Blizzard is unique among software developers. For most companies, customers are excited to receive an update, because they know it will make the product better. Not Blizzard: people actively dread seeing an update applied, because they know that it will only make things worse. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach when I see Battle.net applying a patch, because I KNOW that Blizzard is about to break something and make my game experience more annoying. The latest patch was no exception: Quests and Experience no longer update in real time, and you have to quit and restart the game to see your progress. Please, Blizzard: we have long since given up any hope that you will do anything to make the game better, but is it too much to ask that you not actively work to make it worse?
There’s some weird crap related to how the Interface code is dislocated from the Server/gameplay code. E.g. I recently noticed people reporting that the Trogg Gemtosser may be bugged on the glow on the Interface but it works fine on the server/gameplay for how it actually affects the game (“a visual bug” people call it).
From a Computer Engineering perspective it’s a dumb mistake because it can be fixed easily; just have a common code base for those things (i.e. what the server pulls to compile that part of gameplay …have the UI pull the same code/library/header); if your Interface is in a different language: rewrite it/JIT it/auto translate it.
Clearly, they are doing something wrong: this happens every single time they update the game. I could understand new features not working properly, but it’s always something that was working fine and then they borked it. Which is why I find it so frustrating to continue supporting the game: updates should make things better, but invariably, they make things worse. Sure, they eventually get around to fixing it, but usually after we spend several weeks with a worse experience, and not much positive to show for it (I don’t see how the latest patch improved things in any way). They REALLY need to hire people who know what they’re doing, because this dev team is almost comical in their ineptitude.
Blizzard is generally a company that seems to hire a lot for Art and not so much on Software. It has served them a lot in the past so I don’t blame them but it sometimes seems silly how a multibillionaire corporation seems to do Software Engineering mistakes solved by 2nd Semester programming students.
Have you ever seen them release a game engine that isn’t old tech but with impressive Art?
I don’t fault them for using old tech, but that’s exactly my point: they aren’t doing groundbreaking, innovative things that might lead to bugs and edge case problems. They are breaking things that have worked for years without issue. It boggles my mind how they can consistently break the game every single patch cycle: there is ALWAYS something that gets borked that seemingly has nothing to do with the update itself. And the most infuriating thing that is that they are seemingly content to let things stay broken for weeks or months. It really shows a lot of contempt for their users.
Because to not do bugs easily, you need very good programmers and their best are Artists.
Good programmers also use new tech so having old tech is implying what’s going on.