How do some people know when patch is live, before it's unnounced in-game?

[tobindax]

I don't see any particular official announcement elsewhere. How do they know it's a particular day before it's announced on the in-game notice board? Do I miss a place?

[Lily.Petal]

Originally Posted by tobindax I don't see any particular official announcement elsewhere. How do they know it's a particular day before it's announced on the in-game notice board? Do I miss a place?

MMO Champ, the author has a 'inside source' to say the least. He is pretty accurate when it comes to these things.

Blizzard doesn't release 'official' times when patches go out.

[tobindax]

Originally Posted by Lily.Petal MMO Champ, the author has a 'inside source' to say the least. He is pretty accurate when it comes to these things. Blizzard doesn't release 'official' times when patches go out.

ah. According to their front page, they appear to "reverse engineer" it, not so much directly get it from a Person.

"The patch is now available in weird places of the internet and we reached the point where we can pretty much confirm that the patch will be deployed"

thanks for the pointer.

[Taryble]

MMO-Champion actually gets a lot of it's information directly from Blizzard's Public Relations department - like patch releases, etc. Boubouille is one of their favorite avenues of getting the official word out unofficially.

[Ketho]

Why would Blizzard not want to just officially bring the word out themselves

[Dawn]

A set release date has a lot of downsides. People tend to go crazy if you do not release it at said date, which can happen easily. On top of that it just heightens the pressure on the development department, which in turn can lead to unfinished products, last minute mistakes, etc.

Even though I dislike how long it takes for blizzard to get anything done - like new games being announced for years, i.e. Diablo III - deep inside me I admire them for being so consistent with their slooooooooow, but high quality work.

Anyway, MMO champ gets a lot of their information from datamining on the PTR and from common sense. For instance, a patch being on the PTR gets flagged as "Release Candidate" shortly before it actually goes live - commonly doesn't take more than one ore maybe two more weeks until it's live after that.

[Dolby]

Originally Posted by Taryble MMO-Champion actually gets a lot of it's information directly from Blizzard's Public Relations department - like patch releases, etc. Boubouille is one of their favorite avenues of getting the official word out unofficially.

Blizzard has stated many times they do not support the actions of MMOC, they get no official help from Blizzard and Blizzard only releases things to fansites part of their official program in which MMOC isn't a part of. Heck Blizzard was so mad at MMOC over the cataclysm leaks and I'll stop short of there but there was action taken.

Boubouille may know some leaks at Blizzard but he mostly gets his stuff by monitoring what is already publicly available, just most people don't know where to look and he does.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Taryble MMO-Champion actually gets a lot of it's information directly from Blizzard's Public Relations department - like patch releases, etc. Boubouille is one of their favorite avenues of getting the official word out unofficially.

unh, riiiiight, well okay then

[tobindax]

Originally Posted by Dolby Blizzard has stated many times they do not support the actions of MMOC, they get no official help from Blizzard and Blizzard only releases things to fansites part of their official program in which MMOC isn't a part of. Heck Blizzard was so mad at MMOC over the cataclysm leaks and I'll stop short of there but there was action taken. Boubouille may know some leaks at Blizzard but he mostly gets his stuff by monitoring what is already publicly available, just most people don't know where to look and he does.

I think it's pretty obvious their front page pretty much said "we looked at some web servers that routinely have the patch right before release and they had it". It's something anyone with average networking knowledge could have done.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by tobindax I think it's pretty obvious their front page pretty much said "we looked at some web servers that routinely have the patch right before release and they had it". It's something anyone with average networking knowledge could have done.

Well, if you already had the answer, why'd you ask the question?

[Schattens]

I usually find out about new patches when I go to log on and I start to download them, then I sit swearing as I read the patch notes.

(I don't call it Tuesday anymore but Narfageddon)

[Crissa]

Narf, Poit.

[tobindax]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Well, if you already had the answer, why'd you ask the question?

I didn't know who outed the information. I found out here it's MMO champion. I know it's a basic knowledge I should have known.