[STEAM] Blizzard Apologizes, Admits World of Warcraft Patch 12.0.5. 'Not Up to Our Standards'

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Blizzard has formally apologized to fans, acknowledging its latest

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patch "was not up to our standards."

In a brief apology posted to

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and social media overnight, the team admitted the launch of 12.0.5 "disrupted your time and caused justified frustration," and said it was "working around the clock" to address the issues the new patch spawned.

World of Warcraft's 12.0.5 patch introduced a new hide-and-seek mode, fishing, and more PvE opportunities to level up your gear, but it seems to have debuted to almost universal dismay across the community. For instance, the map still showed where the seekers were hiding, and Blizzard similarly forgot to turn off the Track Humanoids ability, too. There were also a lot of reports of

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, "

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" redesigns, such as the Unholy changes, and

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rewards. One player

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the issues as "the new content is actually just discovering what's broken on your class." Ouch.

"The team has been working around the clock since launch to stabilize the game and fix the biggest issues players were hitting right away: see our hotfixes update

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and our posts on the Bonus Roll issue

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and

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," Blizzard wrote.

"The team is taking lessons learned from this launch to help ensure this doesn't happen again. We will also work harder to communicate openly, early, and often when a launch doesn't go as expected: the known issues we're working on, fixes as they roll out, and any other information that would be useful to our community as problems are worked on and solved.

"We care deeply about this game, and we play it right alongside you. We will do better."

While players have, in the main, accepted the apology, many commenters pointed out that the issues were identified when the patch launched on the Private Test Server (PTS), and were seemingly not at all addressed before rolling it out to all players on the stable branch.

"What I don’t understand is that some of these bugs were reported 3+ weeks ago on PTR," said

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. "Some of these bugs were so blatantly obvious like running off the wall for prop hunt. Who in their right mind would sign off to go live with all of this? There’s no way someone in the chain didn’t say 'hey guys we have a lot of issues we need another week or two'."

"Honestly what new lessons could be taken from this that couldn't have been learned any other time over the past 20 years of the game's life cycle?" asked

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.

"I’d rather have a slower patch cycle if it means bringing back 'Blizzard polish' that has been missing from the game recently,"

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, before another

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: "I look forward to your next apology when the next patch launches. As is tradition."

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, we've got you covered.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at

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