Talk:Game updates

Skill balancing schedule
First lol. - Are we gonna get a skill balance update this month? -- 19:44, December 3, 2009 (UTC)
 * Remember they have changed their policy about updates. ANet is not promising or implying greater-than-bug-updates more than several times a year. They are sensibly combining skill balancing with other feature changes into fewer releases. (This is substantially more efficient than more frequent, smaller releases, especially considering the small size of the GW1 software team.) I don't expect any skill changes sooner than Wintersday.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:12, December 3, 2009 (UTC)
 * And there I thought I read somewhere that they said they'd do a skill balance patch every 2 months now?? --[[Image:Takisig2.png]] 21:16, December 3, 2009 (UTC)
 * That was the interpretation made by some players on the official wiki of what they had read. I asked a while ago about whether they meant every two months vs. along with other feature changes; they said the latter. (I'll see if I can find the specific text.)
 * There's been a lot of misinformation about their plans...and ANet has done little to clarify, so the confusion is understandable.   &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:43, December 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I misinformed myself. Here's what ANet actually has said: Content updates will be done separately from the monthly maintenance and occur every three to four months.
 * Some players have interpreted that as a promise to update skills with a certain frequency; I don't.
 * My interpretation: (1) ANet will have monthly updates to release bug fixes (and whatever odd miscellany); don't expect any rebalancing in these. (2) There will be 3 or 4 more substantive updates, which will include new features (e.g. Dhuum, H'ween quests) and feature changes (which would include rebalancing and also the PvE henchbar changes).
 * ANet has never really clarified what they mean by monthly maintenance or Content update, which are terms that tend to mean different things to different software companies (and, I fear, different things within the same firm).


 * Short story: I don't expect any significant skill changes before Wintersday.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 22:08, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy
Now there might be a really easy way to check this by going into the game files and such, but I'm not that smart. So does anyone else think with all these "crash bug" fixes that they are sneaking in content for an orgasmic wintersday or anything? ShoganKiller  15:45, December 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * The only thing you can really check in Gw.dat is plain text, but there hasn't been anything new there this month other than some stuff for the in-game store promotions. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:50, December 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean they might actually be fixing crash bugs? O_O RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 16:47, December 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * haha, well I dunno, if all of these are bug fixes they should start killing the gnomes that are causing the bugs (or join the EEC, it would really help our membership) ShoganKiller  Shogankillerflag.jpg 18:00, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Missing updates
So, there was an update on the 11th, but we no longer have a record of it. ANet never posted notes on their official site, so it's unlikely we'll learn what was in the code. I would prefer that we document such updates, even though we lack the details. I don't see any reason to treat them differently from updates that include notes, as long as we include some type of standard text (e.g. "ANet hasn't yet posted notes of this update.")  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 02:02, December 18, 2009 (UTC)


 * We have no historical precedent for this - neither wiki has ever kept close track of undocumented updates. Why start now?  I still don't understand the benefit.  If there's no update notes, then there's no update notes - no one ever signed a contract with Anet forcing them to release notes with every single update.  And before you bring up the code development analogy again, no, this is not the same.  Of course they'll keep internal notes about everything they've changed, but if the change was just a few minor bug/crash fixes, there's no reason to waste company time/resources to rewrite those notes in an external format.   &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 02:15, December 18, 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see any reason to treat these releases differently, even though they have been in the past. I'm not arguing ANet has any obligation to release notes on any updates. This wiki documents the game, so when game code is changed, let's make a note. I would prefer that we present something, even when the software company chooses to present nothing.


 * I also cannot argue that the benefits are substantial: Some people check both wikis when they see the game update spam in-game; many check whenever the see the auto-update feature engaged. So, an early note would be helpful to them. Others are curious whether ANet is getting worse (or better) at releasing changes, so they are interested in how many times/month the company puts out new software (and how often it is new content vs bug fixes or minor tweaks). Is any of that necessary? No, certainly not. However, it's cheap to provide the info/data, so why not?  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 02:57, December 18, 2009 (UTC)