How is it possible for a company as big as Blizzard to still mess up this bad?

[babyback]

Compared to any other online game with millions of users and the same server structure etc Blizzard games are far and beyond better than their competition.

Just look at Bless Online as the most recent example. Much less users and a horrible launch.

[Icoblablubb]

swtor with like a 10th if not even less than WoW playerbase the only game which is somewhat competitive is FF14 and well its not on your top 5 list ... GW2 just naming HOT disaster .. Warframe LUL the Divison did u play the game when it launched and when the first big patch came? you are naming 5 random games which have nowhere near the playerbase and not the problem with old legacy code which they have to deal with ... i love when forum devs open a thread when they have actual no idea what they even complain about

[Lochton]

SWTOR had several major patches and expansions that went through smoothly.

Yes, and a shit ton of others that didn't go smoothly.

[Eleccybubb]

Compared to any other online game with millions of users and the same server structure etc Blizzard games are far and beyond better than their competition.

Just look at Bless Online as the most recent example. Much less users and a horrible launch.

Bless, Wildstar, Rift, FF14 (in some cases), GW2, ESO and so on.

Just a list of MMOs that have had their fair share of launch/patch issues.

[Lochton]

swtor with like a 10th if not even less than WoW playerbase the only game which is somewhat competitive is FF14 and well its not on your top 5 list ... GW2 just naming HOT disaster .. Warframe LUL the Divison did u play the game when it launched and when the first big patch came? you are naming 5 random games which have nowhere near the playerbase and not the problem with old legacy code which they have to deal with ... i love when forum devs open a thread when they have actual no idea what they even complain about

Forum dev?

[Eleccybubb]

Forum dev?

Basically those devs who because they work in the business and think of themselves as the sparkling unicorn who is never wrong in a discussion. Basically no intent to discuss rather than get their point across how "they are in the business but it never happens for them".

Least I think that's what Ico meant.

[Lochton]

Everything works on my end, whats wrong?

Honestly, on my side I have yet to experience anything going wrong. There was the update of guild leader tools, wasn't a bug, was just a good surprise. Then there was a part that managed to make the game much smoother for me - hope that ain't a bug. I have yet to experience any problems. Of course, communities not being available is a sad thing..

- - - Updated - - -

Basically those devs who because they work in the business think their opinion has more worth than anyone else's and have no interest in discussion.

Least I think that's what Ico meant.

Oh, @Icoblablubb , you think the OP is a forum dev? Just curious.

[rda]

Whatever happened to "When it's ready" and pushing back deadlines to ensure this?

They are reducing effort spent on WoW. This started in WoD, continued in Legion and continues in BFA. Quality suffers (as does quantity).

[Deleted]

I work in soft dev and we have a pre-production that's a copy paste of our production environment, it's why we call it pre-prod.

When we have glaring issues on prod deployments it's only because our boss is retarded and makes us commit changes and deploy withour our QAs having time to test properly or our devs having time to implement a well thought out fix, instead we just patch shit left and right.

Is it a huge system/db? Not sure how feasible it is for them to copy over some servers and then start testing left and right. Simply put there's no way they have enough testers at every major patch, to cover the different activities millions of players do.

[Lochton]

Bless, Wildstar, Rift, FF14 (in some cases), GW2, ESO and so on.

Just a list of MMOs that have had their fair share of launch/patch issues.

Let us not compare Final Fantasy in this topic? They are way of the chart. Their product had to die, and relaunch to solve their major issues..

[Logwyn]

Companies get bloated and become inefficient all the time. Same thing with all large groups/organizations. The Peter Principle comes into effect to where people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence.

These factors are why. Plus Blizzard seems to think there is some gaming gods that will come out of the sky if they don't "if we did X then we'd have to do Y also".

I just have a feeling that development for WOW is ran in a number of teams working on something not in tandem with each other except when the team leaders get together for a leader meeting. Then they weight cost of redoing it versus is it really that bad a thing to just do it in dollars.

Like the GUI....WHY oh WHY did they do this? There was no need......This is a pet peeve of mine in software development. Developers seem to want to change the GUI and/or Icons every other update. WHY?!?!?! There was nothing wrong with it to begin with!!! And not give the user a way to revert back to the old GUI/Icons if they want. Its a case of we did something just to say we did something..

I bet Blizzard falls into this category a great deal. Plus they've never been good at pushing out content even as far back as Warcraft or Diablo.

[Deleted]

I work in soft dev and we have a pre-production that's a copy paste of our production environment, it's why we call it pre-prod.

When we have glaring issues on prod deployments it's only because our boss is retarded and makes us commit changes and deploy withour our QAs having time to test properly or our devs having time to implement a well thought out fix, instead we just patch shit left and right.

If your pre-production is a copy paste of your production, you're doing it wrong.

[caervek]

How is it possible for a company as big as Blizzard to still mess up this bad?

They're Successful.

"Success is menace it fools smart people into thinking that they cant lose"

[Izzyfurious]

Companies get bloated and become inefficient all the time. Same thing with all large groups/organizations. The Peter Principle comes into effect to where people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence.

These factors are why. Plus Blizzard seems to think there is some gaming gods that will come out of the sky if they don't "if we did X then we'd have to do Y also".

I just have a feeling that development for WOW is ran in a number of teams working on something not in tandem with each other except when the team leaders get together for a leader meeting. Then they weight cost of redoing it versus is it really that bad a thing to just do it in dollars.

Like the GUI....WHY oh WHY did they do this? There was no need......This is a pet peeve of mine in software development. Developers seem to want to change the GUI and/or Icons every other update. WHY?!?!?! There was nothing wrong with it to begin with!!! And not give the user a way to revert back to the old GUI/Icons if they want. Its a case of we did something just to say we did something..

I bet Blizzard falls into this category a great deal. Plus they've never been good at pushing out content even as far back as Warcraft or Diablo.

They pushed out content at a much greater pace after legion had released, and they do this today too. You obviously are mis-guided af or did not play Legion.

[rda]

Is it a huge system/db? Not sure how feasible it is for them to copy over some servers and then start testing left and right. Simply put there's no way they have enough testers at every major patch, to cover the different activities millions of players do.

If you want to stress test, you use bots (not the usual ones, but the idea is the same: automated players).

[Eleccybubb]

They pushed out content at a much greater pace after legion had released, and they do this today too. You obviously are mis-guided af or did not play Legion.

That greater pace is a bit of a gimmick though.

The major patches no longer open the raid and instead open in the .5 patches. Which gives them a bit more time to get it ready.

So they did sacrifice something for that speed.

[ukxenon]

everquest the king of mmorpgs had some HUGE issues on patch days and expansions

[RobertoCarlos]

And apparently Blizzard DIDN'T have a ton of testers. They were in short supply of people at lvl 120 to test certain things.

Can you blame them? Blizzard doesnt even listen to their feedback even when its written well, they will say its too wordy. Put in pictures and then they say its too emotional, You cant win with them. Im not surprised people gave up testing for free when it goes ignored.

[haxartus]

They are reducing effort spent on WoW. This started in WoD, continued in Legion and continues in BFA. Quality suffers (as does quantity).

Exactly. They are giving up on the game, but they are doing it gradually so the players don't panic.

It has been extremely obvious, I just don't get why people can't accept this. There is a huge drop of quality of pretty much everything that has been done for the game, compared to TBC/Wrath days.

Legion didn't even have much content. They were just smart in making the players repeat the same things over and over again, while players thought it was their idea to do so "legendaries/pity timer/etc".

[TriggeredKid]

Name me one other company that doesn't.

It's a huge patch. Issues occur.

FF14- Current expansion had server instance issues being flooded for quests to the point some servers had to form a line. Servers were even on lockdown due to congestion.

Wildstar- Complete and utter bugged mess on launch.

Rift- Let's not even go there.

GW2- Heart of Thorns had it's fair share of issues come launch day.

The point is there will always be issues no matter what when it comes to a major launch day/big patch.

cant really justify how it sa big patch, they're ballsy enough to launch all expac regions at once and this small patch compared to that went into the shitter