Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[Softbottom]

You must be incredibly new, how about not being about to log in for over a week???? And when you do log in it crashes this going on for another week.

I've played since launch. I should have been more clear in what I wrote; I should have said most recent rollout Legion just launched so smoothly compared to this.

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You must be fairly new. Tuesday was minor considering days past.
- Wrath launch servers were down for a week. It also had a patch resulting in the infamous Corrupted Blood incident in which the government ended up studying to determine how the world would fair in an actual epidemic.
- Cata had servers going down off and on for at least a week. There were actual lines out of the class trainer buildings, though I can't actually remember why we had to do that now. And then nonstop bottlenecks during leveling that resulted in an experience of doing nothing but standing around waiting on mob spawns.
- MoP launch had smooth transition for servers, but had all of us bottlenecked onto a boat trying to complete a vehicle quest where all of us shared the same targets before we could even try to begin the actual expansion.
- WoD Pre-Patch broke class balance so bad that some pure dps classes couldn't even beat healers until Blizz hotfixed it temporarily until launch day. Then the actual launch was downright unplayable. To the point Morheim ended up apologizing about it at Blizzcon.
- Legion was the first time I've seen a legitimately smooth launch.
- BfA Pre-Patch was down for a day, not even a whole day. I'd say so far it hardly compares to the disasters of the past.

Now, I'm going to add, that while I don't necessarily dislike BfA, nothing about it has impressed me. The questing is good enough, but I'm anticipating a boring endgame unless they've got something big up their sleeve that isn't on the beta.

I've played since launch. I should have been more clear in what I wrote; I should have said most recent rollout; Legion just launched so smoothly compared to this.

[Scrysis]

But nothing is playable, so we can't know for sure it isn't buggy. All the login issues, game crashes, stuff not working will all appear on launch, not on the pre-patch where everything exists but not available.
Stating that BfA is smooth because the pre-patch only had a few bugs, it's a bit anticipating the overall mess that there will be next month.

Never stated that it wasn't buggy -- we've already seen that it has bugs that are being fixed. I was refuting your point where you say that the BFA pre-patch is minor and contains no content.

You're not going to get any agreement from me -- I still remember when servers were down for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and each and every single patch meant that you didn't get to play until middle of the afternoon on the following day (if lucky). Most patches go down without a hitch nowadays, and even this one was pretty quickly rectified.

[maccajoe]

I've played since launch. I should have been more clear in what I wrote; I should have said most recent rollout Legion just launched so smoothly compared to this.

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I've played since launch. I should have been more clear in what I wrote; I should have said most recent rollout; Legion just launched so smoothly compared to this.

Well considering the most recent launch was Legion. Anything less would have been worse as its only been one xpac difference. Its the worst launch in 2 xpacs but prolly still the third or second best overall.

[VekniDarkIron]

Most code nowadays is auto coded anyway, much more efficient than hand-writing due to the high risk of human error.

Ummm..... Where do you work that most coding is automated?

don’t think even 5% of beta players are software engineers... excluding myself; I’m more automotive.

Ah, got it, you don't work in tech (which was obvious).

No, coding is still VERY hands on. Perhaps you've confused development tools (which require tons of hand coding to make!) with coding, an easy mistake for a know nothing amateur to make.

[Zoldor]

I miss watching legendary? on gamebreaker back in the day

I just loved the Tankspot videos he did and the weekly Marmot. Always enjoyed Lore, not exactly sure why, but his videos were pleasant and I liked his view on the game and raiding.

[Onikaroshi]

I just loved the Tankspot videos he did and the weekly Marmot. Always enjoyed Lore, not exactly sure why, but his videos were pleasant and I liked his view on the game and raiding.

And now he has no soul and his hair is far too tame

[Kangumosa]

Ummm..... Where do you work that most coding is automated?



Ah, got it, you don't work in tech (which was obvious).

No, coding is still VERY hands on. Perhaps you've confused development tools (which require tons of hand coding to make!) with coding, an easy mistake for a know nothing amateur to make.

If you read my whole post, amature coder mistake not reviewing the whole code, I said I work in the automotive industry.

[Zoldor]

And now he has no soul and his hair is far too tame

I know right. Let them curly locks go free my brother!

[ejpaints]

Comparing major updates (Wrath, Cata and MoP) to an extremely minor patch (BfA pre-patch doesn't add anything, no area, no new item, no dungeon, no questline, NOT EVEN A FREAKING PRE-PATCH EVENT, nothing, only stat squish and talent reshuffling, aka your random 7.X.X.XXXX patch), done

Edit : to be completely fair, this patch looks more like a 7.3.6 than a BfA "pre-patch", as we don't have access to anything "BfA-esque". That's a joke. Pre-patch usually comes with Pre-patch features.

Thank you for illustrating that you don't understand what a pre-patch actually is. The class changes went into effect. The "event" starts on the 24th. They gave themselves a week to fix bugs before the event actually starts. Burning of Teldrassil is on Tuesday. Then at some point over the next few weeks we will essentially fight the same battle in the BfA cinematic from your faction's perspective.

[VekniDarkIron]

If you read my whole post, amature coder mistake not reviewing the whole code, I said I work in the automotive industry.

If you read my post, including WHAT YOU QUOTED, you'd see I acknowledged that you don't work in tech.... Which was obvious by how incredibly ignorant your "automated coding" suggestion was and then amplified by your inability to properly read a short response in simple English.

So, are you going to shut up and learn a lesson or make another stupid comment? "Automated coding" wow just wow the ignorance.

[Kayze]

Most code nowadays is auto coded anyway, much more efficient than hand-writing due to the high risk of human error.
The main priority is robustness of your code, does it run correctly, does it hang in certain scenarios, have you revised every single scenario of which the code can be operated. Following a structured process will generate robust code, ultimately, reducing debugging to a minimal, testing will always be viable to validate your code, but debugging can be massively reduced.

I think Blizzards main issue is not testing every scenario, they leave that up to the GP via Alpha/Beta testing and assuming they will report these issues, with such detail to build a debugging plan. But I’d imagine the GP are using the Beta for a pre-expansion experience, don’t think even 5% of beta players are software engineers... excluding myself; I’m more automotive and my beta playtime is circa 2 hours.

What do you mean by auto-coded? Higher level programming languages and the use of libraries isn't exactly auto-coding, since while they help remove some tediousness they still require hand written code... They likely have toolsets that allow Game Designers add their own basic quest and narratives but new and revised features still require hand written code. Dealing with something as large and old as WoW's codebase with questionable programming practices (like lack of database normalization) and dealing with such a huge dataset are likely the reasons it's prone to problems regardless of how organized they try to be now and whatever new systems they create. They've definitely improved from launches in the past but it's not likely to be fixable without a new codebase with best practices at the start.

As for scenarios, they can only test so many themselves in a game as large as WoW. Writing tests can be specific to what they're building now but hard to catch how it affect previous systems entirely. The whole time during Alpha and Beta they were still putting together content. Their team size means they can do a lot more but it doesn't mean development itself faster. The valid criticism is when they neglect feedback/bug reports provided to them, which happens a lot. Some reasonable (they get thousands of reports that are misconceptions or minor) while some are obviously high priority (game breaking).

It's a combination of codebase, server processes, dataset and other things put in place to handle load/maintenance (like con jobs and caching) which is easier on a smaller freshly populated environment and harder on a pre-existing mega size environment. The fact it was only communities that did the main instability issue is quite amazing in itself.

[Kangumosa]

If you read my post, including WHAT YOU QUOTED, you'd see I acknowledged that you don't work in tech.... Which was obvious by how incredibly ignorant your "automated coding" suggestion was and then amplified by your inability to properly read a short response in simple English.

So, are you going to shut up and learn a lesson or make another stupid comment? "Automated coding" wow just wow the ignorance.

No need to get triggered, just because you work inefficiently doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to.

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What do you mean by auto-coded? Higher level programming languages and the use of libraries isn't exactly auto-coding, since while they help remove some tediousness they still require hand written code... They likely have toolsets that allow Game Designers add their own basic quest and narratives but new and revised features still require hand written code. Dealing with something as large and old as WoW's codebase with questionable programming practices (like lack of database normalization) and dealing with such a huge dataset are likely the reasons it's prone to problems regardless of how organized they try to be now and whatever new systems they create. They've definitely improved from launches in the past but it's not likely to be fixable without a new codebase with best practices at the start.

As for scenarios, they can only test so many themselves in a game as large as WoW. Writing tests can be specific to what they're building now but hard to catch how it affect previous systems entirely. The whole time during Alpha and Beta they were still putting together content. Their team size means they can do a lot more but it doesn't mean development itself faster. The valid criticism is when they neglect feedback/bug reports provided to them, which happens a lot. Some reasonable (they get thousands of reports that are misconceptions or minor) while some are obviously high priority (game breaking).

It's a combination of codebase, server processes, dataset and other things put in place to handle load/maintenance (like con jobs and caching) which is easier on a smaller freshly populated environment and harder on a pre-existing mega size environment. The fact it was only communities that did the main instability issue is quite amazing in itself.

Yeah, something as large as WoW must be an absolute pain to review, and that’s fair, how can you test something which is updated constantly... you won’t have enough time, I guess this goes back to making your code as robust as possible to minimalist the ball ache, thanks for the information, was beneficial for myself unlike the above comment

[Turin777]

The stat squish bullet points play out like a person suggesting to himself that there should be a level squish, then talking himself out of it. weird.

[VekniDarkIron]

No need to get triggered, just because you work inefficiently doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to.

Why am I not surprised that you bungled something AGAIN.

thanks for the information, was beneficial for myself unlike the above comment

No, it was beneficial, you're just too stupid to comprehend it which is why you work on primitive technology. Get back to torquing lug nuts and stop posting about things you're clueless about. AUTOMATED CODING OH. MY. GOD