I'm inclined to agree with Bolty's rant. I cannot imagine a business case for 1.10.
I'd be willing to wager a very large sum of money that 1.10 got sold to the Execusphere ( for approval ) as a small patch that was needed for bugs ( not game play ) and would be limited in scope and cost.
Scope creep is a major peril on any project. From what I've seen from Blizzard over the years I would guess that project management is not a strong skillset among their leadership team. Software development/release management is especially vulnerable to scope creep. This is doubly so when the management team are developers/creative types and not managers per se. The 80/20 rule gets abused big time in software development.
"hey, we can add this cool feature, no it won't take much boss", "We're so close to this other feature , we really need to add it in" Go through a couple of iterations of this and pretty soon your small, low effort patch has grown intoa beast. Top it off, you've publicly stated many times that it will be released soon - it becomes a tyrant running your life and sucking resources away from more important projects ( things that might make money ).
At some point the Execusphere notices that other projects are suffering " HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE ON THIS????", Someone gets a strip torn up one side and down the other - and the project gets reprioritized.
So, it turns into a skunkworks project with people working on it in their spare time, except that it has grown much too large to manage that way so the Project leader swings a deal with the WC3 guys " When you're done with your patch can you float a couple of people over here to help us with D2 1.10, but keep it under your hat"
Problem is, someone who may not be sensitive to the delicate nature of skunkworks projects makes a post in the bnet forums that says "Hey guess what, D2 1.10 will be out after TFT and WC3 1.10 and we're getting help from those teams" This post inflames the fan base and somehow comes to the attention to the Execusphere.
Exec: "Bill, remember that patch I told you not to have anyone working on? Well it seems that you've told the public that it is 1 - a Virtually a free expansion and 2 - You're going to have the WC3 team help you QA it"
Would you care to explain why you are spending budget on a project that has no hope of any cost recovery?, What's that, you can't? " and the rest is history
Edited for spelling
I'd be willing to wager a very large sum of money that 1.10 got sold to the Execusphere ( for approval ) as a small patch that was needed for bugs ( not game play ) and would be limited in scope and cost.
Scope creep is a major peril on any project. From what I've seen from Blizzard over the years I would guess that project management is not a strong skillset among their leadership team. Software development/release management is especially vulnerable to scope creep. This is doubly so when the management team are developers/creative types and not managers per se. The 80/20 rule gets abused big time in software development.
"hey, we can add this cool feature, no it won't take much boss", "We're so close to this other feature , we really need to add it in" Go through a couple of iterations of this and pretty soon your small, low effort patch has grown intoa beast. Top it off, you've publicly stated many times that it will be released soon - it becomes a tyrant running your life and sucking resources away from more important projects ( things that might make money ).
At some point the Execusphere notices that other projects are suffering " HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE ON THIS????", Someone gets a strip torn up one side and down the other - and the project gets reprioritized.
So, it turns into a skunkworks project with people working on it in their spare time, except that it has grown much too large to manage that way so the Project leader swings a deal with the WC3 guys " When you're done with your patch can you float a couple of people over here to help us with D2 1.10, but keep it under your hat"
Problem is, someone who may not be sensitive to the delicate nature of skunkworks projects makes a post in the bnet forums that says "Hey guess what, D2 1.10 will be out after TFT and WC3 1.10 and we're getting help from those teams" This post inflames the fan base and somehow comes to the attention to the Execusphere.
Exec: "Bill, remember that patch I told you not to have anyone working on? Well it seems that you've told the public that it is 1 - a Virtually a free expansion and 2 - You're going to have the WC3 team help you QA it"
Would you care to explain why you are spending budget on a project that has no hope of any cost recovery?, What's that, you can't? " and the rest is history
Edited for spelling
Some people are like slinkys, not really good for anything but you just can't help but smile when you see them tumble down the stairs.