Posts with tag WoW, Warcraft, servers

Blizz have been pretty good about downtime recently, mostly sticking to their week-on week-off maintenance schedule. However, no massive data empire can be perfect; it looks like some realms are going to be down for just a bit this afternoon. I just logged on to find the following text in the "Breaking News" box:

[May 8, 2007 3:30 PM PDT]
We're bringing the following realms down to address a database issue which has arisen. We expect downtime for these realms to last no more than an hour and will provide updates on the issue, should any extension of downtime be required. We apologize for the short notice and will work as quickly as we can to minimize the interruption.
Aegwynn
Akama
Chromaggus
Draka
Drak'thul
Eitrigg
Garithos
Hakkar
Jubei'Thos
Khaz Modan
Korgath
Kul Tiras
Malorne
Mug'thol
Muradin
Rexxar
Runetotem
Thorium Brotherhood

Not that this is particularly surprising, but it seems that we'll be sticking to the new maintenance schedule and doing rolling restarts tomorrow (for most realms), starting at 5:00 AM PST. This means that there will almost certainly be no patch this week, since as far as I know it's absolutely impossible to apply a patch of this magnitude with no downtime. Maybe next week, folks! A few realms are going to be going down, though, according to the in-game "Breaking News:"

• Area 52
• Auchindoun
• Azuremyst
• Blade's Edge
• Blood Furnace
• Coilfang
• Exodar
• Shattered Halls
• Terokkar
• The Scryers
• The Underbog
• Velen
• Zangarmarsh

Maintenance for these realms is estimated at two hours. Again, I wouldn't have expected the patch to go live this week anyway; they just opened the Black Temple a little while ago and that's going to need a lot of testing.

One of Blizzard's service providers is performing some maintenance. Blizzard thinks that this should not cause any issues for us players, but gives a list of affected realms just in case. I hope there aren't any complications from this; my realm is on the list, and weekends are certainly peak playing time for many people. 74 of WoW's 265 North American realms are listed. From the in-game Breaking News box:

We've been informed by one of our service providers that they will be performing a maintenance that may impact some of our servers. We've been told that the maintenance should not affect connectivity, and thus there should not be any disconnections or performance issues from it. However, we're informing those of you on the below realms in the event that they should occur.

Hey, maybe I should complain about downtime more often. It looks like live maintenance is coming back for real, meaning mere rolling restarts on Tuesdays, but only every other week. This gives them the chance to do whatever it is they need to do when the servers are down, but minimizes downtime otherwise. This schedule will of course get disrupted whenever a substantial patch comes out, if it happens to come out on a "live" day, because they need to bring the realms down to apply the server-side patch. But the next week will reset to live maintenance again, and order will be restored. This is obviously good news, but I'm gonna sort of miss the downtime on "off" Tuesdays. It was nice to wake up, decide to play WoW, and not be able to, a bit. Still, kudos Blizz, and I'm glad this live thing worked out. Drysc's full post is after the cut.

From the continuing-battles-against-queues department, I bring you the following tidbit. Six new realms are now open, forming their own new battlegroup, Emberstorm. The realms are closed to transfers for six months and the gates of AQ are starting out closed. Ordinn says that a few more realms are planned to be opened next week, in addition to an unspecified number when the Burning Crusade hits the streets, though he says "the exact timing will depend on the amount of those new and return players."

The new realms open now are as follows:

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, server queues are back in a fairly big way. My own realm (Shadow Council) has been experiencing 500-ish person queues at peak times since a bit before Christmas. I know that's not huge, but we never used to have any queues at all. I've heard similar reports from many other realms, most of them worse than mine. It seems that Blizzard is aware of the problem, and planning on implementing some good ol' free character transfers from impacted realms. In the words of Tseric:

• In the past week, we have seen something of a surge and we are already in the works to provide Free Character Transfers for a number of realms to deal with spiking of queues. Obviously, we will deal with the most severe realms first, so if you do not see your particular realm on the first list, it does not indicate that you will receive no assistance for this in the future.
  
  Keep watch on the General stickies for announcements relating to Free Transfers within the next couple of days.

Edit: Blizz have now announced specific transfers. The transfers will begin at 12 PM on Thursday, January 4, and run to 11 PM on Tuesday, January 8. Those of you on lleria, Anvilmar, Blackhand, Burning Blade, Daggerspine, Destromath, Draka, Durotan, Duskwood, Eonar, Executus, Garona, Greymane, Icecrown, Illidan, Kel'Thuzad, Mal'Ganis, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker, or Warsong will be able transfer to Nazjatar, Baelgun, Alterac Mountains, or Arygos (as usual, you don't get to choose; it depends on your specific realm). I'm assuming these are new realms, since I don't see them on the realm status page.

Further Edit: Battlegroups have been announced. Nazjatar and Baelgun are in Shadowburn, and Alterac Mountains and Arygos are in Nightfall.

Looks like Elizabeth's earlier report on paid character transfers was right on the money, as today's report on UkGamespot confirms. They have an interview with
Blizzard developer Shane Dabiri, who sheds some more light on the process, including official details for pricing & realm transfer rules.

Dabiri also touches on some of the reasons for the transfer regulations, and addresses some other related questions, including the oft-mentioned cross-realm battlegrounds. So, if you're planning on switching realms when transfers become available, check it out & find out all you need to know!
 

With all the issues regarding player connectivity & realm stability lately, it was just a matter of time before even the oh-so-polite British had to stand up & say something. This weekend's edition of BBC news online ran an article detailing all the damage caused by the lag monster on their side of the pond, and how it's not only homegrown gamers who are unhappy.

Maybe they should stage a good old-fashioned soccer riot; that'll might really get Blizzard shaking in their boots...

If you're a WoW subscriber and you're reading this, there's a good chance that you're either at work, or unable to log into the game. Ok, that's taking it a bit far, but it's no secret that the WoW servers have a pretty bad reputation for reliability these days, and although the problem has seen improvements in some respects, overall, I think most players would agree that the issues don't seem to be improving at a steady enough rate, especially with all the problems that have followed the last two patches.

ZDNet has an article on the problem, spurred in part by the outages of this past weekend. The article contains statements from both gamers & industry professionals who cast some light on the challenges faced by Blizzard in the face of overwhelming subscriber numbers & a market with basically zero competitors on the same playing field, and by frustrated players who just want to use the service they pay for.

Personally, I sympathize with Blizzard to a degree, but I sympathize with my wallet more...

I had thought maybe it was just me who has been getting the 'Unable to Connect' message for the last half-hour, but it looks like plenty of other folks have had the same problem this evening, so it seems the login servers are indeed down once again, at least on this side of the Atlantic, as of 9:30 PM CST.

So, if you happen to be reading this while you're in the game, for god's sake...don't hit that logout button! And let us know, dear readers, what kind of luck you're having out there...