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These were all known during testing and not corrected by Blizzard for the live release.
WARLOCK
General:
-Players who were specced in master conjurer still receive the bonus despite the talent's removal.
-Problems with allowing players to "accept" summon requests. Confusion as to whether the new summon "fix" actually made it impossible to summon peeps IN the instance.
General pet issues:
-If pet is attacked while in combat, warlock receives damage to armor.
-If pet dies in combat, warlock's spell casting is interrupted.
-There might be some new difficulties with dismissing pets. (may be a lag issue)
-New autocasting difficulties with pets. Many of these problems seem related to the now old Servitude addon. No more auto-casting abilities are allowed through macros. Hopefully this affects the auto remove curse addons of many other classes, potentially making our curses/corruption more viable.
-If pet is banished, master demonologist buff is removed and will not return until pet is re-summoned.
-If pet is resurrected (jumper cables) after using demonic sacrifice, the effect will remain and not be replaced with master demonologist.
Imp:
-Blood pact no longer autocasts.
-Unable to teach imp new spells if phase shifted.
-Unable to use dark pact while phase shifted.
-Unable to use soul link while phase shifted.
(Note: Apparently all the phase shifted problems are bug fixes. This information was obtained from http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...=new&tmp=1#new)
Voidwalker:
-VW sacrifice shield does NOT work properly with soul link. Unsure if there is anything new involving this, but the problem has been apparent for a while. As it is, having soul link active when you sacrifice your VW will still only amount to half the damage being dealt. I'll leave this note in, merely because I believe how soul link is implemented is broken either way... Why should you take FULL damage and then get healed for half?
These bugs are all the kind that Warlock players (myself included) put up with all the time in beta, but now that the game is live this kind of crap is inexcusable. The Warlock wasn't finished (and still isn't) when the game was released, so it's still undergoing large design changes and having the corresponding bugs that occur with such huge changes to boot.
MAGE
Go ahead and sheep someone, then sheep them again while they're sheeped. See what happens. :) You won't like it if you're the mage!
The enemy will have full control of their character and can even attack you while sheeped. While getting the bonus mana/health regen of a polymorphed character.
Fun!
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
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The mage bug does suck, however . . . I sheeped a warrior and he, umm, charged me. As a sheep.
This can be immensely funny in a duel.
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I don't want to derail this thread and I believe that warlocks suffer from more bugs than any other class in the game, but were any of the classes besides the warrior, mage and priest finished for release? And even then there have been a lot of warrior changes. The paladin hasn't seen many but find a paladin player who thinks the class works the way it currently is implemented or doesn't long to be able to do something else with the class even if they know what uses it has. :)
And while I agree this isn't a good model to run on for a game, I wonder how it compares to other MMO's. How often were classes really retooled in those games? Heck I wonder if there is data on bug rates for any type of MMO. Blizzard is notorius for making major changes to games after release so the WoW treatment isn't unexpected for me. It's their strength and thier weakness at the same time. Diablo 1 was bug ridden and patched a lot. Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 (and their expansions) were all the same way. They all had patches that changed the game dynamic significantly. They all still kept a good fun factor though and most of the issues could be dealt with without too much hassle. Some of the changes were very good things that would not have been obvious to change without a huge player base. Some of the changes still seem moronic and of the nature of "we know what you like to do best". So they do listen to the users (look at the evolution of the UI, though they still have a lot of work there) and they stll blow the users off. Strength and weakness.
I realize the angst is that we are paying a monthly fee for this game so we should expect more. But I still think they are in the cost recovery phase on this game. It will take more initial debt to get more coders (and they are hiring all the time now) so that throwing more money at it can actually solve the problems, even then with this much code more man power can still only do so much, so some of these issues just can't be fixed even with the money they bring in. I think they can and should do better. I just don't find any of it unexpected so it doesn't bother me that much. The fact that the game isn't that hard means most of the bugs that are left in can be dealt with. They have brought the servers down to fix some game breakers at times too, so they do acknowledge that.
I'm ignoring that many of the bugs in 1.6 were reported while it was in test for this argument. That is something that people should get mad at; why even test the patch if you don't change anything with it? Of course people say that 1.5 was being tested for too long but they did fix some reported bugs in that one, so Blizzard still loses with a release of the patch or without one. But anyway I'm not discussing that point in this next bit.
What is game breaking in this game? What justifies angering part of your customer base by not having the servers up? I'll look at the current list of bugs.
Mage sheep bug? Horrible in PvP. The rumored bug that fear ward is up for 10 minutes and doesn't go away after it gets hit once, grounding totems lasting a lot longer in PvP than they used too. Those are all big bugs. Are those worth an early server take down? PvE population isn't hurt by them at all (in fact they are helped by two of them if they happen in PvE). From my personal perspective I would rather see the servers left up than taking them down to fix these bugs. Of course there are more PvP players than PvE (high pops on the PvP servers and the people that PvP on the PvE servers) so I would be much less annoyed at a server take down to fix these and am actually expecting one if these are all true.
Some of the other bugs in this thread; my lock build and play style doesn't use an imp hardly at all right now. I'm not happy about the bugs/changes with them but it certanly isn't a big deal for me, hurts a lock in PvP again though and annoys the heck out of one the fist time he tries to use dark pact with a shifted imp. The master conjurer bug seems like it helps some players, most players won't consider that game breaking even in PvP I don't think. The summon party/raid mates thing while very annoying only affects players who have a lock in their group. 80%+ of my groups don't have a lock in them and I play a lock at times.
Is it worth taking away play time and upsetting all the warriors, paladins, shaman, druids, rogues, priests, mages and hunters these bugs don't effect or marginally effect? On the summon one, yeah that one might be to me because of the major annoyance it might cause me if I was trying to get the summons or summon someone (especially if it eats the shard when it fails), I think getting rid of that potential annnoyance out weighs the annoyance I get when servers are down and I don't want them to be. :) But the rest of my personal feelings are leave the servers up and fix them later. I felt the same way about the charge bug that affected me more than anyone else I know starting with 1.4, while it pissed me off it wasn't something I couldn't wait till the next patch to fix. Of course 1.5 didn't fix it and I don't know about 1.6.
If Blizzard knew about the bugs that really affect PvP before patching I'm really pissed about that. If they couldn't get them fixed in one more weeks time, not so much I'm still happy about getting to fix the problems I had with my warrior talent choices at no real additional cost (71s 10c for getting the rank ups of shield slam) and getting a new skill to replace a really really crappy one. The bugs that only really affect PvE in some way are even less likely to be a good idea to fix first or take a server down for.
The sheep, fear ward, and grounding totem are the closest to game breaking I can see right now. They can radically alter a PvP or PvE encounter, even if the alteration is a benefit for players on the PvE side. Most class bugs though just don't justify getting extra anger from players over down servers or the extra anger at not patching out the current bug that is annoying them sooner.
I'm glad I'm not the one who has to decide if a patch should go out now or when to take the servers down for an emergency maintenance. You're servicing millions of customers with this game and you will always have some percentage pissed off at you no matter what. Some actions are more likely to piss off more people than others, one of those being taking servers down, expected or not. Not fixing known bugs seems to generate more "aggro" than introducing new ones for the majority of people as well. So of course 1.6 is a double whammy here since they introduced known bugs, that puts them higher on my hate list. :)
Just wanted to ramble about some of this. I don't think my monthly fee is being wasted. I do see improvements from Blizzard in some areas. I want to see more improvements, especially on the communication side of things (GM's and game info). The "leaked" patch notes are a good thing, though I'd be a little happier with a flat out, hey this is what we are looking at right now. Of course "leaking" them makes you less liable if you deviate from that set of information.
So anyway, yeah just wanted to put that out there. :)
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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Hillary,Jul 13 2005, 02:43 PM Wrote:The mage bug does suck, however . . . I sheeped a warrior and he, umm, charged me. As a sheep.
This can be immensely funny in a duel.
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Not being a PvP maven, I don't know if sheep persists after you quit dueling. If it lasts, I can envision a bunch of mages contriving the Great Alterac Valley Sheep Charge. Add some Explosive Sheep for more fun.
Of course, the Undead would resist this with Wool of the Forsaken.
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Bun-Bun,Jul 13 2005, 03: Wrote:Not being a PvP maven, I don't know if sheep persists after you quit dueling. If it lasts, I can envision a bunch of mages contriving the Great Alterac Valley Sheep Charge. Add some Explosive Sheep for more fun.
Of course, the Undead would resist this with Wool of the Forsaken.
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I read this post in the hope of a pun, or pun like substance. I am now content.
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Holy Moses, GG. Quite the dissertation.
As far as Pallys go, I've seen enough blue posts to know they don't consider them "broken". Blue has repeatedly said the class is Working As Intended, and don't have any radical changes planned. Most of the gripes seem to be about the lack of dps, about being a "priest in plate", but I don't play mine much or follow the issues closely so I might be wrong. If I'm right, I side with blizz on this, and ask the whiners "Did you play WC3, and did you ever use a paladin?"
But I agree with your general thrust. Blizz bit off more then they were expecting with this one. MMO's are a whole different game as far as the number of bugs and testing you need to do, and the sales for this were off the chart. It does not excuse the giant bugs and design flaws they should have caught.
As far as designers and coders go, more != better. There is just a shortage of people who can do this job, and throwing monkeys at the problem will only make it worse. I don't know about testing, it seems most of the bugs are being caught relativly early, it's just the fixes that are taking forever. I think they have been hurt by a bit of a brain drain recently. Also, many of thier guys were probably used to getting some time off after pushing a product out. Notice the frequency of updates picked up about 6 months after the game was released, right about when people who took time off after working too hard would be coming back. What were the first things out the door after release? Mauradon and DM, perfect projects for half days while you recover.
What were the game breakers for WC3? I just recall some units getting nerfed and buffed to stop cheese, but there was never a point where cheese pwned all.
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I do agree that most bugs we have seen can be worked around, once we know what they are. I would rather be playing as much as possible for my $15 and leave fixes for scheduled patches. I do have one comment though. It is based on my assumption that the sheep bug is both PvE and PvP. (If it is PvP only then, in the immortal words of Rossana Rossana Danna... Never mind.) The sheep bug will cause wipes. It is standard practice to resheep targets on extended fights. If that creates a wolf in sheep's clothing, toons will die. Having this happen far enough into an instance will be the end of that run, simply because the game didn't function correctly. That is game breaking for this PvE player. I hope it is a bug that Blizzard chooses to hotfix or patch immediately.
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo
![[Image: jsoho8.png]](http://i61.tinypic.com/jsoho8.png) ![[Image: 10gmtrs.png]](http://i60.tinypic.com/10gmtrs.png)
"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
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LochnarITB,Jul 13 2005, 05:34 PM Wrote:I do agree that most bugs we have seen can be worked around, once we know what they are. I would rather be playing as much as possible for my $15 and leave fixes for scheduled patches. I do have one comment though. It is based on my assumption that the sheep bug is both PvE and PvP. (If it is PvP only then, in the immortal words of Rossana Rossana Danna... Never mind.) The sheep bug will cause wipes. It is standard practice to resheep targets on extended fights. If that creates a wolf in sheep's clothing, toons will die. Having this happen far enough into an instance will be the end of that run, simply because the game didn't function correctly. That is game breaking for this PvE player. I hope it is a bug that Blizzard chooses to hotfix or patch immediately.
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Sheep works fine in PvE. I've tested it a couple of times.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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Gnollguy,Jul 13 2005, 06:55 PM Wrote:Sheep works fine in PvE. I've tested it a couple of times.
[right][snapback]83401[/snapback][/right] YAY!
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo
"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
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Gnollguy,Jul 13 2005, 11:55 PM Wrote:Sheep works fine in PvE. I've tested it a couple of times.
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That is good news.
Now if only it would keep me from getting slaughtered by trinket-wielding rogues.
Well, that's an exaggeration. Against a single rogue, the first sheep is enough, generally.
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Gnollguy,Jul 13 2005, 07:55 PM Wrote:Sheep works fine in PvE. I've tested it a couple of times.
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As we found out, sheep is not fine PvE. It's fine versus beasts supposedly, but it's most definately broken on humanoids.
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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Quark,Jul 13 2005, 10:23 PM Wrote:As we found out, sheep is not fine PvE. It's fine versus beasts supposedly, but it's most definately broken on humanoids.
[right][snapback]83413[/snapback][/right] Yep. Nothing like having your priest be shield bashed by a sheep.
Intolerant monkey.
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Quark,Jul 13 2005, 10:23 PM Wrote:As we found out, sheep is not fine PvE. It's fine versus beasts supposedly, but it's most definately broken on humanoids.
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Yar, we got to see the killer sheep first hand. My testing was only on beasts and I'm not postive they were done well enough now either. I was testing with my L16 mage out in Westfall on buzzards, wolves and pigs. I sheeped some of them up to 4 times and stood around next to them. They just wandered like happy little sheep.
I never sheeped any of the humanoids out there there more than once though. :(
But this bug is a big deal. We had some issues with it in UBRS tonight, but we were lucky to have 3 warriors for the whole thing and 3 warriors and 1 pally for most of it, so we could tank our way through issues with the crazy sheep. And the priest and 2 druids were able to heal it but it was not cool seeing Aleri standing by a sheep with her health plummeting and having to spam heals on her while a tank is beating on another sheep and getting hurt by it too (I think there was some lag on that one poping out but I got a chuckle out of it).
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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A suggestion to anyone:
If you see a deadly sheep, break it. Even if it's just throwing a wand shot at it, breaking it allows the whole group to know what's going on, instead of just the ones paying careful attention to the sheep.
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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oldmandennis,Jul 13 2005, 03:44 PM Wrote:As far as designers and coders go, more != better. There is just a shortage of people who can do this job, and throwing monkeys at the problem will only make it worse. I don't know about testing, it seems most of the bugs are being caught relativly early, it's just the fixes that are taking forever.
[right][snapback]83390[/snapback][/right] Agreed that more != better. Somebody once observed that there is no late software project that cannot be made later by adding more programmers. :)
What blows me away on Blizzard's QA is the horrible amount of regression that they suffer with each patch. Things that used to be fixed get broken, or fixes break other parts of the game unintentionally. It's horrible.
The way that modern software shops tackle this is through automated regression testing. - they have automated testing software that runs against the production version of the software, asks it to perform a function and then checks the result of that function against some known good result. If it fails, you've broken something with a recent change, and it's a cue that you need to revisit your changes. If the test suite is kept up to date, you should never see a regression in your production software.
Blizzard is obviously not doing this or doing it only partially, and it really makes me wonder what this game will be like in another year's time. With every patch, it seems that the quality of the patch is going down and the number of bugs injected is going up. Every patch seems to be adding another turret to a castle built on on quicksand.
Kv
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oldmandennis,Jul 13 2005, 04:44 PM Wrote:As far as designers and coders go, more != better. There is just a shortage of people who can do this job, and throwing monkeys at the problem will only make it worse. I don't know about testing, it seems most of the bugs are being caught relativly early, it's just the fixes that are taking forever. I think they have been hurt by a bit of a brain drain recently. Also, many of thier guys were probably used to getting some time off after pushing a product out. Notice the frequency of updates picked up about 6 months after the game was released, right about when people who took time off after working too hard would be coming back. What were the first things out the door after release? Mauradon and DM, perfect projects for half days while you recover.
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Yeah I agree. My comments weren't fully clear though. I was stating they are still probably at a loss on the money side with this game so they can't hire more coders and that even with more coders there is only so much you can do.
I would like to see more money directed to customer service where it can help and it seems they need to spend more on getting someone to do internal documentation and updating. I think that is part of the problem with regression issues they are having as well. I know that they actually used Jarulf's guide as internal docs for D1 after he put it out. That to me is an indication that they have issues with the internal documentation stuff or at least they did. There are other signs of that too. So yeah, they can do more. :)
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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The Master Conjuror bug amuses me greatly. I think they should leave it in as a reward to the 3 people who invested in the talent...
Chris
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Yeah, I'd like to go back and change the tone of my post. The problems with Locks I still sort of understand, you shouldn't hold that patch (and changes to locks most of them like) up for things that are a pain but can be worked around. And I still think that Pallys are working as intended.
But sweet Jebus, this game is nearly 9 months old now. This instability is just absurd. Kel'Thuzud was down in primetime yesterday, and again this morning.
And BWL is just as absurd. Did anyone test this out? Did they even try the encounters, or were they just taking SSs for the website?
And they DO have the money. 2 million boxes sold * ~20$ to blizz per = 40 million $ + monthly fees. There is no excuse for not having adequate network and content testing at this point.
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oldmandennis,Jul 14 2005, 03:41 PM Wrote:Yeah, I'd like to go back and change the tone of my post. The problems with Locks I still sort of understand, you shouldn't hold that patch (and changes to locks most of them like) up for things that are a pain but can be worked around. And I still think that Pallys are working as intended.
But sweet Jebus, this game is nearly 9 months old now. This instability is just absurd. Kel'Thuzud was down in primetime yesterday, and again this morning.
And BWL is just as absurd. Did anyone test this out? Did they even try the encounters, or were they just taking SSs for the website?
And they DO have the money. 2 million boxes sold * ~20$ to blizz per = 40 million $ + monthly fees. There is no excuse for not having adequate network and content testing at this point.
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What I've read is that EQ took like 2 years to make any money. WoW is selling faster so they might not be taking a loss right now, but I'm not sure. I don't have the financial data to pour over. :)
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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Gnollguy,Jul 14 2005, 12:44 PM Wrote:What I've read is that EQ took like 2 years to make any money. WoW is selling faster so they might not be taking a loss right now, but I'm not sure. I don't have the financial data to pour over. :)
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EQ took a lot longer to get popular. Blizz has TONS of money from their previous games, and the deep pockets of Vivandi behind them.
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