
A few weeks back, MOP’s Justin expressed astonishment that a particular patch for Lord of the Rings Online was being pushed from public testing to the live servers with such a quick turnaround. Somehow, we both imagined it would take much longer to test, given the scope of the zone changes, which basically added a new layer of Gondor zones for after the war. But apparently not.
How long should major MMO patches sit in testing? Days? Weeks? Months? Does the length of time behind-the-scenes matter much more than the time on a public test server? What about games with no PTS at all? Does a quick turnaround for big patches give you pause about the quality and completeness of the content?
