3.3: Background Downloading Has Begun
Amatera
Oh Blizzard, you're so sneaky! With a notice surreptitiously tucked away at the bottom of the launcher, and a download utility that chugs away at forthcoming patches minimized on your taskbar, you wouldn't even realize you were downloading anything at all unless you were looking for it! But if you've used your World of Warcraft client today, chances are you've already got pieces of 3.3 on your hard drive.
Exciting, isn't it?!
The pre-patching process allows Blizzard to push information such as texture and environment data (in other words, stuff that wouldn't currently affect gameplay) well ahead of patch day, so that when that moment comes, the process runs just a little bit smoother. As much as it might lighten the load on the data servers, though, it rarely does anything for the mountain of people trying to access the latest content, leading to lag on live servers, which leads to frustration and disappointment anyway, which leads to the Dark Side.
Of course, the first thing your mind probably jumps to when you hear news like this is "the patch is coming next week," right? Well, the answer to that is... possibly. Now that we know Blizzard is gating content in Icecrown Citadel, that gives them plenty of time to continue testing encounters featured later in the dungeon in the background while hungry players sink their teeth into the first bites of the instance on live servers. From all I've experienced, the first set of bosses is more or less ready to go and itemization is in place.
Nonetheless, it may still be unwise to release 3.3 the week of Thanksgiving, since most players will probably be vacationing, out of town, or otherwise spending time with their families. But either way, with data being pre-loaded, I don't expect the patch to be more than two weeks out.
Only time will tell, so keep your eyes on the downloader and on Project Lore for more information on 3.3's release!
Exciting, isn't it?!
The pre-patching process allows Blizzard to push information such as texture and environment data (in other words, stuff that wouldn't currently affect gameplay) well ahead of patch day, so that when that moment comes, the process runs just a little bit smoother. As much as it might lighten the load on the data servers, though, it rarely does anything for the mountain of people trying to access the latest content, leading to lag on live servers, which leads to frustration and disappointment anyway, which leads to the Dark Side.
Of course, the first thing your mind probably jumps to when you hear news like this is "the patch is coming next week," right? Well, the answer to that is... possibly. Now that we know Blizzard is gating content in Icecrown Citadel, that gives them plenty of time to continue testing encounters featured later in the dungeon in the background while hungry players sink their teeth into the first bites of the instance on live servers. From all I've experienced, the first set of bosses is more or less ready to go and itemization is in place.
Nonetheless, it may still be unwise to release 3.3 the week of Thanksgiving, since most players will probably be vacationing, out of town, or otherwise spending time with their families. But either way, with data being pre-loaded, I don't expect the patch to be more than two weeks out.
Only time will tell, so keep your eyes on the downloader and on Project Lore for more information on 3.3's release!
Reader Comments