'dungeons, because I was still leveling up alts and hadn't run out of things to do. But now that I've got the character I want to try raiding with nearly to 85 (three more bars, w00t), I'm thrilled that 4.2 will be out soon, because it's bringing all kinds of stuff made for level 85.
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 8:19AM
I don't understand this. You're excited because 4.2 will bring new 85 content, but you haven't even touched the current 85 content... I'd feel more panicked that I might miss out on all the great BWD/BoT/T4W content because experienced 85s had lost interest in it already.
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2011 8:26AM
I probably should have been clearer, sorry about that.
I'm more interested in questing than running dungeons or doing raids, which is why I'm looking forward to 4.2 as much as I am. The guild I'm in has talked about raiding, but I've no idea if we'll actually get into it - finding a time that works for us us difficult. But patch 4.2 will help me gear up more easily, so if we do start raiding, it'll be easier.
Hope that makes more sense.
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 8:43AM
Yeah, that clarifies it. :)
DonNochay Jun 9th 2011 10:52AM
@mattkrotzer
You should attempt to post and reply without already having your dagger at the ready to plunge into someone's chest. Seriously.
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 4:28PM
I was confused about his enthusiasm, when there was so much he still hadn't seen. It wasn't like I came here and made a personal attack against a stranger.
That's your thing.
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2011 7:21PM
@ DonNochay -
I didn't take it as a personal attack at all. He said he didn't understand, and stated why. And besides, my reply showed no sign of being upset, which I would have been if he'd acted like you said he was.
Please relax and try not to not be so quick to assume that someone's being hostile. Thank you.
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 8:15AM
Blizzard keeps saying they want smaller, more frequent content patches, but 4.1 was what... almost 6 months? 2 months later, we'll get the first additional raid content, which is 8 months since launch, which is the same timeframe as Ulduar's release.
Sure, 4.1 brought with it some "new" content, but really, this "smaller, faster" release schedule only seems to benefit the most casual of players, as the people who have been clearing raid content for 8 months have no incentive to do Zul'Again. (Thanks go out to whoever it was that gave me that word yesterday. I lol'd.)
8 months between raids isn't faster than the old paradigm, and judging on scale, Firelands only seems to deliver on the "smaller" portion of "smaller, faster." 7 bosses is no Ulduar.
Based on what we've seen of this new strategy, I'll take the old way, thank you very much.
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2011 8:24AM
Your numbers are a bit off. Patch 4.1 dropped on the last week of April, when Cataclysm had been out for nearly five months. MMO-Champion is saying that 4.2 will drop on the 21st, about two weeks after Cataclysm hits the six-month mark.
My raid experience is pretty minimal, so I can't really say whether the content is coming too soon or not soon enough, just wanted to get the dates right. ^_^
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 8:31AM
Okay, to correct myself: Patch 4.1 dropped 5 months and 3 days after launch. Assuming June 21st (roughly) for patch 4.2, it'll be 2 days short of 7 months.
Revnah Jun 9th 2011 8:45AM
Matt, you're still off - how would 21st be "2 days short of 7 months"? Cata dropped on the 7th of December 2010.
Maths: D, sit! ;-)
MattKrotzer Jun 9th 2011 8:51AM
11-23-10 was listed as the date for the Cataclysm patch. I'm bad with dates, so I hit up Wowpedia. You're correct. I mixed up the patch with the launch.
That said... does the minor variance in dates make that much of a difference to my point? Not really.
Tolkfan Jun 9th 2011 8:53AM
I made a graph showing how much time major patches took to release.
http://i.imgur.com/DHTvD.png
Note: the graph is more than a month old. The "today" mark is 26th of april, the release of 4.1. "+4 weeks" is 24th of may and "+8 weeks" is 21st of june.
4.1 took a bit more time than a normal major patch. And if we don't count 4.1 as a major patch, then 4.2 will have a wait time about the same as ruby sanctum :/
We're not getting smaller and faster patches, we're getting smaller and slower patches. It's worse, there's no other way of saying it. I actually belived that they would release 4.1 quickly and that by this time, we'd have 4.2... stupid me.
Puntable Jun 9th 2011 9:55AM
I don't mind if the patch right after an expansion take a while. I can keep busy leveling alts, maxing professions, and getting all the factions to exalted. I would prefer the patches after the first to come faster. Twelve full months of raiding ICC with absolutely nothing else to do? Unacceptable. Why did so many of us stick around?
Donhorn Jun 9th 2011 9:59AM
People seem to forget that 4.1 and 4.2 were originally the same patch. Blizz decided they weren't happy with the state of raiding so they opted to wait on the raid content and only release the dungeon content to help it along, then switch from the content bomb they were planning to the fast and furious content.
This one event I do believe will set the course for the rest of the expac, but it wasn't planned to be that way so that's why there is the long jump from 4.0.0 to 4.1.0 with a short jump to 4.2.0. That's also why 4.1.0 was so content lite, it was originally going to be the extra content in what is now 4.2.0. Now that Blizz has had this change of plans I think they are probably going to be trying to get more content into the smaller chunks than we have already seen. But it is all yet to be seen, and in the words of Rags it is "too soon" off the heals of a flubbed plan quick fix to pass true judgement on how Blizz plans to go about this, because I bet you they still don't 100% know themselves.
Joe Jun 9th 2011 10:21AM
Bottom line is that Blizzard keeps saying, over and over, that they want to do smaller, faster patches (and more frequent expansion packs), but the reality is that their, shall we say, "development culture" simply can't do that. The company is just not structured or conditioned to meet deadlines.
(And that's not just for WoW. I mean seriously, Heart of the Swarm should have come out this year.)
So, expect Blizzard people to keep saying the "smaller, faster" line, but when you hear it, feel free to roll your eyes.
Note: I'm not being critical here. I have no problem with the slow, high-quality release approach. Just pointing out that Blizzard isn't going to change, no matter how much they say they want to.
loop_not_defined Jun 9th 2011 10:23AM
4.2 isn't just a raid. It's a raid + whole new zone. The only patch that compares to it is Sunwell, and Sunwell came at the very end of Burning Crusade.
Personally, I'm hoping 4.3 shows up on the PTRs soon after 4.2.
DonNochay Jun 9th 2011 10:57AM
@loop_not_defined
And then by the time 4.4 is on the PTR/out, we'll be having to get ready for the next expansion?
If this is true, consider the time card that I bought a few days ago not only a mistake, Blizzard, but also the very last one you'll be getting from me.
Sirn Jun 9th 2011 11:04AM
@Tolkfan - I think the key to your chart is that the first patch released in BC was Black Temple. That means with the release of BC, there were 2.5 "tiers" out of raiding:
Kara/maulgar/mag - T4
SSC/TK - T5
Hyjal - T6
This means that at this point in time in the BC patch there were 3 full tiers of raiding available. All major tiered raiding content was available at this time in BC. Sunwell did provide additional raids, but not an additional tier level.