Not everybody can reschedule.
The delay is a good thing but I can’t fault some folks for being disappointed.
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this.
100%
blizzard handled this situation extremely poorly, and they don’t deserve all the back patting they’re getting about it.
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You realize the posts aren’t made by the same people right? There’s a lot of people that play this game. Whenever you have a lot of people interested in something, there’s going to be multiple viewpoints.
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They’re getting back-patting because our expectations for them are really low. Everyone thought they would just release the expansion as a complete trainwreck. Regardless of whether the delay was handled poorly or not, they did actually delay it, which is far more than we thought they would do.
This, 100%.
I’ve had a lot of jobs, and I can think of a single one where I couldn’t take my day off back, even if it were the day before it was supposed to happen.
I said essentially the same thing in another thread; this action is a complete failure on Blizzard’s behalf, but it is at least the lesser of two evils. Congratulating Blizzard for making the right call here is like congratulating a child for not taking a dump on the sidewalk. The fact that you think it’s worthy of praise speaks only the the ridiculously small expectation you place on them in the first place.
They screwed up, royally. They have taken a minor step to fix it, which they wouldn’t have had to do with an appropriate degree of oversight and planning. As a result, a cohort of their consumers are going to functionally lose a period of their leave for a purpose they didn’t want to use it for. It’s really bad. It’s worthy of the outrage that it has caused.
It’s important to note here that I didn’t take time off - I don’t have that horse in this race. I could see a mile off that the game was either releasing in a broken state or late, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near either. But man, if I hadn’t had access to the beta it would be hard to believe the degree of garbage that still exists in the beta at this point. I would be incredibly pissed if, without that first-hand information, I had assumed it would be “ok” and go ahead anyway, used some of my leave, and had to go back to my employer at 3.5 weeks notice and ask them to rearrange around me AGAIN, putting both them and my co-workers out as a result.
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I cannot reschedule the block of time I took off. I could go into the details on why, but it’s frankly no one’s business but mine and my employer’s.
I get it. 2020 is a crap year all around. I’m not upset that they had to push the launch date back.
I’m upset that they announced a date, gave those of us who wanted to take time off just enough to schedule that in, then almost immediately turned and “well, about that…”
I’ve worked in development long enough to know that they knew a few weeks ago when they announced a launch date they weren’t going to hit that.
so yea. I’m not upset that they had to push it back. I’m upset at how they handled it, and that I’ve now wasted the extra non-reschedulable vacation week I had coming this year. I’m upset that I’m going to miss the launch week hype that I’ve participated in since wrath.
it’s disappointing, and I feel blizzard could have handled it better.
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it comes down to most of the time if they needed to arrange cover for you
If they were never going to cover your work then there is no reason to not let you take it back
But if its already been arranged it can be more tricky
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The last time I worked at a company with a PTO system, rescheduling this type of time off this late in the year would be difficult at best, as you would have to work around everyone else’s already scheduled time off, which is really hard in November and December with the holidays.
I’m not saying you couldn’t take it at another time, but being able to pick and chose when you get to take it to line it up with SL’s new release date is no where near easy as the OP suggests. You have to factor in who else would be gone, proper coverage by remaining employees, and project deadlines and schedules.
Now, that said, I’d never use PTO time for a game launch, since it isn’t that important to me. But for those that chose to use their PTO for a game launch, they can certainly use their time as they want. I feel for them having the rug pulled out from under them with not that much notice and at a time of year where rescheduling is more problematic due to holiday schedules than at most other times of the year. They certainly have a valid and legitimate complaint.
As we’ve all experienced this year, things don’t always go the way you want them to or have planned them, and we all have to adapt and adjust as best we can. But to criticize people that have a legitimate issue with the impact of the delay is frankly uncalled for. They are entitled to voicing their feedback and the impact the decision has had on them.
/moo 
Saying this sort of thing is just incredibly immature and speaks to a lack of experience in a wide range of jobs. You say you’ve had a lot of jobs, but the only jobs where it doesn’t matter when you take time off are jobs where you are easily replaceable. A lot of people move on from that sort of job eventually.
I’m just keeping my week off and taking another week when we get a new date lol.
Say you run a building company and you have a job coming up at the end of the year. You are also a gamer and you really want to be there for the first week of the expansion. So you schedule your tradies, your plumbers and electricians etc to start the work at another time so you can take a break on 26 October. You can’t just suddenly reassign all those people at the last moment because they will also have job schedules they have put in place. Don’t assume everyone works exactly the same way as you.
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Saying this sort of thing about someone you don’t even know is extremely immature in and of itself.
Shame on you for assuming you have any idea what my work history has been over my 30 years.
How dare you.
this.
if they had said 2-3 months ago “our development process has been impacted by covid 19, and we will have to reevaluate the launch date of shadowlands for q12021” or whatever?
even while being disappointing, that would have been perfectly acceptable and understandable.
Yeah right bud. You’re the one who claimed that it’s easy to rearrange time off, when it isn’t. If your work history has consistently allowed you to rearrange time off at will, you’ve never had a job where you were not easy to replace. Your statements inform my opinion of you, since that is what they evidence.
You haven’t worked in even 5% of the job market. You don’t know how other peoples’ PTO works. Especially high earning individuals or highly educated individuals who cannot easily be replaced. Stop speaking for the majority because you’ve “had a lot of jobs”.
Yeah cool man.
Just so you know every person that works in retail has what we call “black out days” - whole weeks at a time or more that we are unable to take off if they are close to the fall/winter holidays. I.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years…
So even if we cancel out PTO we may not be able to use it for launch.
Its more complicated than “just cancel it”.
I share a role with 1 other person and we are the only 2 people in the company office of 1000 people that can do it.
When one of us has time off, the other is not allowed it.
They have 2 weeks off in November and is thinking of putting in for Christmas off.
The odds of me getting time off for it isn’t looking great
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the issue is many may be able to cancel BUT with the holidays incoming, they likely won’t be able to use the time when the new date is announced. any customer service positions won’t allow time off during the holiday season at all, and those that do will likely have most of their employees requesting time off during the same time frame.
rescheduling the time off will not be that easy. if people cancel their time off, they could very well lose that time they’d saved up. we don’t know how far in advance blizzard will announce a new release date, and I think thats what those who have issue are afraid of. i know i wouldn’t want to lose my PTO.
maybe try having a bit of understanding. i do believe the delay is whats best for the game, but it truly does suck for those that took the time off. some people have very little they enjoy, like myself. WoW is one of those things. taking time off for a video game is no different than taking time off to go see the super bowl, or going to disney, or any other thing people enjoy and take time off for. the only difference is time off for video games is a staycation where most others involve some form of travel.
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Scheduling PTO is a bear for some people and a grizzly when you have to reschedule