Turbine Nation
The Development cycle for a monthly patch is a strange and frightening thing. It is not actually a monthly cycle, rather extending for eight weeks, with multiple cycles overlapping. Ramen and the team went into some detail on this cycle in the afternoon "AC2: Behind the Scenes" session at Turbine Nation and I've taken the time to put it into text so that we can all get a feeling of exactly how much is going on in their heads at any given time.
Okay, it takes eight weeks for a patch to be created, but there are only 4 weeks between patches. Doesn't make sense, right? Well, the key here is that the devs, especially the content team, are working on more than one patch at a time. So in this little timeline, I'll create four patches and we'll see what the Dev Team is doing on them at any given time.
It should be noted here that the Server Tech, Gator, is working off in his own unscheduled world. To paraphrase him "If it is further than a week and a half away, I don't even register its existence". Gator is dedicated to solving problems one at a time as they pop up. He helps implement patch day and hotfixes, working always under tight deadlines on critical bugs that affect the server itself. While doing this, he also monitors the servers for problems. He may end up assisting in developing tech for the monthly patches, supporting the other Engineers, but he'll only hear about it just before he starts work and will move on to something else as soon as he is done.
Okay, lets look at a few months worth of work. We'll call the patches Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan. Mostly because I can call them anything I want and you can't stop me... I'll explain in detail all the stages as we follow Patch Porthos, since it is the only one we follow all the way through. Also, remember that this doesn't include any work done on hotfixes or speeding up the cycle to move Patch Day earlier in a month.
Week 0
Overview of Patch Porthos - At this time all the patch's general brainstorming is complete and each planned quest and game addition is planned out. A basic outline of each item is approved by the team as a whole and each team member starts filling in the details on their responsibilities for the patch, whether it is a quest, new artwork or coding new features. Anything not yet ready for prime time is pushed back for a future patch.
Release Candidate 0 for Patch Athos goes to QA
Week 1
Spec Complete/Implementation Work on Patch Porthos - A final writeup for the details of all work has been done at this point. This doesn't mean that every t is crossed and every i dotted, but anything that another dev will need to assist on (for example sound/art/coding for a quest) is detailed out and the actual work of putting it into the game begins. Again, anything that isn't ready to go or seems too big at this point can be pushed back for more leisurely development.
QA and Polishing on Patch Athos
Week 2
Implementation Work on Patch Porthos - This is the week where all the rest of the work of scripting/coding is completed for any features/quests entering game in this patch.
Release Candidate 1 for Patch Athos goes to QA
Week 3
Implementation Work/Code-Content Complete (CCC) on Patch Porthos - Final wrap up of the previous week's work. Once the end of this week hits, everything except art should be in the development tree.
Final QA for Patch Athos
Week 4
Release Candidate 0 for Patch Porthos goes to QA - The new patch's content is initially compiled and propped to internal test servers as a whole. Some pieces of the patch may have already been introduced, but the whole thing is up now. The team works on resolving the bugs in the patch as rapidly as possible after QA finds them.
Patch Athos is Propped
Week 5
QA and Polishing on Patch Porthos - QA and fixes continue. Vanguard is probably seeing the patch at this point, but that wasn't mentioned, so I'm just guessing.
Overview of Patch Aramis
Week 6
Release Candidate 1 for Patch Porthos goes to QA - Theoretically, everything new in the patch works now. This should be a version of everything that is ready for release. However, QA continues to test not only the new content, but old content that might in some vague way be affected... Old content is also tested to ensure that it is continuing to function smoothly. By this point, all art and text should be in the update.
Spec Complete/Implementation Work on Patch Aramis
Week 7
Final QA for Patch Porthos - More of the same from last week.
Implementation Work on Patch Aramis
Week 8
Patch Porthos is Propped - QA evaluation of the patch continues until 24-48 hours prior to Patch Day. If a large enough bug is found, Patch Day might be delayed...or work started on a hotfix.
Implementation Work/Code-Content Complete (CCC) on Patch Aramis
Overview of Patch D'Artagnan
