If you've been playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft for some time now, you may have noticed that the Community Managers don't really give out a lot of definitive information regarding the game's patches while it is under development.

"It's not about being secretive," said Community Manager Nethaera. "It's about giving accurate information." She said that while estimated release dates are fine for some players, others want a more specific date:

We want to give a date people can rely on. So, rather than creating a date we may or may not be able to deliver on, we don't give one and let things work themselves out how we feel they will best work out.

This way if we feel something isn't ready, we have as much time as we need without disappointing people who may have been relying on a specific date and time.

As expected, quite a number of violent reactions came from certain members of the community regarding Nethaera's statements. While this blogger would personally prefer to have an estimated time frame, it seems that Blizzard has made a decision regarding this so we're just going to have grin and bear it.