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. Osmeric's Avatar
    Five days is more than I expected. Generous of them.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Figured this was going to happen after how terrible WoD's launch was. Surprised they're giving 5 days though; that's nice.
  1. Thursley's Avatar
    It's good to hear the apology and the free time is a nice gesture, but I still don't understand how they allowed things to get this far out of hand. The fact that they're able to double the pre-launch capacity of every realm, within a few days no less, makes it seem like this was an issue that could have been prevented, at least partially. They've been doing this for 10 years now, sheer weight of experience alone means they have to have an idea of what will happen during a launch, yet they keep having the same problems (obviously the DDOS attack stuff is beyond their control, but that's only a part of the story). It's hard to imagine how they could still be this woefully underprepared, but unfortunately that just leaves it being a calculated risk that was deemed to be acceptable, which frankly isn't much better.
  1. Jaded5542's Avatar
    Let me roughly work that out, 5 days game time, around $2.50, SWEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT
  1. Bigcountry11782's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jaded5542 View Post
    Let me roughly work that out, 5 days game time, around $2.50, SWEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT
    times how many people play think about that smart ass.

    - - - Updated - - -

    love how people are bitch tit throwing a fit still even after this.Most companies would not do this.
  1. Howard Moon's Avatar
    Very fair, kudos to Blizz.

    I didn't have ANY issues or queues so far, so these are 5 free bonus days for me hehe. Wooohoo!
  1. Keile's Avatar
    Sooo I just did the math here.

    at $14.99 a month, and a month has on average 30 days (some 31...one 28...using 30 as a nice even number) 5 days of gametime equates to about $2.50 per person that they will not be receiving this month. That may not seem like a lot on a by person basis...but let us look at the bigger picture:

    $2.50 * 7,200,000 (estimate of WoWs current subscription base, based on the last quarter numbers) = $18,000,000 In lost subscription fees due to this incident.

    Assuming I dun did mah maffs right......
  1. Breccia's Avatar
    That's all I needed to hear. Apologizing is not a sign of weakness.
  1. Symmone's Avatar
    This is great!

    I agree that the game content itself is awesome! Im really enjoying myself, but the queue times and lag were just so frustrating.
  1. Faladrath's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Haylzorz View Post
    I figured haha just needed to ask. In total I've lost five days of game play so really happy with the offer.
    How have you lost all 5 days of game play?
  1. Mauth's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Keile View Post
    .....$18,000,000 In lost subscription fees due to this incident.
    Yeah, that's one HUGE "We're sorry". I stand by my previous statement - i'd recommend Blizzard to anyone.
  1. Thursley's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kiele View Post
    Sooo I just did the math here.

    at $14.99 a month, and a month has on average 30 days (some 31...one 28...using 30 as a nice even number) 5 days of gametime equates to about $2.50 per person that they will not be receiving this month. That may not seem like a lot on a by person basis...but let us look at the bigger picture:

    $2.50 * 7,200,000 (estimate of WoWs current subscription base, based on the last quarter numbers) = $18,000,000 In lost subscription fees due to this incident.

    Assuming I dun did mah maffs right......
    Are they actually giving the money back to people though? Or are they extending subscriptions by 5 days? The post says "Adding five days’ worth of extra time to every subscription," which sounds like the latter. If they push back subscriptions by 5 days, as long as you keep paying monthly they aren't losing anything. It's only different if you make use of the LAST 5 days of your subscription, because those are the days you wouldn't have had otherwise. In practice, those last 5 days aren't worth nearly as much as the first few days of an expansion. I'd bet pretty much everyone would happily give up at least that much time at the end of their subscription for a clean launch.
  1. Xisa's Avatar
    I don't really see how they could have handled this any better.

    Kudos.
  1. Keile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thursley View Post
    The real problem isn't the amount of money they're giving back, because they aren't really giving you back anything at all. What's actually changed is they pushed back your subscription by 5 days, right? As long as you keep paying monthly there's no difference. It's only different if you make use of the LAST 5 days of your subscription, because those are the days you wouldn't have had otherwise. In practice, those last 5 days aren't worth nearly as much as the first few days of an expansion. I'd bet pretty much everyone would happily give up at least that much time at the end of their subscription for a clean launch.
    That is still 5 days that you are not paying for. By pushing back the subscription renwal they are still not getting money for those 5 days.

    They lose money from this deal, as I stated above.

    Example: You are due to renew on the 1st of the month...now you renew on the 6th. You paid $14.99 for a month, then go 5 days where you technically aren't paying. Its the same as issuing a refund...without actually issuing the refund. Rather than simply give the money BACK they just added 5 days.

    Basically it is this: Blizzard put a value on a day. That value is $2.50. Now everyone is given 5 of those days for free, even if they are done by pushing back subscription dates.
  1. Eace's Avatar
    How can anyone have a bad word about this? They admitted that the launch wasn't good enough, they apologised, they compensated. And the compensation covers the whole launch up to this day on which the servers are much more stable and playable.

    Well done, Blizzard.
  1. Notos's Avatar
    This type of solution is infinitely easier for their accounting department and is great for the players. It's a win for everyone; gj Blizz!
  1. Thursley's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Keile View Post
    That is still 5 days that you are not paying for. By pushing back the subscription renwal they are still not getting money for those 5 days.

    They lose money from this deal, as I stated above.

    Example: You are due to renew on the 1st of the month...now you renew on the 6th. You paid $14.99 for a month, then go 5 days where you technically aren't paying. Its the same as issuing a refund...without actually issuing the refund. Rather than simply give the money BACK they just added 5 days.
    You get 5 days of access that you don't have to pay for, but as a player who renews monthly that only matters at the end of your subscription, because the rest is continuous. And on the other side, for a company, there's a BIG difference between giving the money back to everyone (which would be really losing it) and delaying renewal fees by 5 days. Especially because plenty of people won't use any of those 5 days that were added to the end of their subscription at all, and even fewer will use them as much as they would have used the time right when the expansion launched.

    Like I said before, it's nice to have an apology and the game time is a fine gesture, but it doesn't answer why things were allowed to get this far out of hand if a fairly good solution (doubling the capacity of every server) was available. It only took a few days to implement, so what was preventing it from being handled before the launch?
  1. mmocf70a06ebec's Avatar
    Amazing! Almost ran out, now i can play a few more days!
  1. Kagoon86's Avatar
    Nice! Class act by Blizz
  1. Raven's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jimlow View Post
    You guys happy now? You got your free days. What am I saying, you guys probably wouldn't be happy with a month of free play time.
    Ofcourse not, some would probably cry even if they got a year free gametime.
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