Talk:Game updates

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Skill balancing schedule

First lol. - Are we gonna get a skill balance update this month? -- 19:44, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Remember they have changed their policy about updates. ANet is not promising or implying greater-than-bug-updates more than several times a year. They are sensibly combining skill balancing with other feature changes into fewer releases. (This is substantially more efficient than more frequent, smaller releases, especially considering the small size of the GW1 software team.) I don't expect any skill changes sooner than Wintersday.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:12, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

And there I thought I read somewhere that they said they'd do a skill balance patch every 2 months now?? -- 21:16, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

That was the interpretation made by some players on the official wiki of what they had read. I asked a while ago about whether they meant every two months vs. along with other feature changes; they said the latter. (I'll see if I can find the specific text.)

There's been a lot of misinformation about their plans...and ANet has done little to clarify, so the confusion is understandable.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:43, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I misinformed myself. Here's what ANet actually has said: Content updates will be done separately from the monthly maintenance and occur every three to four months.

• Some players have interpreted that as a promise to update skills with a certain frequency; I don't.
• My interpretation: (1) ANet will have monthly updates to release bug fixes (and whatever odd miscellany); don't expect any rebalancing in these. (2) There will be 3 or 4 more substantive updates, which will include new features (e.g. Dhuum, H'ween quests) and feature changes (which would include rebalancing and also the PvE henchbar changes).

ANet has never really clarified what they mean by monthly maintenance or Content update, which are terms that tend to mean different things to different software companies (and, I fear, different things within the same firm).

Short story: I don't expect any significant skill changes before Wintersday.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:08, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy

Now there might be a really easy way to check this by going into the game files and such, but I'm not that smart. So does anyone else think with all these "crash bug" fixes that they are sneaking in content for an orgasmic wintersday or anything? ShoganKiller 15:45, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

The only thing you can really check in Gw.dat is plain text, but there hasn't been anything new there this month other than some stuff for the in-game store promotions. —Dr Ishmael 15:50, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

You mean they might actually be fixing crash bugs? O_O RoseOfKali 16:47, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

haha, well I dunno, if all of these are bug fixes they should start killing the gnomes that are causing the bugs (or join the EEC, it would really help our membership) ShoganKiller 18:00, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Missing updates

So, there was an update on the 11th, but we no longer have a record of it. ANet never posted notes on their official site, so it's unlikely we'll learn what was in the code. I would prefer that we document such updates, even though we lack the details. I don't see any reason to treat them differently from updates that include notes, as long as we include some type of standard text (e.g. "ANet hasn't yet posted notes of this update.")   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:02, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

We have no historical precedent for this - neither wiki has ever kept close track of undocumented updates. Why start now? I still don't understand the benefit. If there's no update notes, then there's no update notes - no one ever signed a contract with Anet forcing them to release notes with every single update. And before you bring up the code development analogy again, no, this is not the same. Of course they'll keep internal notes about everything they've changed, but if the change was just a few minor bug/crash fixes, there's no reason to waste company time/resources to rewrite those notes in an external format. —Dr Ishmael 02:15, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to treat these releases differently, even though they have been in the past. I'm not arguing ANet has any obligation to release notes on any updates. This wiki documents the game, so when game code is changed, let's make a note. I would prefer that we present something, even when the software company chooses to present nothing.

I also cannot argue that the benefits are substantial: Some people check both wikis when they see the game update spam in-game; many check whenever the see the auto-update feature engaged. So, an early note would be helpful to them. Others are curious whether ANet is getting worse (or better) at releasing changes, so they are interested in how many times/month the company puts out new software (and how often it is new content vs bug fixes or minor tweaks). Is any of that necessary? No, certainly not. However, it's cheap to provide the info/data, so why not?   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:57, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

Bah, arguing about it is just wasting more of my time. If you think it's worth spending time on, then do it. I don't care anymore. —Dr Ishmael 04:08, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

<insert conspiracy theory about a-net here> i rest my caseAkbaroth 08:59, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

I know the second update on Dec 17 fixed a crash bug involving equipment templates and costumes. --Macros 09:57, December 18, 2009 (UTC)

December 21st Update

Looks like it added a security question, asking to see who is one of the characters on the account? Is everyone else seeing this? 98.176.180.155 02:05, December 22, 2009 (UTC) http://www.guildwars.com/support/log-in-security.php

Yes! OMFG! Finally something useful security-wise! *claps and giggles like a little girl* RoseOfKali 02:07, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

yes, finally! though it will make getting into my other account a challenge, since i am not 100% sure of a characters name there >.> Anithira 02:22, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Great timing anet. Have a guild tourney while you're going to forcefully unwillingly disconnect everyone from game. ----ty — Balistic 02:33, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Good stuff! FYI there's a new command line parameter to go with the new question.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:37, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, whatever character's name you enter in the box is the one that's "selected" by default on the char select screen instead of the last one that was played like before. Confused me for a moment. Ad Victoriam 08:04, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

I can't really decide if this was a good update or not. At least they did something to improve security,so +1 for that. but how hard can it really be to get someone's charachter name? considering how many people have their charachters on their userpage here and on GWW. There are quite alot of Guild Wars fansites where you can put your IGN. Any form of auction site like on Guru requires IGNs. I don't really know if the recent hacks are just random assaults on random people, or if the hacker really has some info about the person they are about to hack. Some other security question might be alot better, so -1 for that. Then there is the arument of people with multiple acc's, or people returning to the game, not remembering their name. -1 for that imo. Then again that's their own fault and Support can help (wouldnt a hacker be able to use this to get the char name?), so +1 again. Stygian Veil nerf seems completly random. I personally think it was one of the most brilliant farms ever. not because of drops, but because someone at some point in time figured out that he might be able to get those big meanies stuck between 2 NPCs. so -1 for shattering this genieus idea and +1 for fixing the game a bit more. So Anet gets an impressive 0 points from me for this update ^^ /enduselessrant Lยкץ๒๏ץ talk 08:28, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

My apologies for the notes about command-line options: I was given information that appeared solid and seemed to check out. (Coincidental success.) I've struck out the note here and updated the command line and game update articles.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 09:20, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, this update seems like a good one for me. Fixing bugs in Stygian Veil and Zaishen Menagerie, +2. And the security thing seems ok as well, at least they did something to improve it, some harder question could be better tho. I didn't get the part about multiple accounts at all..how can this affect such people? And well, if you don't remember the name of any of your characters, you fail :P Soo, I'd give +2 for this. Therefore:

Eaglemut finds this to be a good update. Through the Eagle's vetting system, it has reached an overall Rating in the range from 3.75 to < 4.75 and thus qualifies for the medium category of working updates: Good.

O wait this is not PvX. Bah, whatever. ***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 10:22, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Heh, yet another dodgy pretending-to-be-two-factor-authentication-that-really-isn't security measure. At least it does enhance the security somewhat, and in the case of hackers having a lot of usernames and passwords with little else, it will probably be effective in the short run. Beyond that, well, I guess even a small improvement is an improvement. Nwash 14:22, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

Well there goes stygain veil farming for a good deal of classes. It's good that they fixed it though.--Ikimono "...And my axe!" 17:40, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

My kudos to ANet for not failing to think of people like me who start the game via TexMod by including the "save security question" ingame also. -- 02:03, January 1, 2010 (UTC)