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

Update: Added today's hotfixes.

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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. Aurora's Avatar
    Well done to Blizzard and they've done the right thing with an apology and compensation for a very poor launch. It appeared as if they were attempting to shrug accountability for a while but in taking responsibility they'll have reassured a lot of people for future Blizzard launches.
  1. Zokten's Avatar
    Always shows how blizzard gets a free pass with some game time and a sorry, while other companies (new or old) get reamed when doing the same.
  1. Conscious's Avatar
    And that's how you know they've been hit right in the numbers with this botched launch.
  1. Kraenen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zokten View Post
    Always shows how blizzard gets a free pass with some game time and a sorry, while other companies (new or old) get reamed when doing the same.
    I could see some complaints if you just got a sorry. But game time is translatable to getting a refund, which I think is appropriate if you were unable to access the game.
  1. Zokten's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Raybourne View Post
    I could see some complaints if you just got a sorry. But game time is translatable to getting a refund, which I think is appropriate if you were unable to access the game.
    Game time is not even close to a refund.
  1. shoooter's Avatar
    When you view all this from the perspective that they only have to credit us roughly $2.50 of game time, all the complaining seems a little silly.
  1. Zoaric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zokten View Post
    Game time is not even close to a refund.
    You'd prefer the approximately $2.50 USD that translates into?
  1. Heladys's Avatar
    Unnecessary, but classy and appreciated.
  1. Kruncholyo's Avatar
    Popped into my head when I saw the guy's name:

  1. Zokten's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zoaric View Post
    you'd prefer the approximately $2.50 usd that translates into?
    **whoosh**
  1. Kraenen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zokten View Post
    Game time is not even close to a refund.
    Your game time was unable to be used (which you paid for), so they gave you equivalent (or close to equivalent) game time. That sounds close to a refund to me.
  1. Christhammer's Avatar
    Game is not fixed yet though. Serious garrison and quest bugs today. No fix or update from Blizzard yet.
  1. shibolena's Avatar
    to my memory, they have not done this since vanilla wow. So yeah, it's proof that this launch is one of the biggest fuckups they've ever done. no matter your opinion on the lore, gameplay, etc. it all means jackshit when you can't play the fucking game. Because guess what motherfuckers. pandas may suck, but I could play mysts. But nope, all the blizzard fanboys will defend them still. Why? Because they love them, think people like metzen is their "friend" in real life, and in the end it's a fucking battered house wife syndrome. I still like starcraft 2. And assuming they don't fuck up it's launch like this, I'll play it and enjoy if the writing doesn't suck. But yeah, it just amazes me that people can still defend them after this. They're one of the biggest video game companies on the planet that charges premium for their games. Fuck having "mercy" on them. I'm paying them. If they fucked up, the buck has to stop somewhere.

    And for the record, warlord's lore still sucks ass. And if metzen wrote it, fuck him. Really don't care how nice he is in real life. After all, james cameron is a asshole in real life, but I love his movies. warlords is truly nothing but cheap nostalgia crap for a audience afraid of anything new, when warcraft III was all about having new stuff(could anyone have really predicted the burning legion before warcraft III?). I really do miss that. But I am alone, as always. Because all you fuckers are happy with this shit.
  1. Alextros's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Christhammer View Post
    Game is not fixed yet though. Serious garrison and quest bugs today. No fix or update from Blizzard yet.
    Garrisons is the instance servers that time out. And tbh, it aint that bad anymore in my opinion. Quest bugs will there always be at launch, aint much to do about them.

    Quote Originally Posted by shibolena View Post
    to my memory, they have not done this since vanilla wow. So yeah, it's proof that this launch is one of the biggest fuckups they've ever done. no matter your opinion on the lore, gameplay, etc. it all means jackshit when you can't play the fucking game. Because guess what motherfuckers. pandas may suck, but I could play mysts. But nope, all the blizzard fanboys will defend them still. Why? Because they love them, think people like metzen is their "friend" in real life, and in the end it's a fucking battered house wife syndrome. I still like starcraft 2. And assuming they don't fuck up it's launch like this, I'll play it and enjoy if the writing doesn't suck. But yeah, it just amazes me that people can still defend them after this. They're one of the biggest video game companies on the planet that charges premium for their games. Fuck having "mercy" on them. I'm paying them. If they fucked up, the buck has to stop somewhere.

    And for the record, warlord's lore still sucks ass. And if metzen wrote it, fuck him. Really don't care how nice he is in real life. After all, james cameron is a asshole in real life, but I love his movies. warlords is truly nothing but cheap nostalgia crap for a audience afraid of anything new, when warcraft III was all about having new stuff(could anyone have really predicted the burning legion before warcraft III?). I really do miss that. But I am alone, as always. Because all you fuckers are happy with this shit.
    Yet we are all still humans, right? And with humans comes mistakes. Might be huge, might be minor. In any case, they always show up.
  1. Anetulan's Avatar
    Five days is really nice, especially considering I haven't had any major problems since Saturday, though I know others are less lucky than me. Yes, they did make mistakes, but there's no doubt they've been doing everything they could to fix them since the launch, and they've given me more than enough game time to make up for the problems. So yes, apology accepted, and thank you very much.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by shibolena View Post
    Because all you fuckers are happy with this shit.
    Talk about ranting without actually having a single thing worth saying whilst also butchering the language with swears because you're very angry for some reason.

    Also, Pandaria WAS something new so I wouldn't expect them to try something like that ever again. Partly because people like yourself are so shallow that you make an expansion that's been about conflict and destruction with solid gameplay out to be about "pandas". I remember a lot from MoP besides Pandaren.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Zokten View Post
    Game time is not even close to a refund.
    You have "lost" game time, 5 days of game time = 5 extra day when you don't have to pay to access the game. How is this not a refund? What would YOU consider a refund? That they pay you back 3 months worth of gametime + the cost of the expansion and still allow you access? Because I saw someone want that on the official forums.

    Please...this is a refund for what has been lost due to their problems. They're not also accounting for psychological scars in people that might just have taken the rage over being unable to play a bit too far.
  1. Deathquoi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by shibolena View Post
    to my memory, they have not done this since vanilla wow. So yeah, it's proof that this launch is one of the biggest fuckups they've ever done. no matter your opinion on the lore, gameplay, etc. it all means jackshit when you can't play the fucking game. Because guess what motherfuckers. pandas may suck, but I could play mysts. But nope, all the blizzard fanboys will defend them still. Why? Because they love them, think people like metzen is their "friend" in real life, and in the end it's a fucking battered house wife syndrome. I still like starcraft 2. And assuming they don't fuck up it's launch like this, I'll play it and enjoy if the writing doesn't suck. But yeah, it just amazes me that people can still defend them after this. They're one of the biggest video game companies on the planet that charges premium for their games. Fuck having "mercy" on them. I'm paying them. If they fucked up, the buck has to stop somewhere.

    And for the record, warlord's lore still sucks ass. And if metzen wrote it, fuck him. Really don't care how nice he is in real life. After all, james cameron is a asshole in real life, but I love his movies. warlords is truly nothing but cheap nostalgia crap for a audience afraid of anything new, when warcraft III was all about having new stuff(could anyone have really predicted the burning legion before warcraft III?). I really do miss that. But I am alone, as always. Because all you fuckers are happy with this shit.
    Sorry that I think the expansion is fun and interesting? Jesus Christ, relax, dude.
  1. Kuja's Avatar
    You're trying to bribe me? It's working! Apology accepted
  1. stariv's Avatar
    5 days is sufficient, I think a free pet from blizzard store in addition to the game time would be reasonable
  1. Prag's Avatar
    5 days is very generous, considering I was able to fully play without issue starting on Saturday. I think the only thing they could do to improve upon this would be to expedite the free character moves for realms that are still locked.
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