So are we *ever* getting the planned list of Class/Ability changes?

[Jennestia]

Not only that, but having your players test a patch after it has gone live is the absolute worst way to develop any MMO and it's a precedent that died back in 2004 when WOW came out.

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

@Jennestia

So your argument is that the devs have no obligation to maintain their promises on timely delivery of information to the customers who will be supporting this game with actual cash for the next year?

What is "timely"? This is subjective from person to person, therefore it's a bit hard to say when they're "slacking", especially when you take into consideration the amount of work that's being done with this game.

[Wolfie]

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

Nice try, but hotfixes are never balance changes or broad design changes. They are small fixes for critical bugs that escaped through the testing phase.

[Jennestia]

Nice try, but hotfixes are never balance changes or broad design changes. They are small fixes for critical bugs that escaped through the testing phase.

Based on what you said, you essentially stated WoW releases perfect patches which means there's no need for hotfixes, which means WoW should be free of hotfixes, as well as any MMORPG that was released after 2004, yet I'm pretty sure every MMO I've played since 2004 (WoW included) utilizes hotfix patching. Otherwise, it's not something that died out in 2004, players of any MMO are still the biggest "testers" when it comes to patches because players almost always find bugs and glitches that QA can miss.

[Wolfie]

Based on what you said, you essentially stated WoW releases perfect patches which means there's no need for hotfixes, which means WoW should be free of hotfixes, as well as any MMORPG that was released after 2004, yet I'm pretty sure every MMO I've played since 2004 (WoW included) utilizes hotfix patching. Otherwise, it's not something that died out in 2004, players of any MMO are still the biggest "testers" when it comes to patches because players almost always find bugs and glitches that QA can miss.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I said that you should never let your players test a patch after it goes live, not that PTRs will produce perfect patches. You have your players test a patch on a separate server and work with them to iron out balance changes, design changes, and bugs that your own internal QA team has missed. You can never get a 100% guarantee that a patch will please everyone in terms of changes and being bug free, but using a PTR you roll out a much more robust and higher quality patch.

Hotfixes are small patches that are applied directly to live systems with no testing in order to fix a critical bug or issue. These will still exist with PTRs, but the amount of non-critical bugs and stupid design choices that your patch rolls out with is dramatically reduced.

[Ronik]

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

So you're honestly saying that PTR's are useless because there are still bugs to be found after the official patch releases? You're really making absolutely no sense here. I don't think you understand exactly how much crap is found in PTRs and fixed before live releases. I'm not saying FFXIV should have PTR servers for patches (not yet, anyway - maybe down the line with 2.0), but to argue that PTR's are useless is flat-out ignorance.