Official forums temporarily set to read only
by Alex Ziebart 
Nov 12th 2008 at 3:00AM
It apparently became bad enough that select forums had to be switched over to Read Only mode for improved accessibility, Zarhym says. I assume this is a response to very, very seriously increased traffic on the official forums. The forums (and the official website) went up and down throughout maintenance today, keeping many players in the dark about what was going on. Communication with the playerbase is one of the primary roles of the community managers, and it's really hard to do that when the forums are in the state they were. I'm a regular poster on my realm forums and it's a bit jarring not being able to post there, but it's for the best.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Blizzard, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
OverlordRhode Nov 12th 2008 5:22PM
You just have to remember, they're doing their best.
At least they'd better be. That's why we pay them.
grandbirdie Nov 12th 2008 10:56AM
Your serious? Yesterday normal maintenance . . .ok I can live with that. Then AN EXTRA 10 hours because they goofed up the mail system. NOT MY FAULT. I pay for 6 accounts in this house. That's 10 hours X 6 = 60 hours. (btw I play one account but hubby and 4 boys play).
Now we have 3 hours this morning and a recent post that at least another hour to be added. 4 X 6 = 24. Again, NOT MY FAULT. I did not tell the vendor to give free stuff, they did. By some code error but they did it.
DO THE MATH dude.
We pay for this. They need to provide service.
Ream me all you want but this stinks, and if you think it will be ANY better after midnight tonight, you are sadly mistaken.
Blizz starts pushing this stuff. Remember before BC how many release dates were pushed back. Blizz didn't want to do that and look what we have now.
Geeze get a grip. They have caused this not us.
MissEssy Nov 12th 2008 11:05AM
Ahhh yes, we pay them, for what this? And for those of us who only have specific days and times we can play this really sucks. I have no intention of moaning about quitting I enjoy the game, but come on it has pretty much been down since yesterday at this time and it is ridiculous!
kabshiel Nov 12th 2008 11:08AM
I think it's really embarrassing that Blizzard can't even keep their forums up.
Algörithm Nov 12th 2008 3:07AM
Thanks for the info.
I recommend also /leave Trade lol It's just a bunch of spam about getting free PvP epics etc.. Sigh.
I remember when this game was fun to play.
Roland Nov 12th 2008 9:34AM
It's still fun to play imo
You just have to do the things that you enjoy ingame and try and ignore the idiots...
Kind of like life really ;)
Regards & Good Hunting
Roland
Radiophonic Nov 12th 2008 3:10AM
They also seem to have rolled back mine realm's forum data to about 3 months back. O.O
AD Nov 12th 2008 3:17AM
Funny I post in General Forums now, but Realm forums are still locked.
sosei Nov 12th 2008 3:16AM
Since I don't post on the forums, I'm not bothered, but at least all of this 'hey-nothing-wrong-could-possibly-happen!' feeling is getting kicked in the pants BEFORE Wrath, instead of during.
At least, we hope so.
matomon Nov 12th 2008 3:35AM
QQ more noobs =] it takes a lot to manage a multi million player game.
SamLowry Nov 12th 2008 7:12AM
Blizz might as well sell off the PTR servers since they don't seem to be using them for their intended purpose anymore.
They have been posting all sorts of craptastic code over there for the last few weeks, and even after people report problems the same bug-ridden code is going live.
It's actually kinda funny seeing all these embarrassing problems slide right down the chute right before the big premiere, when the whole world is watching.
Belna Nov 12th 2008 7:34AM
[quote]The forums (and the official website) went up and down throughout maintenance today, keeping many players in the dark about what was going on. [/quote]
I don't see why the wow forums should be influenced if they do maintenance of the gameservers. Can't imagine that they use the same servers for webpages as for gameservers.
If a gameserver is down, you should be able to see and discuss why. So keep them seperated at all time. And there's no way that a forum should be needing maintenance every thuesday.
Bettendorf, IA Nov 12th 2008 11:16AM
The two servers are not connected in that when one dies the other does because of a bug, there connected in that when the game is down the players all flock to the forums and overload it. There are many game servers on many different computeres that can house the many different players. But the forums server is one.
Think of a disaster that takes out an entire city. People have there own homes and its not as crowed when you walk down the streets, but when those people have no homes to goto they goto a central rally point and its udder chaos.
To many people packed in one spot.
Espanto Nov 12th 2008 7:47AM
What i fail to understand is why american servers are always the ones affected by the maint. Euro servers are always first up and running every tuesday, along with that they rarely experience the problems the american servers do. Since this is the case every week for the last 3 years i have played i suggest that blizz do to our servers exactly what they are doing to foreign servers so that we are not paying for something we cannot use. Think about it will you....american company catering to the needs of another country before worrying about its own people. Sounds like blizz is run by our government!
Bridon Nov 12th 2008 9:27AM
want to say in response ; this has alot to do wih the new breed in WoW that always want things the easy way.
Wow today isn't like it was when you first started playing, where you had to work for eveything you got. Alot of newer players QQ about not being able to do this and that , and they make it hard on the servers , veteran players etc... Yes the Euro servers are always up faster , lot of less QQ,ng abotu things over there, the international players seem to have a bit mroe respect for Blizzard as a company.
Unlike some of the spoiled kids we have in the USA here. Just my 2 cents tho.
Sinister Nov 15th 2008 5:40AM
the dollar to euro is way less , meaning europes 15 a month is actually 18 or 19 american, not sure the exact amount but over all they pay more , thus for catered to
Bill Nov 12th 2008 8:49AM
"Communication with the playerbase is one of the primary roles of the community managers, and it's really hard to do that when the forums are in the state they were."
This is probably the only gripe I have about Blizzard during this sort of "happening."
9/10 (at least in my experience) when the realms are down so are the webservers - probably because everyone is reloading the forums trying to get information.
Even with the forums up you never know where to go for information. Last night a first alert was posted in the Forums, the second and third followed that thread. When the final "realms are coming up" message was posted it was only available via the client.
Why can't Blizzard decide on a standard method of posting updates?
I understand that things happen and servers go down for awhile (maybe even a long while) but what I don't understand is why it's such a chore to keep us updated in an organized fashion.
Biggomamma Nov 12th 2008 10:58AM
The most annoying part 0f 11/11 was the lack of updates.
I couldn't even acesss the forums at any time from about 3 ET and on apprently it iddn't do any good anyhow lol..
Thus I disocvered WOW insider. Was able to get my updates here.
Charneldeath Nov 12th 2008 8:01AM
Everyone is so self righteous about Blizzard and the things they do. Maybe they locked the forums because every Blue was tired of the massive flood of QQ over last nights problems?
It's as if Los Angeles Country all of the sudden had no heroin supply, and every junkie in the Tri-Country area posted on craigslist about it.
Like my buddy Bruce says: You know two things about Blizzard maintenance, jack and #%@!, and jack left town.
So please, stop crying over your 50 cents, and try to do something productive with your spare time. Self righteous whining isn't going to make things go any faster.
SamLowry Nov 12th 2008 8:18AM
Hmm, if Blizz doesn't want to deal with complaints, then maybe they shouldn't piss off their customers. Releasing buggy patches needing several hours of downtime to fix? Great way to run a business!
What, then, was the point of beta? What, then, is the point of PTR? It's to prevent snafus like this from happening in the first place.
Looks like QA rewarded itself for such a great beta (snicker) by taking the month off. Which means that we get to do their job for them.