Guild Wars 2

So yeah it’s only 5 days till that patch goes live, where are the patch notes, please don’t tell me that you are just gonna roll a patch out again without anybody knowing what has changed regarding the classes.

the patch notes for the nov.15 patch will be up on november 15, like every other patch note before it.

The patch notes will probably come with the patch.

Considering the life cycle, that content is in inhouse testing right now. If something is found to be buggy, exploitable, or imba, they may need to rework or delay that change.

Patch notes come when the patch is final. The patch is final when it is launched.

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played (even non mmo’s often have patch notes ahead of patch day eg Civ V), to offer patch notes befaor the patch goes live, GW2 is the first, that I have seen, that offers patch notes post patch.

Taiance.6213:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played (even non mmo’s often have patch notes ahead of patch day eg Civ V), to offer patch notes befaor the patch goes live, GW2 is the first, that I have seen, that offers patch notes post patch.

As a poster above stated, they are most likely making changes right up to the last minute. Still doesn’t answer the question why it’s needed. It’s not like you’re going to do anything different until it’s live anyway. And, the patch notes are usually up within minutes of it going live.

I like patch notes! I wish we had them to read just a little bit before the patch came out.

Taiance.6213:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played (even non mmo’s often have patch notes ahead of patch day eg Civ V), to offer patch notes befaor the patch goes live, GW2 is the first, that I have seen, that offers patch notes post patch.

It’s not that patch notes are released days before the patch. Useally a few hours.

Gilandred.9870:

Taiance.6213:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played (even non mmo’s often have patch notes ahead of patch day eg Civ V), to offer patch notes befaor the patch goes live, GW2 is the first, that I have seen, that offers patch notes post patch.

As a poster above stated, they are most likely making changes right up to the last minute. Still doesn’t answer the question why it’s needed. It’s not like you’re going to do anything different until it’s live anyway. And, the patch notes are usually up within minutes of it going live.

So he can decide what he wants to play on the market to cash in or cash out on. That’s the only reason. Some one would want to know what’s being changed ahead of time.

All other game play changes are moot. They are pretty much set in stone at this point unless Anet finds something that is game breaking.

The industry standard is to release patch notes along side updates. Most software comes with a .txt file packed in that list the changes. Most games publish the notes on their websites along side the release or display them on a start up splash screen.

There may be some exceptions. Usually because the content was mostly complete way ahead of time and they were holding on to it to increase the life of the game. Like Capcom games that issue “patches” to unlock things already on the disc. But it is not the norm since things are subject to change up to minutes before its launched. No one wants to publish patch notes for patch notes.

fellyn.5083:

So he can decide what he wants to play on the market to cash in or cash out on. That’s the only reason. Some one would want to know what’s being changed ahead of time.

If that’s the case then I’m glad they don’t come out beforehand. In order to “cash out” you need someone willing to “cash in,” who in turn will be screwed over because he/she didn’t read the patch notes ahead of time or doesn’t normally play the market.

any good developer knows full well to never reveal patch notes ahead of the patch itself, there are many reasons for this.

yes many of us would like to read them ahead of time to see what’s coming, but there are many problems with such a method.

Releasing patchnotes prior to a patch is industry standard, everybody who plays competative pvp will agree on wanting them, so he can prepare a different equip ahead of time or teams can let their players l2p other classes that will be needed after the patch in tournaments, besides it gives us a lot to theorycraft about

oh yeah, before i forget, an ANet dev once mentioned that they don’t release patch notes until it’s live because if they fix an exploit, they don’t want to make that exploit public until it’s fixed, to avoid people abusing it until the patch is live.

Tito.3270:

So yeah it’s only 5 days till that patch goes live, where are the patch notes, please don’t tell me that you are just gonna roll a patch out again without anybody knowing what has changed regarding the classes.

I heard they’re gonna nerf your favorite class and buff the class you hate the most.

Taiance.6213:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played (even non mmo’s often have patch notes ahead of patch day eg Civ V), to offer patch notes befaor the patch goes live, GW2 is the first, that I have seen, that offers patch notes post patch.

It also seems standard practice for every other mmo to have a lengthy downtime while applying said patch.

Something which is refreshingly missing form GW2. To the point where us players complain that the “Resets” occur during a DE, rather then players complaining about the server being down for their favorite playtime.

It seems to only be standard practice to release patch notes ahead of time if the game in question also has a public test server (like WoW). Even then, since it’s a test server the actual patch notes are flexible and change before going live. Since there isn’t a public test server for GW2 (yet) they have no reason to release patch notes before the patch goes live, right?

Wasselin.1235:

I like patch notes! I wish we had them to read just a little bit before the patch came out.

Yeah I too would love to see the patch-notes at least 10-12 hours before the patch goes live. I just like to know what changes to look for and what to expect.

It’s also not fun spending an hour pouring over the patch-notes when you could be playing the game.

Like others have said, it will be out when we get the patch.

What you should be asking is, when will we get a blog post. The lost shores page seems mighty lonely over there, what without the extensive list of compiled details that we saw in the Halloween update and all.

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

Why not? Let’s say that certain dungeons will receive buffs or nerf dungeon rewards across the board. Wouldn’t you want to do as many dungeons as you possibly can ahead of time before the nerf bat hits? Or, what if Plinx mobs no longer dropped any loot, if you had that information you could make an informed decision to get in your DE fix before getting blindsided by nerfs. On the other hand such an announcement would flood the quest chain before the nerf, but still, having knowledge ahead of time in order to make informed decisions matters.

Agemnon.4608:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

Why not? Let’s say that certain dungeons will receive buffs or nerf dungeon rewards across the board. Wouldn’t you want to do as many dungeons as you possibly can ahead of time before the nerf bat hits? Or, what if Plinx mobs no longer dropped any loot, if you had that information you could make an informed decision to get in your DE fix before getting blindsided by nerfs. On the other hand such an announcement would flood the quest chain before the nerf, but still, having knowledge ahead of time in order to make informed decisions matters.

Then the changes would become pointless if you point out something that is giving more then they wanted and you have a flood of ppl to do it before the update or have ppl stop doing it until after the update. If any thing its a good idea not to say something it keeps things stable and you have no mad rushes to get something done before time runs out.

Agemnon.4608:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

Why not? Let’s say that certain dungeons will receive buffs or nerf dungeon rewards across the board. Wouldn’t you want to do as many dungeons as you possibly can ahead of time before the nerf bat hits? Or, what if Plinx mobs no longer dropped any loot, if you had that information you could make an informed decision to get in your DE fix before getting blindsided by nerfs. On the other hand such an announcement would flood the quest chain before the nerf, but still, having knowledge ahead of time in order to make informed decisions matters.

congratulations, you just described the very reason ANet doesn’t release patch notes ahead of time.

Dee Jay.2460:

It’s also not fun spending an hour pouring over the patch-notes when you could be playing the game.

uuuh… the game is live right now. wouldn’t you have to stop playing it to read the patch notes even before the patch? :/

Taiance.6213:

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

It’s standard practice in almost every other mmo I have played

Not the one’s I have. Typically at the same time or a slightly after, like this game.

But why do we need them now? Futures trading.

Why don’t they post the patch notes ahead of time….

Back in EQ, I tested out some changes on their test server. I did Pottery and found out that Pie Tin Molds had a serious increase in cost, enough so that if I bought them at the current Live price, I would make a substantial proffit vendoring them after the patch that increased their value even though the vendors always buy under the “normal” purchase price.

True, that wasn’t in the patch notes, but imagine it was, everyone would have filled their inventories with pie tin molds, waited for the patch, then sold them all. This would cause major inflation in the game. (I now feel bad about doing it and if I saw the same kind of thing comming I probably wouldn’t take advantage of it now.)

Now, I can see them posting a mini-patch notes containing only information on blocking bugs that will be fixed but containing no information with potential to be exploited. Possibly even allow information about how a character class might get some ballencing in the next patch, but some things must not be known before the patch.

Economy related changes (and there are alot of things that are related to the Economy, thats why it is so hard to manage) need to stay out of any advance patch notes.

@ fellyn.5083 & before anyone else jumps on the “so he can get rich quick” bandwagon for wanting to know ahead of time, If only I had 2 copper to rub together I might actually attempt it, but alas I don’t and nor do I have inside knowledge of what is coming but it’s nice to see what your first thoughts would be to do if you had patch notes.

My reason and YMMV is because I would like to have more speculation threads about the new content.

I’d like to plan my future builds out (if any need to be changed based on the class changes coming) both in pve and pvp.

I’d love to know what nerfs are coming so that I can relish in the whine of tears in all the class forums.

@ MLieBennett.9031 “It also seems standard practice for every other mmo to have a lengthy downtime while applying said patch.” …. It’s also standard practice for some MMO’s to have a subscription, some to be F2P and some to be B2Win, but just like the quoted text of yours my rebuttal has 0 relevance to the thread.

And this is why you always enter a dungeon right before patch hits

Be lucky you get patch notes, we had to fight for them during the early days of GW1.
Don’t forget, they have to transcribe them into multiple languages as well before releasing them.

And there is no ‘standard practice’ for patching games/software, this is completely up to the developers whether to release the information before, during, after the patch goes live or to ‘stealth update’ it and not tell you. With software it is an ‘accepted practice’ of putting in the readme or notes file with the update or linking to a webpage with the info but with games it is a completely different thing that may or may not happen at all.

For the first year of GW1 it was stealth updates, then we asked nicely over and over again for the patch notes so we wouldn’t have to ‘randomly discover’ what was fixed/broken more, and what skills were buffed/nerfed. Anet was nice and started publishing their notes for us to peruse. Now we’re so used to it that we want it before it happens? Just be happy you have them when you get them

Gilandred.9870:

Why do you need to know ahead of time?

So they can exploit the hell out of the market and itemization as much as possible before hand, obviously. They want free money and resources.

The idiocy and fanboism in this thread is astounding. Not releasing planned changes WEEKS in advance is a terrible practice in any game. In 10+ years of MMOs, I have seen countless of examples of terrible design decisions being reversed or changed prior to patch going live because people were given ample time to discuss them, do the math, and bring to light issues with them BEFORE the devs just push them live and potentially cause permanent damage to the game. Using “get rich quick” schemes as an excuse to avoid this common industry practice is just pure stupidity.

Btw, it’s also a terrible practice to NOT have a scheduled down time for patches and hotfixes and to feel it’s perfectly fine to kitten on your customers with a 3 minute notice before you boot them from the game while they’re in the middle of an event or a dungeon run. Anyone defending such practice is either ignorant or blinded with their infatuation for the game.

This post will probably be deleted for making too much sense and being too blunt for this sensitive community.