So the patch is out. It doesn’t matter if it’s only on the (invite-only) test server, what is important is that now we can understand what happened in the last two months and set better expectations on how this game will develop through the months and years.

The first remark is that, maybe, my prediction wasn’t that wrong. I was right about the battlegrounds delayed and we are still in the first week of March. The patch is out but only on the test server.

But what about the patch itself? What about the expectations? We waited too much. I’m not one of those with no memory who goes all happy after two months of grumbling and attacks. This patch is late and considering that it’s the result of more than two months of work, not that impressive.

But.

The changes go in the right direction. There are many, many usability fixes that will do good to the game. This patch is mostly a collection of serious bugfixes. So it’s a “level up” for the game no matter what. If there aren’t programming errors (I hope the test server will nail this down because I remember the trainwrecks at patch release during beta), the patch shouldn’t have side effects. They addressed the problems directly without dodging the main issues and without adding band aids and workarounds. So the development can still be judged as painfully slow but at least heading in a good direction. This is something to underline.

The doubts about the “meeting stones” are still there since they didn’t release details about them:

We still don’t know how they designed them but they sound weaker than the current system.

An LFG system just needs one requirement that defines directly it’s quality: how many players it is able to reach. Right now I can use a channel visible to a whole zone. What will these stones add?

We still have to see but, supposedly, you’ll have to walk till that point to flag yourself and beg the randomized system to not build a group full of tards. It’s rather obvious that the “pool” of players from where it will draw will be the two other guys that ARE JUST SITTING NEXT TO YOU, waiting from two hours at a stone that noone uses.

At best these stones will be an altar of sacrifice for high level players to raid and laugh about.

What the game needs is a server-wide system. The “LFG” flag visible on /who lists worked in beta and was removed for unknown reasons. Same for the useful “grouped or not” flag.

In general all the comments I wrote till now still apply. Same for the concerns expressed by others. The leet speak seems addressed but there’s no word about its serious exploit. The most important parts of the game, the battlegrounds and honor system, are still shady. They are supposed to “close the circle” and transform this game in something that feels more like a “world” and less like an infinite treadmill. But we cannot know how this will go since they haven’t disclosed the details. I believe they’ll become a fun digression but I don’t see them really providing a depth and a serious endgame purpose.

The introduction of better PvP systems and goals integrated with the whole game-world would help a lot more and build a better community but the honor system can still be seen as a danger instead of a positive evolution. In the case it’s kill-based and not goal-based.

The conclusion is that to form more outright opinions I’ll have to wait some more time. In general it seems that they are adjusting and preparing a base. But they still need something concrete to build there. That isn’t simply limited to “more stuff” that will just enlarge the game without adding any real depth.

So I’m still in a “observing and waiting” mode.

Some of the most important changes (like the caps to the instances) are still too late now. And I was hoping to see more quests added and fixed. I’m still waiting the Uldum line of quests to be delivered. It sucks greatly to go through a long (and awesome) cycle to just discover that it ends abruptly with no reward.

I’m also looking forward to Dire Maul. With a cap of five players and an upper cap due to the maximum level it will introduce something new in World of Warcraft: the challenge.
I hope it will be HARD. I also hope it will be worth it.