Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

This week, I decided to go visit Bloodscalp -- we've been hearing about problems with stability on Bloodscalp since patch 2.4, so I decided to get the word on what was happening straight from the people affected by it. Additionally, I wanted to talk about the upcoming Arena changes in patch 2.4.2, so I had that on the list to chat with players about as well.

I created a Troll Rogue named "Wowinsider," ran up to Orgrimmar, and started chatting with the Bloodscalpians. The conversations I had with three players on the server are after the break.
First, I sent a tell out into the Ogrimmar Trade channel (I promise I'll hit up Alliance next time, sorry folks) to see if anyone was interested in chatting with me. Lunati, an unguilded 70 mage, responded in an interesting way, as you can see below.

WoW Insider: Is anyone interested in chatting with me for an interview?

Lunati: Me. I'm the number one mage on Bloodscalp, by the way.

Oh are you? How do you figure?

Because I own you.

Heh, um, OK. The reason I'm here is because we've heard that Bloodscalp has downtime problems. Is that true?

Yeah, it's pissing us all off. And we're about to go on strike.

How have you experienced it?

It's been ruining all of my Karazhan and Zul'Aman runs. Instances crash, and then for twenty or thirty minutes you can't log on characters, and it's happening all the time.

Like every day?

Yeah.

Have you complained about it, or have you heard Blizzard comment on it?

"Bloodscalp is functioning as intended." That's what Blizzard said. [Not exactly true lately]

Lame. Have you heard about the changes for patch 2.4.2 lately? Anything interesting to you?

Nah, I'm kind of bummed. Everything in the game is changing lately.

Like what?

First it was 60-70, now its the new area, going to be 70-80 and a new class. It's kind of ruining the Warcraft TM.

So you're not excited for Wrath at all?

Well, somewhat.

So how are you raiding Karazhan and ZA if you're unguilded?

I've been PuGing. And I lashed out at my GM yesterday, so I got booted. Haha.

O rly. Drama?

Yeah lol..

Why did you lash out? What guild were you in? [His armory page shows that he used to be in Exempt.]

He said I wasn't doing my job in an easy Kara pull, and so on lol.

And you said?

In my own words? Cursing. Ummm... swearing. lol.

Have you heard about the arena changes do you play arena at all?

Not much. Hey I'm sorry, but I gotta fly.

No problem, thanks for chatting.

------

Next up was a 70 Tauren Warrior named Drenched, from the guild Wargasm. He'd responded to my original query, so I sent him a tell asking if we could chat.

WoW Insider: So the reason I'm here on Bloodscalp is because we've heard some complaints about downtime. Have you seen anything like that?

Drenched: Not really. It's only been down for maintenance.

Well that's good. What have you been up to in game lately?

Doing the Netherwing dailies.

You're trying to get the dragon? How are those going?

Great.

Are you working on the Sunwell Dailies at all?

Yeah, but on my priest, Insensato.

What kinds of specs are you using?

Arms and Holy.

So with a holy priest you must be running some instances, right? Have you run Magisters' yet?

Yep.

And what did you think of that? What was your favorite part?

It was good. I liked the fight against the five people.

So you must like Arenas, then. Do you play Arena at all?

Yeah, on this character I do Arena a lot.

Did you hear about the changes in 2.4.2? The personal and team rating changes?

Nope.

It's mostly to fix win trading. Have you had any problems with that at all?

No.

I can tell you're an easy going guy [and a man of few words]. How are you doing in Arenas?

Our 5v5 team hasn't been doing really well lately. But we do have a good 3v3 team.

Cool. Thanks for chatting.

------

So I'd talked to two different people on Bloodscalp, but neither of them had really given me any solid answers about the downtime problems. I decided to try one more -- Onarz, a level 70 Shaman in Blazed and Confused, decided to answer my call.

Onarz: Whasup, dawg?

WoW Insider: So you've had problems with the server going down?

Yes. It goes down conclusively.

Is it at a certain time? How regularly?

It's almost every other day. Always at around 9:15.

Weird. Have you heard any reasons why?

I checked the forums. No explanation. Just Blizzard being incompetent.

Have you thought about switching servers, or do you know anyone who has?

Yeah, I know a few people who have. But most of my friends are here, so I deal with it.

(At this point, the trade channel starts to get really busy) Is the server usually this busy? Maybe that's the issue.

It is quite busy here. There was a point when it was full, but people transferred out -- must have been the sh*tty lag.

All right, thanks very much.

------

Obviously, while I was there, the realm didn't go down. And it seems the downtime on the servers don't affect everybody -- Drenched didn't seem to have a problem with it. But it is clear that there are issues with Bloodscalp, and a few other people in the Trade channel did confirm the 9:15 dropout time. Here's hoping Blizzard is identifying and fixing any issues possible -- it seems strange that such an issue would be confined to just one or two realms, but as we've said before, it's impossible to know how Blizzard's servers work.

If you'd like to be interviewed for Gamers on the Street (especially if you're Alliance), let us know your name and server below (and be online next Monday afternoon/evening), and maybe you'll get to see your name up here.

---

Gamers on the Street goes out to talk to players live on the realms every Monday. Check out what people thought of last year's BlizzCon, or players' New Year resolutions. For more about game-breaking bugs, check out our Bugs category.

Tags: bloodscalp, bugs, dailies, downtime, gamers-on-the-street, interview, netherwing, players, sunwell

Filed under: Mage, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Instances, Humor, Interviews, Gamers on the Street