Posts with tag Server-Issues

It is after midnight on Dec. 7, 2010, and that can only mean one thing: Cataclysm is live in the United States! Except ... um, it's not. At least, not everywhere, and not on every server. There are currently widespread reports of servers not being "turned on" to Cataclysm yet (with level 80 characters still unable to earn experience, for example) and further reports of people being unable to even log in.

Experiences seem to vary from server to server, so don't panic if you're not able to log in. You're not alone, and the problem's not on your end. We'll provide updates here and provide you with news as it develops.

Update (12:30 a.m. PST): It appears that XP gains have now been turned on. Happy leveling!
Update (12:54 a.m. PST): Blue poster Bashiok has confirmed on the official forums that XP gains are on universally, so long as you read "not" as "now." The official Blizzard customer service Twitter account says XP gains are active as well.

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

---

WoW.com has been getting a massive number of tips in regarding problems people are experiencing when trying to log into the game. There is no official Blizzard word yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see one soon.

The problems seem to be originating from people who have not yet merged their World of Warcraft accounts with their Battle.net accounts. To do so, go into the account management page and select the appropriate options.

There have been some stability issues with the login servers the last few days, and this seems to just be the latest.

If you can't get in, check out our Guide to Patch 3.2 - we're expecting the patch to drop within the next few weeks. And if you haven't heard already, the Warcraft Movie has landed a director - Sam Raimi. It's World of Spidercraft, baby.

Update: Now there is an official Blizzard response to the problem, although there is no ETA on a solution.

Update #2: For those wondering, the issue was fixed overnight.

Bornakk hopped on to the forums to confirm the fears of many players who don't happen to have their World of Warcraft clients handy to tell them the same thing: some realms are going to be down for a while and Blizzard doesn't know when they're coming back up. According to Bornakk, they are experiencing "additional issues" with some realms as well as issues with the launcher being unable to update game clients. They currently have no estimate for the return of the realms, which do not appear on the game client's realm list, but will provide more details at around 2:30 3:30pm PDT. A complete list of affected realms after the jump.

[UPDATE: Nethaera reports that Blizzard "encountered a serious error" with the listed realms and are working towards a resolution. Unfortunately, there is still no estimate for when the realms will come back up and more details should be available at 5:30pm PDT. The situation has a small silver lining, however, as Blizzard is considering "appropriate compensation" for the additional downtime experienced by players on those realms. Stay tuned to WoW.com for further updates.]

[UPDATE 2: Nethaera updates her post to explain that the network improvements intended for all realms resulted in a connection error which has taken some time to identify and fix. While she notes that the connection error itself has for the most part been resolved (which is why some of the affected realms now show up on the realm list), the affected realms have yet to undergo the regular weekly maintenance and patching procedure. This means a much, much longer downtime than anticipated. Nethaera hopes to give further updates by 7:30pm PDT. Time to reroll, I guess.]

[UPDATE 3: Looks like they're doing a little more work tonight on all realms to address a few issues. More information in our post here.]

Is it just me or has it been a long time since Blizzard passed out some free game time? Reader Jim T. emailed me about a conversation he recently had with Blizzard's customer service -- he was disappointed with the lag, the queues, and the downtime on his server lately, and checking in about how he might get a refund or credit. The customer rep told him that while they didn't give out individual credit, they occasionally do give out game-wide credit for downtime mistakes.

Which is true -- Blizzard will occasionally give out a free day to folks affected by major unexpected downtime or server issues. But while they used to do it fairly often, by my recollection, they seem much less inclined to pull the trigger on a refund lately. On the one hand, sure, Blizzard does a better job than they used to -- last Tuesday's maintenance lasted quite a while, but it wasn't anything compared to the days the servers used to be offline a few years ago. On the other hand, though, there's no question players are being affected -- by queues, by problems logging in, and by lag on the instance servers and elsewhere.

Of course, we have no idea if Blizzard has an actual rule for when they give out free gametime and when they don't -- at this point, the criteria for giving players a refund happens to be "when they feel like it." Which is all right, we guess -- it's their company, of course. But it does seem like the criteria has changed -- we used to get refunds all the time, and even with all the problems lately, Blizzard hasn't decided to give customers any game time back.

It seems to be an unfortunate reality of WoW, if not MMORPGs in general: When a new patch goes live, more often than not, it's going to be a bit rocky on the servers for a while. Patch 2.4.2 is no exception, Many servers are having trouble staying up, including most of the Ruin Battlegroup, which according to a few our tipsters has been having more than its share of trouble lately. Blue Poster Vrakthis has assured posters on the Customer Service Forum that the Realm issues are being looked into, but so far, there does not seem to be a solid reason for the downtime other than, hey, it's patch day!

EDIT: It has now been confirmed that the downtimes were intentional for the purpose of emergency maintenance. The downtime should be minimal.

As of the time of this writing, the following servers are down:

When I woke up this morning I was greeted to two things: a fist full of WoW news to report on, and my daily dose of MythBusters. Interestingly I found that our chummy Blizzard PTR forum poster Hortus has taken up dispelling some myths of his own. This myth is so epic that I think it would make for a good computer nerd edition of MythBusters.

The myth is this: every time the PTR goes up, my server slows down.

I play mainly in two different servers, Anvilmar and Eldre'Thalas. I've heard it claimed often enough on both servers that the PTR seriously effects stability. Most people claim this is because the PTR and the server hardware are on the same "rack." Most servers are just a small gray box with a few blinking lights on the front of them, and lots of connection ports in the back. When making a server farm, like Blizzard has scattered throughout the country, they physically put the servers in clusters, called racks (no, not that kind of cluster, well kind of, but that's beside the point).

After a wild night of server issues, I decided to log onto my account page and try to copy my warrior over to the PvE test server. Lo-and-behold, after a few tries, the copy request went through! Horray!

Of course, it says that the queue is 4 days long. I seriously doubt this, as this is often wrong. Hopefully later today many more of us will be happy little World of Warcraft campers with shiny new Sunwell toys.

While you're waiting for your character to be copied over, you can check out all our patch 2.4 coverage. From our picture galleries of Sunwell Isle and goodies found while combing through the patch files, to the latest about the many new recipes and all that new loot, WoW Insider has got you covered!

Update 12:22 p.m. EST: My character was copied over, in less than 12 hours. Some players are still reporting that they cannot get the copy screen to work, so it looks like Blizzard might have taken it down again. However if you're really itching to get on the PTR, it might be a good idea to check back every 15 minutes or so.