Many servers not yet up after all
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 14th 2008 at 8:10PM
The previous post about the servers coming back online seems to have been slightly premature. Many, if not most servers are still offline, and the current target for bringing them back is 6 PM PST/9 PM EST. Be aware that this target has been pushed back three times since being originally set for 2 PM PST/5 PM EST today, so I wouldn't count on being able to play any time tonight necessarily. And when the realms do come up, I wouldn't expect them to be super-stable; the few realms that are up right now are having all manner of crashes and other difficulties.
That said, I'm can't really be mad at Blizzard for any of this. This is possibly the largest patch in MMO history, as one astute commenter pointed out; it would have been extremely optimistic to expect it to go off without a hitch. We'll be back sooner or later (unless they decide to just leave the servers off until Wrath hits), and we'll have plenty of new toys to play with. In the mean time, why not check out our voluminous coverage of the patch, or our handy all-in-one FAQ?
Patch 3.0.2 "Echoes of Doom" has landed and WoW Insider has you covered. From patch notes to talent guides for every class to fixing your addons to 5 easy achievements you can snag right now. Make sure to check out the latest news.Filed under: Patches, Realm Status
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 22)
Edamil Oct 14th 2008 8:12PM
Aerie Peak is finally up, still have to wait a million years at the loading screen.
Shucks Oct 14th 2008 8:40PM
It's not like they had a PTR to work the bugs out first. Or automated server patching, or ....
Welcome to the brave new world of 11 million PAYING beta testers.
vlad Oct 14th 2008 8:43PM
normally throughout the day people log on and off in a trickle.
when there is signifigant downtime what was normally a trickle becomes a flood behind a fragile dam.
once the servers come back on, that dam breaks and whoosh!
all those trickling players are now flooding the servers at one time.
be patient grassshopper. you will be rewarded with playing soon.
anyway, my server is fine. hang in there guys. tomorrow is another day.
Ian Oct 14th 2008 8:54PM
Shucks, these problems only show themselves under the stress of millions of players. It's not really possible to predict everything when so many things are being changed.
Vrogy Oct 14th 2008 8:55PM
Right, but they could have come up with a method to reduce the flood to a trickle.. IN THE PTR.
Honestly, announce a "special testing session", host everything on fewer machines, and start working on ways to make it workable. Queues, if need be.
I'm addicted, so it's not like I'm going to quit.. but that doesn't mean this isn't piss-poor game design.
Also, locks are effing nerfed, QQ, etc. WTB purple pew pews...
AlexW573 Oct 14th 2008 8:57PM
They did think of something up: The Background Downloader. Unfortunately, not everyone let it run. I had the entire patch downloaded days ago.
Also, the loads on the PTR are nothing compared to the rest of the servers. I'm sure there are many server-side updates needed.
storment Oct 14th 2008 9:06PM
Looks like the authentication server is down now... Not letting me even log in at this point. Sad times.
Krack Oct 14th 2008 9:33PM
Most of their sites are down based on bandwidth issues for sure. worldofwarcraft.com, WOW news loader, forums, etc. My tracert timeout once it hit a hop or two from worldofwarcraft.com. Telling me that we have created our own denial of services attack based on a flood of people all swamping their authenticating and login servers. Best thing to do is take a deep breath and come back later.
Grekkor Oct 14th 2008 9:36PM
GG Blizzard $140 Million made last year and cant get a patch working
Rexigar Oct 14th 2008 9:34PM
I am still patching and its 9:33 PM EST. I try to access www.worldofwarcraft.com but no go, I try my realm forums and no go, the realm status gives me a 404 error.
Is anyone else having this issue?
realmreaver Oct 15th 2008 8:41PM
Love how you pay to play and they will NOT let you play and they lock you out.
Disturbed Oct 14th 2008 10:13PM
Illidan is broken. It says its "online" but it took forever to get to the character screen, and it won't even load the world when i choose a character.
breaklance Oct 14th 2008 11:12PM
you can blame "surges" all you want, blizzard has had WoW live for how many years and still hasnt fixed this problem or their patch downloader? Seriously some blizz exec's should be wondering about this, since its a repeated problem that gets a lot of paying costumers pissed off.
adeeil Oct 14th 2008 11:21PM
This is pathetic for any company to have 10 million ppl paying 15.99 a month to have incompetent tech's. 160 million a month and they cant solve these bugs? pathetic to say the least.
adeeil Oct 14th 2008 11:26PM
This is pathetic for any company to have 10 million ppl paying 15.99 a month to have incompetent tech's. 160 million a month and they cant solve these bugs? pathetic to say the least.
Matindo Oct 15th 2008 5:42AM
It makes me happy knowing other people haven't been able to enjoy patch 3.0.2, after a couple of hours downloading and installing the patch i log on with tears in my eyes at the new screen (though i'd seen it on wowinsider already it was still epic).
I log in and behold! Account out of game time...GG, it's 8:30PM here so no WoW for me till tomorrow morning, fuck lectures i'm lining up outside of EB games for my goddam gamecard.
Andrew Oct 14th 2008 8:13PM
I don't understand how someone can be mad at Blizzard...not like this hasn't happened before. This is the biggest patch in the game's history and problems were expected.
Amaxe Oct 14th 2008 8:39PM
2.0 went smoother than this one as I recall, and they completely redid how PvP worked.
It would be understandable if they seemed to be having some sort of plan, but it seems that they weren't even prepared for the problems.
4.5 hours and counting. My server hasn't even been up yet
rick gregory Oct 14th 2008 8:41PM
I'm not mad at all but... it's not like they didn't KNOW about the patch and couldn't predict that many players would get it and download it. It's called capacity planning...
it's like Wrath - they know it will be popular, they should have some idea from TBC of how many accounts reactivate as it ships, etc. Yet we all know Wrath will be a disaster for a week or two. I completely get them being caught with original WoW... but this just makes me shake my head. That and grab a beer. :)
Arkanhell Oct 14th 2008 8:49PM
I'll give u 1 reason to be mad, it is a subscription service, it's not free. As a customer I expect better results. At the end I am the one paying. And for the record, this is not the first patch the get out there. With 10m subscribers, this is not acceptable.