Template talk:Patch

Comments for undocumented changes
Though the template says to use |comment for undocumented changes rather than |note, I can't say I've ever seen this consistently applied. Usually, people (including myself, and I must admit I hadn't actually seen what the template's documentation said until today) use |note for everything and |comment for making comments; I'm inclined to just change the documentation to make this the rule, but what does everyone else think? -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 01:06, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I find it just easier to use |note, cause often times I'll also add a |comment for both official and unofficial changes. But yes, we've never been consistent with it. 04:59, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It makes me uncomfortable mostly because I've always used - or at least try to, I can't guarantee I haven't goofed up at some point - |comment for undocumented changes. Using |note to record change(s) implies to me official documentation (Blizzard patch notes) rather than informal documentation (observation from players). Aliok (talk) 17:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't see a need to clarify on a page whether a change was listed in the patch notes or not. It's ultimately not really that relevant, since all it indicates is whether or not Blizzard remembered to document it. The important thing is listing what changed, not how information about the change was conveyed. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't help but feel this is going to bite us further down the road. Whatever, I won't fight it any more.Aliok (talk) 19:40, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Vanilla
How come NPCs, quests, whatnot from vanilla don't use "Added" with patch 1.X.X? --Mordecay (talk) 22:24, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably cause it's hard to track when they were exactly added, with wowhead not counting before 1.11 Xporc (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Numbers
Wowhead lists a lot of stuff for Northrend added in patch 302, but patch 302 brought only class & system changes, some things in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and the world event. The Northrend content was added in patch 303. Many Northrend stuff here is tagged with 302. Why?

Similarly, a lot of Cata stuff was loaded in databases as 401, but the world changes were added in 403a, and 403a is heavily used here as well.

Should we use numbers loaded by databases or numbers representing actual availability / activation in the game? --Mordecay (talk) 14:23, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Just like the Cata stuff, we should use 3.0.3 instead of 3.0.2 for Northrend content. 14:26, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Omg :-D --Mordecay (talk) 14:30, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There have been cases where the databases are very much unreliabible for patch numbers, especially for content during the TBC and Vanilla era. And yes, I am aware that I just created articles and marked them as 3.0.2; that is because majority of the articles are already marked as added in 3.0.2. It should be switched to 3.0.3, IMO 14:32, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Oh, no worries about you just adding those, 302 is really heavily used here for Northrend stuff, I myself have been adding 302 as well, like everyone else, I guess. It's just really a lot, looking at it retrospectively. But yeah, I lean towards representing in-game content availability rather than databases loading stuff in this case. --Mordecay (talk) 14:30, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I suppose it depends on what we mean when we say "added". Do we mean, "available" or "existing". Nowadays I suppose it's easy since it's all downloaded through the launcher and stuff is linkable right from the prepatch. I could be wrong on this one, but as I recall the TBC stuff was not linkable in the prepatch, as the data was still on the discs you bought. I don't remember when this all changed though. PeterWind (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I think I am going to take a step back on this whole thing. Patch 4.0.1 introduced system and class changes while 4.0.3a destroyed the world around. Patch 8.0.1 introduced system and class changes but also later "opened" Kul Tiras and Zandalar. The Cataclysm is different in this situation as it was affecting a world that was already visited by the players, they couldn't have included it in patch 4.0.1 and wait for Cataclysm to finally release like how BfA did, where we were able to view the maps for Kul Tiras and Zandalar while we waited at Magni to give us the quest so we can get the Heart of Azeroth and venture to Kul Tiras / Zandalar. Outland and Northrend are similar to how Draenor, Broken Isles, and the Kul Tiras and Zandalar.
 * The question is, how should we handle this?
 * Outland content was definitely added in patch 2.0.1 but was just locked under a gate like how Kul Tiras / Zandalar was. Patch 2.0.3 just happens to be released before the expansion released. Outland may have been patch 2.0.3.
 * Northrend content was definitely added in patch 3.0.2 but was locked. Patch 3.0.3 just happens to be released before the expansion released.
 * Cataclysm is an exceptional case here as patch 4.0.1 did not include the major changes that was coming with the expansion, such as the world changes, new races, quests, and new zones. When this patch released, it was still the old zones from vanilla (no flying gonna happen). Patch 4.0.3a finally introduced the world changes, new races, quests and new zones. The developers even said that they had to kill all players because of the world changes (pretty sure this was at BlizzCon 2009 or 2010). 4.0.3a makes sense for the Cata stuff, except for class changes and some system changes.
 * Pandaria content was definitely added in patch 5.0.4 but was locked. Eventually, just like Kul Tiras and Zandalar, it was "opened" as soon as the expansion release date came. No patch between happened.
 * content was definitely added in patch 6.0.2 but was locked. Patch 6.0.3 just happens to be released before the expansion released.
 * Broken Isles content was definitely added in patch 7.0.3 but was locked. Eventually, just like Kul Tiras and Zandalar, it was "opened" as soon as the expansion release date came. No patch between happened.
 * IMO, I think every expansion patch should be using the first one except for Cataclysm as that affected a world that already existed for players to explore; it had to happen in a different patch for a reason. 16:59, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Depends what one understands by "added". "Added to the game files", or "added to the game proper". Something can be in the game files for months, sometimes years, before it's actually added to or used in the game proper.
 * As an example, the Nighthold raid was always in the games files and was thus shipped with 7.0, but it was added to the game proper (as an instance and everything), was unlocked, and became available, in 7.1.
 * (It also doesn't to be always one or the other.) -- — MyMindWontQuiet 17:10, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Well the thing is, with every expansion, but Cataclysm, the Map showed the new continent (in those patches) even though it wasn't available for the players to visit. They were in-game and were ready to explore, just couldn't visit it until the expansion's release date because it was locked/gated. I remember this exactly for Wotlk, Draenor, Legion, and especially BfA. 17:15, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * So what do we want to mean under "added"? Availability / Usage or "being in data files" for these first patches?
 * In case of Nighthold, I think the patch changes section should also have a "patch 710: Made available." (or similar wording) if "703: Added." is to be kept. Technically, maybe, not every Nighthold data would be in game in 703 just to be "locked", it probably had many stuff added in 710, making it ready and available for that patch. I'm wondering if similar case (adding additional data for the worlds) wouldn't be a factor for the Outland & Northrend & Draenor things, or is it sure that everything was already in with the first patch? --Mordecay (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * We've done that with similar stuff like the Mists of Pandaria Timewalking mount Yu'lei, Daughter of Jade. It was in the game since 5.0.4 but was finally available for players with patch 7.1.5. In terms of continents like Northrend, I don't see why that would need to be applied. I mean yes, the content was added in 3.0.2 and patch 3.0.3 just so happens to be released prior to the expansion releasing, to fix "some issues". Look at it from BfA's perspective; patch 8.0.1. The content was there, just "locked". Eventually it was "unlocked". The mount however has been in-game since forever and was just finally made available. The Hivemind (mount) is another good example. Not sure why this would need to be applied to a mass amounts of things of a continent; I think this just comes down to a discussion much like the stat squish topic here IMO. 20:00, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Personally, I like "Added" to mean "linkable". PeterWind (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The Hivemind and the Yu'lei, Daughter of Jade was linkable in-game even though it was impossible to obtain. 23:22, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, "added" for when they are linkable, and then an "Made available" for when they can be obtained works. PeterWind (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know about having every Northrend NPC, object, item, and zone to have patch 3.0.2 as added and 3.0.3 as "Made available" as it would still be misleading. The content was added in 3.0.2, but wasn't made available with patch 3.0.3. 3.0.3 was released prior to the expansion release to just fix bugs from the previous patch. IMO, if this is an issue, it would probably be best to add a  to the patch 3.0.2 template on the article that says "Made available on X.", with X being the date the expansion released. If we do this, then every single patch at the start of every expansion would be misleading and would need the same treatment, especially patch 8.0.1.  15:22, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In addition to the expansions, it might also need to be applied to content that isn't available until later like Battle of Dazar'alor which was added in 8.1.0 but wasn't made available until X date. Looking at the Nighthold, it is misleading because it has patch 7.1.0 as "made available" when it wasn't available until January 17, 2017. 7.1.0 was released on October 25, 2016. 15:33, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Well I don't think the 3.0.2 - 3.0.3 situation is the same. I could be wrong on this, but the fact that 3.0.3 was released seem more or less incidental to me. The 3.0.2 stuff being made available, didn't have anything to do with changes actually in 3.0.3, although it was the most recent patch. Perhaps that logic is not consistently useful though. PeterWind (talk) 21:31, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

"Classic" category
I don't think this can work. By policy, all contend added in 1.0 WoW content is missing a patch information, so the category only contains material added or edited between 1.0 and 2.0 ... Xporc (talk) 12:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This might be a temporary thing, idk. The question is whether the category should be added manually or be handled by a template. This template doesn't make much sense to do it automatically because like you said, there are still tons of material from Classic that does not have this template. 15:54, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Additionally, if we are having a classic category (separate from the retail categories), why have everything in one place? It would be best to split up the items, quests, NPCs, etc. into their own categories and have them be subcategories of Category:Classic. Maybe something like,  , etc.  15:59, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If this is only temporary and maybe made to boost Google ratings, then I don't mind Xporc (talk) 10:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Anyone opposed to removing the Classic category addition? Xporc (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Automating icons, and aligning them

 * See also: Template talk:Bfa-inline § Growing image widths

I began a discussion at bfa-inline about the icons being all different sizes, which causes the "patch changes" section to look ugly. I recently proposed a fix that inserts padding around smaller images, which if accepted would need to be copied to every single template.

That got me thinking: why are we manually inserting the image in every template for every patch? The code below accomplishes the task by simply checking the first two characters of the patch and inserts the corresponding image. Voila, we could change the appearance of images on every patch without going back to them ever again. (Sadly, it would still be necessary to do so once to get rid of the images already there. -- anyone have a bot that could automate this?)

&lt;!-- |10=Two-digit patch example --&gt;

The div causes the image to be at least 50px wide, and padded equally on both sides if it is smaller than that. The #switch statement checks two characters for forward compatibility once we have a 10th expansion. If the patch is omitted, it just aligns everything 50px and leaves the image blank.DDC (talk) 22:15, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, this would work but we'd still have to manually remove each inline from each patch template. Also, "10" can be omitted from that list (too early) and add "0." for test-inline. 22:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Added '0.' to the above DDC (talk) 22:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've went ahead and ran a bot through all the patch templates to rmv all the inline templates from them and implemented the change (above) to this template. If someone is against the idea about the width consistency, comment below. Other than that, the switch itself is great. 05:41, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for running the bot. You can really see the difference on pages with lots of patch changes, like Arcane Missiles or .  DDC (talk) 07:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Eithris recently added the same change to Hotfix by pulling the dates of each expansion. Now every entry on a page like Arcane Missiles has an icon, both patches and hotfixes. This begs a new question: should we continue the practice of including a bullet '*' to list each patch/hotfix, or is this redundant since we're including a picture anyways? The practice on Patch documentation pre-dated the use of these icons. DDC (talk) 17:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Since the bulleted lists are used everywhere (but most API articles), best to just include them since it is widely used and everyone tends to prefer them. 19:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I cannot dispute they are all over the place... but do people truly prefer them or do they just copy the norm because that is what you are expected to do? DDC (talk) 01:54, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I prefer them IMO. Not sure what others think. Though since it is the norm, just best to keep that going and have things consistent. 02:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Link to /API changes
There are some rather detailed records of API changes (thanks Ketho and others) that currently don't get linked by the patch changes section of an API page. I propose an edit that is currently demonstrated on my userpage where a link gets added directly to the API section if two conditons are met: (1) the pagename starts with 'API', and (2) the subpage of the given patch actually exists. DDC (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)