Let me recount a few things that needed to happen and why, in order to show that Blizzard and its friendly cohorts, 3rd party addon developers (solo artists & teams) have already handled it, largely.
- Players with level 90 characters with great PvP gear expressed disappointment that "Resilience" statistic is gone from their gear, somewhat hitting them in the face with the 'nerf stick'. But as quickly as this sentiment fermented, Blizzard was already doing interviews, selling the new flavor of PvP as more friendly to newcomers. If that shortens times for BG wait queues, I think Blizzard can sell this change somewhat to most people by pointing that out soon, and later there will be more PvP players participating in BGs and they won't see what all the fuss was about in the first place! [So far I have only BGed in 5.3 on a single character who is well geared, well buffed, and I was seriously buffing teammates too but I felt the new BGs are great if that is you.]
- Half the WoW addons I use have already been updated to WoW 5.3. Most of the biggies that are popular, "I gotta have this one" addons are updated for 5.3.
- Blizzard seems to have released at least 3 tiny little patches since 5.3 came out. Presumably, these address little issues since we are not in the midst of a "holiday" world event.
- Blizzard advised people in the in game login message to remember to fully reset their UIs and directed them to a place on the web they can get instructions for doing that if they forgot or never had to do it before. Addons are disabled by default by a new version so getting this message at first login is actually not too late but just the right time.
I am so amazed this happened so quickly.
I chalk it up to those being involved being smart, deft, and diligent. Clearly, there is a lot of talent brought to bear in the WoW community. Plus, it looks like there is a routine now born of practice, experimentation, and knowing their counterparts; WoW game developers/management/support, WoW players, and WoW addon developers.
People will look at the stock price of Activision/Blizzard. People will look at subscriber numbers. People will look at waning this, waxing that, whining these and try to scry what the future brings from all those tea leaves.
To me though, the things I listed are the signs that Blizzard has conquered the technical complexities of its domain, the bedrock upon which everything else is built. Everything matters.
Being on solid ground really helps a lot. I'm keeping my eyes peeled this month for how they have gotten so good at this. I feel sure there are good lessons to learn from such success.
