Downtime extended to 1 O'Clock PST
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 2nd 2008 at 2:00PM
Bornakk just posted that the downtime has been extended until 1:00 p.m. PST / 4:00 p.m. EST. This is never a good thing when maintenance gets extended, but at least Blizzard is hard at work on the servers.We haven't received any information that there are any new hotfixes being applied. So we'll probably have to wait to log in to see if any of the bugged quests are fixed or not.
WoW Insider will update you when the realms are up... a few hours from now.
Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Mimzy Dec 2nd 2008 2:04PM
Awww. I was counting on immediately logging in and hitting the books in Daralan.... Stupid books. Their long respawns mock me!
Menchi Dec 2nd 2008 2:04PM
The one day i didn't have anything to do in the morning just had to be an extended maintenance. /sigh
razjaro Dec 2nd 2008 2:05PM
I hope that the downtime doesn't take longer like when it took all day long =(
btw when is coming the new patch ?
is true that ther's two spec talent tree ?
p.d. sry for the bad english
Garth Smith Dec 19th 2008 7:01PM
I'm guessing new patch is hitting the test servers this week.
Dual speccing might be in time for 3.1, but not guaranteed.
Bjara Dec 2nd 2008 3:47PM
No one knows when the new patch or dual specs are coming out.
Goat Dec 2nd 2008 2:45PM
:(
toolarmy Dec 2nd 2008 2:06PM
When was the last time maintenance was complete on time?!!!
Meatwagon Dec 2nd 2008 2:14PM
last week duh
Amaxe Dec 2nd 2008 2:34PM
Was just going to say... ;)
zappit Dec 2nd 2008 2:11PM
bah, this always happens when i have the day off =/
Soatari Dec 2nd 2008 2:11PM
I hate that they never tell us why the maintenance takes longer. Even if it's highly technical, it's nice to know why.
Dan Dec 2nd 2008 3:05PM
Because they've learned that keeping quite will result in the fewest number of people bitching, questioning their competence, or flaming them.
Thrashnak Dec 2nd 2008 3:56PM
Why, what difference would it make? If they told you, would it change the amount of time it took? Chances are, there is nothing they could tell people as to why it was taking longer that wouldn't incite people even more than not giving the reason does.
If it was just needing more time to finish the process, people would scream they are inept idiots and need to hire more people with their millions of dollars.
If it was a bug that they were having trouble getting fixed people would scream they were inept idiots and need to hire better people with their millions of dollars.
If it was that their hardware wasn't completing the task fast enough people would scream they are inept idiots and need to buy better hardware with their millions of dollars.
If it was because someone slept in and didn't get it started on time people would scream they are inept idiots and need to buy alarm clocks with their millions of dollars.
Any "reason" they give helps nothing, it only fuels the asshats that like to cry about everything.
Thedarktower Dec 2nd 2008 2:07PM
I hope one day Blizzard will tell us exactly what it does for the almost 12 hours of Maintenance they do so we can stop complaining about how they aren't doing enough for us and learn to appreciate them.
But for now...
WHY BLIZZ WHY
(4 Years and it never gets old)
Shulkman Dec 2nd 2008 2:38PM
GM's get to take a break and browse porn.
Joseph Dec 2nd 2008 2:56PM
Not that many of you actually understand a single thing about network and server maintenance, but here we go anyways.
Upkeep on a server is extremely time consuming and cumbersome, especially when vast amounts of data are moving constantly. The World of Warcraft servers have to be taken down to defrag and optimize to keep performance levels up, as well as to implement any fixes or upgrades that are needed so that uptime is kept at a maximum. You don't see hiccups in other large servers, such as Google, because they have many, many, many servers that all feed the same information. Taking 1 offline to fix makes practically no difference to the whole. However, World of Warcraft servers dish out a single instance of the game, so that taking 1 server down would mean that, literally, people on that server can't access the game. It's easier, and more logical, to take every server down at a specific time and do everything at once, rather than randomly taking servers down during the week to preform maintenance.
Blizzard hasn't openly said what they do during maintenance because it's not a secret to begin with. They don't need to come out and say what every system administrator knows is going on behind the scenes, not to mention 95% of WoW players wouldn't accept the reasons anyways, and would continue to bitch incessantly.
Sharkhunt Dec 2nd 2008 3:22PM
TLDR Version: You probably wouldn't understand anyway, and what you could understand Blizzard doesn't want you to know.
Based on a lot of the comments made, my guess would be that most end users wouldn't be able to understand a detailed technical explanation even if one were provided.
In addition, any comprehensive explanation would make the game servers both more vulnerable to exploitation and make Blizzard's competitors more aware of some things that Blizzard might consider to be proprietary. We can make some educated guesses about the technologies involved based on job postings and other public statements, but a lot of the network infrastructure and software configuration is likely considered to be a trade secret.
Aside from that, server staff isn't interested in advertising when they do screw something up. Someone accidentally deleted something that needs to be restored from off-site backup? You, the customer, is the last person they would want to advertise this to.
If downtime is unacceptable, then stop subscribing. This is the only vote the customer gets about the way the infrastructure is managed. If you think you can do better, send your resume to Blizz and convince them of the same.
Bunkai Dec 2nd 2008 3:24PM
@ Joseph
What makes you think that they have to Defrag? You think that they are running the realms on Windows servers? Windows is the only operating system that really requires defragmentation. I'd be VERY surprised to find out that Blizz is running their realms on Windows servers. Windows isn't capable of the kind of performance and stability that MMORPG realms require.
That being said, full filesystem backups at a bit level do take a rather long block of time to complete. It's much more likely that Blizz does a periodic backup of their systems to tape for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery purposes.
Also, it's very unlikely that they are running their realms on 1 server. Chances are, the realms are a small load-balanced and/or failover cluster so that if they do have minor hardware issues such as a bad memory chip, it can be repaired with very little if any performance hit to the system. The data would be kept on some sort of NAS or SAN external storage unit that is in a Raid 5 or Raid 10 configuration so that single hard drive failures don't bring the entire realm to a screeching halt.
But, you've got the right idea... server maintenance takes a while to do the right way.
phox Dec 2nd 2008 4:40PM
Bunkai is right.
Basically everyone needs to do something else on Tuesdays until 3pm PST. Just managing server backup/upkeep alone takes time, let alone if one has a hardware problem.
cjgomez65 Dec 2nd 2008 2:08PM
I'm curious: what types of maintenance are they doing to the servers?