Coronavirus and Shadowlands?

[ercarp]

The virus isn't going to affect the development of the expansion. 99% of the work at Blizzard can be done remotely.

[Wyattbw09]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

This is not a function of needing a excuse. This is a function of the fact that when people get bored they unsub. It's as simple as that. They don't need a excuse to delay Shadowlands. They need to give people are reason to not unsubscribe.

[Zarvel]

Starting to roll out such a change to your IT infrastructure does not mean it will work flawlessly from the beginning or it won't impact productivity at all. All it means is that they start working like that now. I also don't want to be the poor fucks in the IT departments who have to make this all a reality.. though chances are they have a contractor for that anyway.

You don't have to white knight all of your opinions. Sometimes you can be wrong, just leave it at that.
It's a no brainer that it won't work flawlessly when you WFH compared to when you're on-site, no matter what aspect of the company you're a part of. And you give the IT teams of AAA companies too little credit. At least from my own experience, the EA IT teams across the world have been on top of the WFH situation across all locations since the moment their china site got hit hard, and that was in the first couple weeks of corona. They rolled out the mandatory WFH just this week, they had plenty of time to make sure people had what they needed to work without hiccups.

VPN's - check
Company Laptops and peripherals - check
Company Workstations moved to employee homes where needed - check
On-site support - check

Not the cleanest transition. Yes. Hard? No.

[Monster Hunter]

Goal is to flatten the curve, so maximum won't go beyond healthcare capacity.

Yea. That's what I said, though might not have come across.

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Im not saying this to try to scare you or anyone, but its absolutely moronic whats happening in the UK. Italy is now at the point where they have to let eveyrone over 60 fend for themselves because they simply don't have enough mediacal supply like oxygen. They have to let old people die to save younger patients. Doctors work 20 hours straight day after day, they can't seperate corona patients from regular patients due to no more room. Uk is probably 3-4 weeks behind italy in testing. And you lot still go on football matches, pubs and continuing regular lives ? In little shitty semi desolate Norway we went from 1 infected to over 1000 in like 2 weeks Norwegians are known to keep their distance from others. I don't even dear to think about the real numbers in UK, its probably past Italy at this point

And for the rest of this thread. Corona may very well delay Shadowlands by a lot. Its a rather series situation we are in. Most of Europe is in complete lockdown, this shit is rather serious and a game delay is the absolute least of what you should worry about

Yea I agree the government's response is too slow and the measures there taking arn't enough.

Football is canceled but rugby isn't, each body has been kid of left to make there own choices, one of our clubs games was canceled today because a player in the opposition has it so that club canceled all of its games.

But it is amature low level rugby I played so we didn't exactly draw crowds, and the pub is the old local where there is just a handful of regulars.

Till the goverment steps up its game here and relief alot of these small buissness are really starting to struggle financially. They still need to make rent, pay there buissness taxes and staff so atm were in the worst situation, apathetic goverment and panicky population left to make up its own mind.

[Nyel]

Even if their offices were closed down they would still be able to work from home, so it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

This isn't the case though. Even if you can work from home that doesn't mean you're able to do 100% as used to. This will absolutely affect Shadowlands and might even offer a reason to delay it until 2021 if they deem it necessary.

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The virus isn't going to affect the development of the expansion. 99% of the work at Blizzard can be done remotely.

It's affecting each and everyone, to think this will have no effect is very shortsighted.

[THEORACLE64]

This isn't the case though. Even if you can work from home that doesn't mean you're able to do 100% as used to. This will absolutely affect Shadowlands and might even offer a reason to delay it until 2021 if they deem it necessary.

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It's affecting each and everyone, to think this will have no effect is very shortsighted.

Depends on the tools they use. It's not hard to communicate from home, it's also not hard to continue working on the things you were working on i.e. coding, models, world design. It just requires more communication and more planning from the people running those teams - it's really not difficult in this day and age.

[Nyel]

Depends on the tools they use. It's not hard to communicate from home, it's also not hard to continue working on the things you were working on i.e. coding, models, world design. It just requires more communication and more planning from the people running those teams - it's really not difficult in this day and age.

This would require everyone to have the same technical infrastructure at home as they do in the office which I highly doubt. Not every job can be done with standard laptops and stuff. People at Blizzard might get sick, have children to take care of or whatever - it will inevitably (negatively) impact Shadowlands. The impact might be smaller due to its digital business nature but to think it won't affect them is a fallacy.

To be able to do home office isn't the issue here, it's the surroundings. Europe has been locked down mostly and the US will follow within the next 1-2 weeks. Even if this is just the case for 4-8 weeks like in China it will delay Shadowlands for at least that amount of time. I doubt Blizzard is working 100% at the moment and it will only decrease in the next weeks.

[THEORACLE64]

This would require everyone to have the same technical infrastructure at home as they do in the office which I highly doubt. Not every job can be done with standard laptops and stuff. People at Blizzard might get sick, have children to take care of or whatever - it will inevitably (negatively) impact Shadowlands. The impact might be smaller due to its digital business nature but to think it won't affect them is a fallacy.

To be able to do home office isn't the issue here, it's the surroundings. Europe has been locked down mostly and the US will follow within the next 1-2 weeks. Even if this is just the case for 4-8 weeks like in China it will delay Shadowlands for at least that amount of time. I doubt Blizzard is working 100% at the moment and it will only decrease in the next weeks.

Forgetting the fact they'll be using Citrix i.e. remote desktop. Most devs (including the ones I know) have more than decent computers at home anyway, seeing as they're gamers themselves. It's 100% doable from home.

[Gimlix]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

You are retarded if you think it's bad they are gonna delay the release because a worldwide problem.
Sorry but even Blizzard's company has to follow strict rules to stop the spreading of corona. Please do not act like a fucking fat nerd in his basement who only wants to play games.

[Kuja]

Game design can be done from home too, even if offices were closed.

[Protean]

If they delayed it, could it be an advantage for us? More time to work on the expansion's content, etc.

Yes, I know this is Acti-Blizzard we're talking about it.

More time? No. Same man hours, just placed later in the year.

[munkeyinorbit]

Its mid March and still no alpha.

With coronavirus affecting so much will blizzard leverage it as an excuse to delay the release of shadowlands?

Yes.
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...3#post52181183

They will use it as an excuse for sure.

[infinitemeridian]

Technically, everything can be done remotely, but the quality would probably drop. As someone who works remotely, I'm always more productive generally and can come up with better solutions to problems with other people to talk to and meet in person.

On a collaborative project like game dev, it's important others can come to your computer and look at what you're working on - downplaying that simple interaction will hurt Shadowlands more than people think. You're also underestimating how coronavirus impacts us outside of just working remotely.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it's delayed or if there isn't some sort of change in direction happening internally.

[Nyel]

People here are acting like home office means indeed home office. I think everybody knows that your productivity drops... a lot when you're working from home. It's just natural. You're maybe giving 50% at home of what you'd be giving in office because at home there are a ton of distractions and other things to do. A delay at this point is pretty much guaranteed.

[Grazrug]

I swear the hyperbole of this forum will never stop.

[MiiiMiii]

People here are acting like home office means indeed home office. I think everybody knows that your productivity drops... a lot when you're working from home. It's just natural. You're maybe giving 50% at home of what you'd be giving in office because at home there are a ton of distractions and other things to do. A delay at this point is pretty much guaranteed.

You are definatly wrong on this. Just do some research. Working from home, for the majority of people, is actually MORE productive.

On modern offices you have to sit together with a bunch of others, constantly trying to distract you.

At home, you can consentrate. Especially if you work as a programmer or artist, like most of these WoW employees do.

Only reason you can argue people work slower from home is due to kids being home from school or if you don't have a proper home office setup.

[Nyel]

You are definatly wrong on this. Just do some research. Working from home, for the majority of people, is actually MORE productive.

On modern offices you have to sit together with a bunch of others, constantly trying to distract you.

At home, you can consentrate. Especially if you work as a programmer or artist, like most of these WoW employees do.

Only reason you can argue people work slower from home is due to kids being home from school or if you don't have a proper home office setup.

Just because you can doesn't mean you do.

I agree that home office is / can be more productive during "normal" times but I highly doubt that during a crisis like this. People are distracted by too many things, concerned about their own wellbeing, catching up on the latest news etc.

[puddypounce]

Today people can do everything they can do at the office at home. If you are at 50% productivity working from home you are a bad employee.

[SkyTides]

Honestly, this is a far more serious issue than a video game. As much as I'd love alpha to be out already, people's health is more important. The game will probably be delayed, along with many other things this year.
Its a shame alpha isn't out already though, as people at home could just be satisfied playing/testing it and take some pressure off the staff to get it out soon.

[Erous]

I'd imagine their biggest issues stem from historically encouraging their employees to work from corporate offices where they basically have all that they need to be successful. The difficult part is transitioning away from that, even if momentarily. The main issues I'm imagining they're facing are:

1. Their engineers and artists probably don't have the adequate hardware at home to complete their work at the speed they would normally be at in the office (if be able to complete these tasks at all) as the hardware and software required is substantial and expensive.

2. I imagine they're contracting a large part of their engineering workforce. In CA especially, there are hundreds of laws preventing their extending workforce from being able to do anything close to being productive from remote locations.