Breakfast Topic: Burning Crusade Launch...Smooth or Disaster?
by David Nelson 
Oct 2nd 2006 at 10:25AM
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The Burning Crusade is right around the corner. We could have it in our hands in a matter of weeks, not months.When we finally do get to play the expansion, will we be able to play it at all?
I worry that the game could be unplayable for a week or more. I see in the forums people planning to take a vacation week on release, but I see that as a week vacation taken in vain. If the past is any indication, the servers will be laggy and overwhelmed, and the game will be borderline unplayable. Blizzard's history with stability after launching major patches is hit-or-miss, and this is one MAJOR patch. Also, a lot of folks who stopped playing or are only playing sporadically now will be back in full force, adding further strain to the servers.
So, what do you think? Any chance the launch will be incredibly smooth and we all have a great time? Is my prediction way off base?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Silvertusk Oct 2nd 2006 10:30AM
Well, recently Blizzard has retro-fitted ALL of the servers to be up to higher-standards, so there's a slight chance things MAY go smoothly.
Of course, there's an even bigger chance - given Blizzard's notorious reputation for WoW servers - that it'll crash in a heap of fire and babybombs.
stapleboy Oct 2nd 2006 10:57AM
Crash and burn. After they spent an entire day upgrading the hardware on my server, it was stable for... about a day. Then it was down Thursday evening, and I haven't tried to log in since.
This is a massive game, and the expansion doesn't look to be anything to shrug off. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of servers are down as often as they're up for the first few weeks. Especially when, as mentioned, burned out players come back for the new content.
I'm letting my account expire mid-October and will see how things play out.
Adam Oct 2nd 2006 10:52AM
I predict as much as 50% downtime in the first week. It's going to be a colossal disaster and people will be angry. Though i don't blame Blizzard, I blame the suits. They say how much money can go into the servers, not the developers...I fully believe they are trying their best. But the suits only see green. And they know their ass is covered with the TOS.
oomu Oct 2nd 2006 10:58AM
don't be so whiny
it's not "blizzard reputation"
it's the WHOLE INDUSTRY FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS reputation
of course, if people all come as rabid rabbits the network (internet), the platform, the servers will have problem to serve everyone
EQ got that
Google got that
newspaper or little blog got that when they are "slasdhotted" (when slashdot show a link to, for its readers)
Final fantasy 11 got that with the latest huge patch (everyone wanted to do the new "siege" feature)
you have to ACCEPT reality
NO we CANNOT build computers which can accept HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people at once. not for a _reasonable_ cost (the costs would be REALLY astronomical, no one could afford to pay it)
"tomorrow", in the bright future, yes
but for now, just accept little incremental improvements. actual mmo are more robust, more efficient than old amateurish mud and the ol'good ultimate online
--
yes, of course blizzard will have some heat if _Everyone_ and theirs dogs jump on the first day in Outland.
cry now, cry a lot now, go buy some tissus, you will know Drama and you will suffer as a moth on fire. but be prepared
and stop the "blame game". the technology to be PERFECTLY 100% IMPOSSIBLE TO CRASH is NOT existing. _NO_ even with BILLIONS of $.
Coanunn Oct 2nd 2006 10:56AM
The simple answer is it will be one big ball of problems. The reasoning is simple track record.
1) They retrofitted (meaning to set to a state that it should have been set to months ago) all the servers for stability. These retrofits have not solved current lag issues much less prepared for heightened server strain.
2) They ALWAYS underestimate the user levels and have never solved server side lag.
3) They beta tested for less than 2 months. Perhaps the worst of the bunch, every patch day is followed by no less than a day up to a full week of hot fixes to resolve issues found after the patch. With such minimal testing we are guaranteed to have hot fix issues which will undoubtably cause issues with both performance and server stability.
4) They are not even projecting a release date which means they have so little faith in the product they don't want to guarantee a release time frame and allow users and retailers alike preperation time.
oomu Oct 2nd 2006 11:02AM
please ; stop the X-files madness about Bad and Ugly Suit or "whatever-evil corporate" stuff
you can go on ibm.com , dell.com, hp.com and see WHAT computer an huge enterprise can BUY
and they are NOT so powerful
you could say "bha, just buy 5000 BIG BIG as hollywood movie computers and hook them with big cable" and NO :it's not THAT simple, it's not THAT efficient and definitely NOT that "stable".
Deafdumbandblind Oct 2nd 2006 11:12AM
I think Blizzard made a fundemental error in combining ALOT on modifications to the existing game COMBINED with the expansion.
Essentially they are attempting a combined roll-out of a MAJOR patch with a new game - madness!
Had they come up with completely new classes and races and kept all the existing class re-vamps for another time it would havebeen more manageable.
As it is, it will be complete and utter Chaos. Blizz will lose 10s of thousands of players who have had to put up with laggy servers, massive queues, unscheduled downtime, a plague of farm-bots and never-ending character nerfing. For alot of people this will be the straw that broke the camels back.
Jack Oct 2nd 2006 11:13AM
I certain that there's will be many (maybe as many as 10) new realms opened up for the BC release and I think that may help with some of the crunch but it will still be really bad.
Adam Oct 2nd 2006 11:17AM
Explain how it's "X-files" when I say the suits (read: executives) decide how much money is spent on the infrastructure?
There are other servers or even internet backbones that handle much higher volumes of traffic than WoW. They all don't shop at HP.com. The lag issues CAN be solved, but at a cost they are unwilling to pay. If I was in their position I would do the exact same thing... because you can!
Plus they know a bunch of sunlight-deprived nerds aren't going to actually call or write and file a real complaint, they'll just complain on the forums. That's what the forums are there for. For the nerds to complain and think someone who can do something about it is actually listening. It's a brilliant move on Blizzard's part.
I'll be trying to play on release day, but I don't expect to be able to play. I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment. Great game....god awful infrastructure.
Pougen (Earthen Ring) Oct 2nd 2006 12:13PM
Remember the AQ gate opening on your server? It's going to be like that, except it will not be one server, but all of them. Everyone will try to log on, there will be huge queues and massive lag. Then the servers will crash.
And of course, the forums will be down, so no one will be able to get any answers.
Bizzard will apologize, while counting the fat lewt from all those sales. The servers will still be laggy or down altogether, prompting "emergency maintenance". People will threaten to quit. Some people will. Hmm.
Sounds like business as usual.
vlad3060 Oct 2nd 2006 11:26AM
It shouldn't be as bad as most people think, for the following reasons:
Remember that they have have done retrofits and upgrades to their servers
They aren't starting from scratch with a brand new game; they literally are working from existing code. Look how well x-realm battlegrounds have fared..
However... Bliz's beta test will be a short one and the true beta test will be the first few weeks of the game.
I still think that it will be playable. How stable, we will see.
Dave Oct 2nd 2006 11:30AM
I'm not too optimistic. I figure the majority of players are going to crowd the new areas leaving the old areas pretty deserted. So it's going to be crashpalooza all the way.
Mat Oct 2nd 2006 11:32AM
Oomu,
At first I was figuring you were trying to be a devil's advocate or something, but then you started talking about:
'please ; stop the X-files madness about Bad and Ugly Suit or "whatever-evil corporate" stuff'
and my eyes just about rolled into the back of my head. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, there are a lot of articles out there (many have been posted on Wow Insider) pointing out how HUGE of a money maker WoW is for Vivendi. The company is corporate, not indie, hence the term "suits". And yeah, maybe the guys at the top of Vivendi like video games and whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that they are a publicly held company with shareholders to answer too. Your arguement that it's not easy to build a large, stable network of computers is true to a point, because it's also not impossible and has been done. We can see that in sites like Ebay, Google, Yahoo, etc.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's about balance and I honestly feel that when people complain about lag, and game issues they have good reason to be annoyed because this game is bringing in tons of money and could accurately be called a gaming phenom.
As for BC launch day, well, I can't help but think of launch day for WoW: Some servers will have issues, some won't, and the community will be live testing. That's cool though, it'll still be fun, and I'm still going to buy it.
Blackjack21 Oct 2nd 2006 11:43AM
/applaud oomu
Arturis (Elune) Oct 2nd 2006 11:56AM
From the personal experience of not only seeing each patch release go live but also rolling over on launch day from the Beta, Id put in the following predicted chances (all of which will fluctuate for various times of the day, of course):
Server Lag Issues: 100%
Server Queues/Wait times: 95%
Emergancy Patches/Updated: 85%
Server Outages/Crashes: 65%
At least, thats what the ol' Magic 8 Ball in my brain predicts.
Completely Off Topic:
"cry now, cry a lot now, go buy some tissus, you will know Drama and you will suffer as a moth on fire."
-Oomu
That is awesome, and I shall quote it to the end of my days.
-Arturis
Swiftlydead Oct 2nd 2006 12:20PM
what good will worrying about it now do?
Druid dude Oct 2nd 2006 12:42PM
I am planning to take a week off work, but it will be the week *after* release.
The week of release will see all time record high populations on all realms, I am pretty certain about that. In addition to the people that play regularly now, a ton of retired and semi retired players will fire up WoW again. Probably have a few new players too. Its going to be the most crowded ever.
I think medium and low population realms will actually do okay as far as server load goes. There will be some lag, but it won't be as bad as some think, should be playable, at least as far as the server loads go. High pop servers are going to have queues and lag ranging anywhere from annoying to completely unplayable.
Outside of server load issues though, there will probaly be a few coding issues that cause problems, and those might be serious at times for the first few days. There just isn't an easy way to load test an application like WoW without getting the zillions of players to actually log in and beat on the game. I would think software induced issues will be patched over the course of a few days, and things will stabilize before too long.
Despite the possibility of lag and such, overall, I am so excited I could just about pee in my pants!
Kaylos Oct 2nd 2006 12:49PM
Would be a good time to be on a low pop server that is dieing.
top Oct 2nd 2006 1:17PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ok...back to reality - I am not planning on being able to play at all the week the expansion is released - Khadgar sees massive instability after a 3.9mb patch...I can only imagine what the outcome will be with such a massive patch such as the Burning Crusade.
of course I hope I am dead wrong as well...
Envinyatar Oct 2nd 2006 2:10PM
/snowball Top