Message from J. Allen Brack - Five Free Days of Gametime, Nov 18 Hotfixes

Update: Added today's hotfixes.

2.1.2 PTR Patch Notes, PTR is Now Live!

Goblins vs Gnomes Card Reveal: Anodized Robo Cub, Fel Cannon, Screwjank Clunker

Hero Rotation for November 18

Message from J. Allen Brack
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
WoW Community:

I know how much everyone was looking forward to this expansion, and once you were able to get in and start having fun, all the comments I've seen indicate that this is one of our best yet. But the quality of the content does not excuse the subpar launch experience we delivered, and I apologize for that.

The first two days of the expansion were not a great experience, with many of you facing high queues or significant gameplay problems. We worked around the clock to tackle the demand issues and technical challenges, and fortunately things started looking better on Saturday. While millions of you were able to get in and play over the weekend, with many already reaching level 100, others still ran into very lengthy queues, particularly on the highest-population realms.

To help address this, we’ve expanded the new instancing tech we used to improve queues on Saturday and we’re continuing the process of applying that to raise the capacity of all realms again. This will result in approximately double the prelaunch capacity on each realm, which should greatly reduce queue times for most realms if not eliminate queues altogether.

In recognition of the difficulties so many of you ran into when trying to play over the first few days, we're adding five days’ worth of extra time to every subscription in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe that was active as of Friday, November 14. Things are already in a much better place than they were going into the weekend, so I hope you’ll now be able to focus on having a ton of fun with this expansion.

I also hope you'll accept my apology and keep your faith in us. The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated. We're extremely grateful to be part of such a passionate community. We love World of Warcraft, and we're very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gates like this was very disappointing for all of us.

On behalf of the World of Warcraft development team, as well as everyone at Blizzard, thank you all again for your patience and understanding.

See you in Draenor.

Sincerely,
J. Allen Brack
Executive Producer, World of Warcraft

6.0.3 Hotfixes: November 18
Blizzard is working on a hotfix for Tier 2 Trading Posts not unlocking rep gains with Sha'tari Defense or Laughing Skull.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
  • Fishing Shack: The building should now correctly still provide a bonus while it's under construction.
  • Frostwall Mine: Fixed a number of True Iron Deposits that were spawning inside of pillars and terrain.
  • Mage Tower/Spirit Lodge: Characters under a shapeshifting effect should now be able to use an Ogre Waygate to return to their Garrisons.
  • Outpost, Nagrand: The building bonus for having a Corral should no longer incorrectly dismount Herbalists while harvesting resource nodes.
  • [Requires a realm restart.] Outpost, Spires of Arak: Bonus for the building should now switch correctly when changing buildings for the outpost.
  • Salvage Yard: The building should now correctly still provide a bonus while it's under construction.
  • Followers
    • Followers that are 3 or more levels below the mission level now receive 10% of the mission XP and bonus XP (up from 0%). Additional information on how Followers and mission level affects their XP gain can be found in a forum thread titled Followers and Garrison Missions XP.

Classes
  • Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Balance
      • Empowered Moonkin's clearcasting effect should no longer be incorrectly consumed if it's triggered while the Moonkin is in the middle of casting a spell.
  • Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Talents
      • Comet Storm should now correctly belong to the Frost school and is no longer usable if that school is locked.
  • Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • Talents
      • [Requires a realm restart.] Holy Shield should now correctly deal damage when blocking normal attacks as well.

Quests
  • Bonus Objective: The Forgotten Caves: Gorg the Host should no longer be getting stuck in evade mode.
  • Bonus Objective: The Howling Crag: Further increased the spawn rates of Pale Orcs and Rylak Eggs.
  • For the Children!: Manastorm's Duplicator should now be correctly awarded to characters that complete the quest.
  • Moving In: Characters that abandon the quest should now have an easier time reacquiring the quest and resume their progress on the main quest line.
  • Ogre Diplomacy: Players that have completed Into the Heart of Madness should no longer sometimes be placed into an incorrect phase and be unable to complete the quest.
  • Safety Measures: Increased the spawn rate of bog denizens.
  • Shadowmoon Invasion! is now automatically removed from the character's quest log if they upgrade to a Tier 3 Garrison as this quest is only available for Tier 2 Garrisons.
  • Skimming Off The Top: Increased the drop rates for Volatile Oil.
  • Strike While the Iron is Hot: Blocked off the entrance to the Iron Docks so players won't accidentally wander out of the quest area and wind up getting lost.
  • The Defense of Karabor: Players resurrecting at a graveyard during this quest should no longer be immediately attacked by Iron Horde NPCs.
  • The Iron Wolf: Players should now be able to receive completion credit if they've died and released during the quest.
  • Thunderlord Invasion!: The quest is now automatically removed from the character's quest log if they upgrade to a Tier 3 Garrison as this quest is only available for Tier 2 Garrisons.

Creatures and NPCs
  • Apexis Traders Dawn-Seeker Krek (Alliance) and Dawn-Seeker Alkset (Horde) are now offering Exceptional gear (item level 645) for sale.
    • Developer Commentary: The vendors' offerings were previously tied to the Highmaul raid unlock, but we wanted to make sure that players have useful items to spend their Apexis Crystals on, rather than positioning them exclusively as a catch-up item vendor. The final tier of Flawless gear (item level 655) will now unlock when the Highmaul raid becomes available, rather than when Blackrock Foundry becomes available.
  • Increased the spawn rates for creatures and NPCs in the Skettis Ruins area in Spires of Arak. [Requires a realm restart.] Additionally, resolved an issue where some creatures were incorrectly sharing loot with other players.
  • Grizzled Frostwolf Veteran's icon should no longer persist on the mini map after being defeated.
  • Rangari Jonaa now has a cooldown on their Scatter Shot ability.
  • Rotcap's icon should no longer persist on the mini map after being defeated.
  • Typhon's icon should no longer persist on the mini map after being defeated.

Dungeons, Raids, and Scenarios
  • Characters with Warlords PvP gear that had its secondary item level activated due to being in PvP combat temporarily disqualifies them from queuing for Dungeons and Raid Finder. It can take up to 20 seconds after ending PvP combat before the character will be eligible to queue up normally.
  • Upper Blackrock Spire
    • During the Commander Tharbek encounter, players should no longer be kept in a constant state of combat between waves.

PvP
  • Reverted a hotfix from October 15 that reduced all PvP damage by 25%.
  • Gnomes are now able to increase their reputation with Wrynn's Vanguard.

Items
  • Coil of Sturdy Rope, a Horde quest item should no longer be incorrectly dropping for Alliance characters.
  • Miner's Coffee movement speed buff should now stack correctly with other movement speed buffs.
  • Solium Band rings can now be equipped at level 98 (down from level 100).

Legendary Ring Quest Line and Apexis Crystals
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Here to provide additional clarification on the hotfix note that went out yesterday, November 17.

Quests
  • Draenor's Secret Power: Completion of this quest is now required before being able to move onto the next step of the Legendary quest chain. For characters that skipped this quest, completion of this quest has also been made into a requirement before being eligible for the next upgrade.

This means players that skipped the quest will still have to complete Draenor's Secret Power before being eligible for the next upgrade. That last part wasn't included until now cause I was tunnel visioning on hotfixes and glossed over the supplemental email for the change. Hope this clears any confusion up.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Message from J. Allen Brack - Five Free Days of Gametime started by chaud View original post
Published on 2014-11-18 07:36 PM
201 Comments
Comments 199 Comments
  1. Cruckesmus's Avatar
    My game time ended on this Sunday 16th, i did not sub back yet, but did not receive the 5 days either. I guess its just another lie then? or maybe we will get it like 1 month from now? forcing us to sub back no matter what because were waiting and nothing happens.... Rogue move by Blizzard or just lazy?
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cruckesmus View Post
    My game time ended on this Sunday 16th, i did not sub back yet, but did not receive the 5 days either. I guess its just another lie then? or maybe we will get it like 1 month from now? forcing us to sub back no matter what because were waiting and nothing happens.... Rogue move by Blizzard or just lazy?
    Or how bout just be patient and wait this was only just announced so it takes time something that you seem to not understand.. Sheesh people now days it is all me me me, now now now..
  1. yotus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zell the Stormbreaker View Post
    I’ll look up patience and tolerance, you look up meek compliance. If I took you out to dinner to a steak house, and we were both served shit sandwiches, I’d kick off and demand my fucking steak; all the while, you’d sit and argue that I should pipe down because at least the restaurant was good enough to feed us at all.
    I like your idea of the steak house, but I think you misused it. Here is my version of the story.

    The restaurant is launching a new incredible BBQ sauce that the Chef had in mind for weeks. We go there for the launch and both order juicy steaks with that sauce, but unfortunately the Chef has a heart attack, or anything similar that prevents him from making his secret BBQ sauce, and nobody else in there knows the recipe. What can they do but give us the normal steak sauce and apologies ?

    Sure, the Chef should have made health check-ups 'cause he was getting old, and he should have written the recipe down somewhere. But who could have predicted that he was gonna have a heart attack ? Just. No. One.

    Sure, we are gonna be disappointed because we wanted to try the new thing so badly. Then why don't we come back after a few days when the Chef is back with some medicines, and is able to prepare his incredible sauce again ? That's why I would call patience and tolerance.

    See the analogy here ?

    I don't want you to change your mind (well, I'd hope to, but hey), I want you to understand my point of view, that's it.
  1. Hightotemz's Avatar
    I will take the 2 days of bad launch for how awesome this expansion is so far. Then a smooth launch and end up with a terrible expansions that was cata and MoP.
  1. Joeygiggles's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by lyphe View Post
    Awesome job and really nice/sincere feeling apology.
    Cheers Blizz and for sure my absolute favorite expansion of all so far
    Good thing I told you about this or you would have had no idea
  1. mmoc664e732ce0's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Warrieur View Post
    I honestly have no clue what you're talking about, and your statement in the discussion. Are you happy with the game? Are you happy with the 5 free days game time? Are you playing the game at all?

    Your tekst does not make any sense to someone with my IQ.

    Edit: On a different note, I 100% agree with your post, Stormydawn .
    Okay let me explain it better:

    Some nolifers gave Blizzard money to access the servers. They propably also had to say something positive about it while laughing at other players qqing in the forums.

    Did you also know there is a hidden section in the official forum just for these nolifers to discuss the game? They pretty much spits on their playerbase.

    Do you think im talking bullshit? Propably because you have faith on this company.

    I did not even play WoD. I got it preordered. I only did ERP tho. Pvp is a big failure. Even Smash Bros 4 pvp is much more balanced and i play Ganondorf. Maybe WoD pvp will be fun again. Maybe then i will play it.
  1. notorious98's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by StrayFox View Post
    No it's not, If I like someone I would want them to be happy. It's just human. A ton of companies don't act human, whilst Blizzard does. Calm your pants and just accept the apology, it was a perfect refund for the amount of time people couldn't play and any more would be crazy overcompensation for such a small amount of time unplayed.

    Can't appreciate it? That's great, it's your opinion, but at least accept this apology as something when most other places don't even send one.
    First of all, you're wrong. You can dislike somebody and still want to make them happy. Why? Because it benefits you. For example, as a manager, you could seriously dislike an employee but want to make them happy because they are awesome at what they do and they make you money. Same thing goes for customers. You can dislike customers and still want to make them happy because, once again, they make you money. The problem is that you're assuming they like you and, because of that, they want to make you happy when it doesn't go there. You're their customer and you make them money, so they want to make you happy. Whether they like you or not doesn't make a shit of difference.

    Second, I don't play the game so I don't give a shit if they apologize or not. I already said that nobody was owed anything more than 5 days. However, I also said that it was just adequate. And anything more most certainly wouldn't be "crazy overcompensation". As a former manager at Domino's Pizza, when we pissed off a customer, we didn't just refund them their money. We typically also gave them another pizza or something else for free. Going above and beyond is how businesses thrive. The fact that you don't understand that tells me that you don't know shit about how to run a business.
  1. mmoc93b0a7f85d's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Keile View Post
    I using the average. I know EU pays more due to a recent price hike but the average price throughout the years has been (the equivalent, or close to) $15/mo.
    No that's not what I mean, subs in Asia only pay only a fraction of the sub price overall.
  1. StrayFox's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by notorious98 View Post
    First of all, you're wrong. You can dislike somebody and still want to make them happy. Why? Because it benefits you. For example, as a manager, you could seriously dislike an employee but want to make them happy because they are awesome at what they do and they make you money. Same thing goes for customers. You can dislike customers and still want to make them happy because, once again, they make you money. The problem is that you're assuming they like you and, because of that, they want to make you happy when it doesn't go there. You're their customer and you make them money, so they want to make you happy. Whether they like you or not doesn't make a shit of difference.

    Second, I don't play the game so I don't give a shit if they apologize or not. I already said that nobody was owed anything more than 5 days. However, I also said that it was just adequate. And anything more most certainly wouldn't be "crazy overcompensation". As a former manager at Domino's Pizza, when we pissed off a customer, we didn't just refund them their money. We typically also gave them another pizza or something else for free. Going above and beyond is how businesses thrive. The fact that you don't understand that tells me that you don't know shit about how to run a business.
    You can't please everyone, you being a manager should know this most of all. As you can see most people thought this was a adequate response from Blizzard besides a select few. To me, that's a great success PR stunt or not.

    To compare your pizza to Blizzard's subscription service isn't the best comparison. You can have one bad pizza and think your meal is ruined, most people don't consider a couple bad days worth an entire month of service, including Blizzard. Some people do, but, like I said, you can't please everyone. There is always that one guy who thinks one pizza isn't enough.

    You had 3 out of 30 days supposedly ruined, that's like having one bad bite from an otherwise amazing pizza. Sure you would get a refunded Pizza for that one bite maybe, but to Blizzard the 5 days of refunded time is considered their free pizza. Every business and customer sees the products at different values, you can't compare two different businesses to each other and say Blizzard should have done better when their personal and financial values are different.

    EDIT : Also, keep in mind some people didn't even have any issues playing, would it be smart to give them a free month for having no troubles at all? This was a much larger audience, so using your analogy if Blizzard gave everyone a free month or free pet it is equal to giving 7 million people one free pizza when some of those people had no issues with their pizza at all, It really isn't the smartest business decision, "Mr. Manager".

    EDIT EDIT : Lastly, all this pizza talk is making me hungry, curse you.
  1. Beat5beat's Avatar
    Has anyone actually gotten their free time yet?
  1. azuraji's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zurtle View Post
    Has anyone actually gotten their free time yet?
    Nope they'll probably announce it sometime very soonTM
  1. mmoc587c04fdf3's Avatar
    My account expired yesterday, however I did not received the 5 free days. What now?
  1. yotus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by naturetauren View Post
    Okay let me explain it better:

    Some nolifers gave Blizzard money to access the servers. They propably also had to say something positive about it while laughing at other players qqing in the forums.

    Did you also know there is a hidden section in the official forum just for these nolifers to discuss the game? They pretty much spits on their playerbase.

    Do you think im talking bullshit? Propably because you have faith on this company.

    I did not even play WoD. I got it preordered. I only did ERP tho. Pvp is a big failure. Even Smash Bros 4 pvp is much more balanced and i play Ganondorf. Maybe WoD pvp will be fun again. Maybe then i will play it.
    This is conspiration theory all over again..

    Proof, or it didn't happen !

    EDIT: Please unsubscribe from WoW, stick with Super Smash for PvP and go spread your ideas on the Nintendo forums about "those players who payed Nintendo to get a Mew for their Pokemon collection".
  1. Donald Hellscream's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by naturetauren View Post
    Okay let me explain it better:

    Some nolifers gave Blizzard money to access the servers. They propably also had to say something positive about it while laughing at other players qqing in the forums.

    Did you also know there is a hidden section in the official forum just for these nolifers to discuss the game? They pretty much spits on their playerbase.

    Do you think im talking bullshit? Propably because you have faith on this company.

    I did not even play WoD. I got it preordered. I only did ERP tho. Pvp is a big failure. Even Smash Bros 4 pvp is much more balanced and i play Ganondorf. Maybe WoD pvp will be fun again. Maybe then i will play it.
    What on gods green earth are you rambling about?
  1. mmoc6c8f728a59's Avatar
    Again pvp reduce dmg 25% \???fuu blizz,dmg was fine before now heal are op and prot war no lossing hp anymore feral same..,1shot gone way:???
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by supa12 View Post
    Again pvp reduce dmg 25% \???fuu blizz,dmg was fine before now heal are op and prot war no lossing hp anymore feral same..,1shot gone way:???
    I think you misread. They REMOVED the 25% damage decrease.

    Which makes me think that the last part of your post is just you foaming at the mouth.
  1. mmoc6c8f728a59's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    I think you misread. They REMOVED the 25% damage decrease.

    Which makes me think that the last part of your post is just you foaming at the mouth.
    Yeah u right my bad,but dont need to be rude like ...<.
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by supa12 View Post
    Yeah u right my bad,but dont need to be rude like ...<.
    Quote Originally Posted by supa12 View Post
    fuu blizz
    I don't need to. Sometimes I just reply in the same tone as the quote I'm answering.
  1. mmoc6c8f728a59's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    I don't need to. Sometimes I just reply in the same tone as the quote I'm answering.
    Meh dont be like.. blizz dont feed you,ur parents do.<3
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