How Often Should You Publish?

After the initial launch phase, when the game has settled into a stable state, you should institute a regular publishing schedule of patches. With a regular schedule necessary to manage the expectations of the players about patch publishing, the question becomes how often you should publish a patch.

We've seen every schedule from once per week to every two or three months. In our experience, once per week is too often and once a month is not often enough. A happy medium, depending on the resources available, is every two to four weeks, not counting emergency patches.

The important thing is that publishing patches happens on a regular schedule and that schedule is kept, if at all possible. There will always be exceptions; some scheduled publishes won't make it through QA. Constant communication about the state of an upcoming patch with the players will help you manage these occasional situations.