Overly Positive

Image by heidielliott via Flickr

So today was the first patch for EA Mythic’s Warhammer Online, patch 1.01. Today’s patch was all about bug fixes, from tab-targetting annoyances to UI tweaks to make the experience a little smoother.

Now, I’d say that unlike the hordes and masses of people that might think that a bugfix patch is a bad thing and not a good thing, I’m pretty satisfied. I mean, let’s not worry about the fact that there were absolutely no class balance fixes or changes, save for one that suddenly made one class just a little less intimidating. I’m sure that they are sure to get on the nerf, buff, and overpowering train sure enough. C’mon now – I think we’re so used to being nerfed and buffed to death that we probably think it’s weird when it doesn’t happen.

And what about all the people who’ve said “they didn’t fix my problem!”. Not to worry – the internal testers are most definitely hard at work fixing your specific thing that makes your Commodore 64 machine that “plays WoW just fine” screw up in WAR. I’m sure that the developers will take into careful consideration that the 5 deaths you got in RvR, which were 4 deaths too many even though you got 32 kills, were totally a bug and not intended at all. And I’m almost positive that they’re going to buff you so you can powerlevel yourself in 2 days of 12 hour gametime through caffeine and drug induced marathons. Your time is coming – keep your chin up!

There’s all this talk about “misguided priorities”. Really, I see it more of a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. MMOs are supposed to be perfect, after all, and  never have any bugs that need to be squashed right way. Certainly all the other people who believe this to be true must be correct at holding WAR to a standard so high they can’t see it from the top of the Ivory Tower. I mean, realism in a fantasy game? Understanding that some problems take time to fix? Clearly they are issues that can be fixed by walking to the server and hitting it with a hammer several times. Because servers have elves that run them, after all (dark and high elves, in case you were wondering).

So don’t worry that this patch seems underwhelming to some of you. I’m sure that many people will be more than happy to post with great productivity and with not at all the kind of livejournal-esque ranting you see on blogs for the next content patch, which is supposed to be “major”. So sit back, grab anotehr red bull, and level grind another alt to 40 through excruciating quests. You’ll be patched again before you know it.