Suspense in development is idiotic.

"Hey, are you the kind of kid who reads the last page of a mystery first? Who pesters the magician to tell you his tricks? Who sneaks downstairs to peek at his Christmas presents? Noooo, of course you're not.

That's whhyyy Iiiii'm noooot gooonnnnna teeeeell youuuuuu."

In all seriousness, I know you're excited, no one really likes waiting for something they're excited about, and so I understand how you feel. Especially when it seems like we're just being mean and doing it just to spite you. We're not.

Q u o t e:
On a business perspective it makes no sense because the last thing you want is a limited time frame for the community to discuss upcoming changes.

If you've ever been around for a PTR that includes a new raid you'll know there's going to be plenty of time to test the changes.

Q u o t e:
If history's taught anything, the less time you give, the more likely some really bad changes which lack foresight will make it all the way to the PTR only to be flamed off in a whirlwind of spam and anger on the forums. Why deal with all that when it can be pro-actively addressed?

If it's a bad change it's a bad change, but there's a distinct difference between theorycraft and feedback based on actual testing.

You can't imagine how many times everyone sees the notes as the PTR goes up, and there's some change, and it's the worst change imaginable. It just completely ruins a class, and here's the proof of why, etc. etc. Then some people actually go on the PTR, test, and report their findings, and hey, it's actually nowhere near as bad as everyone thought. It's actually a fairly minimal impact.

Imagine if there was three or four weeks of those notes with no actual way to test the changes, would that actually be meaningful feedback? For 99% of it no, so really there's no gain. The purpose of the PTR is to gather meaningful testing, bug finding, and feedback because we can't accurately test all of the changes and effect in-house. The game's too big. Releasing the notes early does not promote meaningful testing, bug finding, or feedback.

Reading a patch note is not playing the game, it actually causes a lot of problems having people just read the patch notes and not actually see how a change may affect them. Many people never log on to the PTR, they read a note and perpetuate the chicken little syndrome while the few that actually have tested the changes try to talk them down. We purposefully hold back on announcing or discussing changes that are better seen and tested in-game than simply read through a patch note.

I can appreciate that you love and enjoy playing the game and are excited about seeing the patch notes. We're excited about seeing 2.4 get out there, get some testing, and then release with a bunch of great new content. It's just a little while longer. Sit tight, enjoy the weekend.

Q u o t e:


Drysc

It's completely different then going to the last page of a book.

I just wanted to quote The Last Starfighter because it's rockular.

Q u o t e:
But seriously, it would be better for you guys to release the notes now, AHEAD of the PTR so good players that care about your game can give you POSITIVE or NEGATIVE feedback about what you have before it hits the system.

I would probably agree, but since everyone thinks they know what they're talking about it kind of makes it hard to pick out the good feedback from the bad without seeing proof and testing that someone's actually done in-game.

Q u o t e:
I understand what Drysc is saying, but I don't really understand it because I continue to harp on the issue even though he clearly just told me to shut up.

I would expect nothing less.

Love is blind, no matter how many times I poke your occipital lobe with my forceps of justice and logic.