Posts with tag issues

Before we even begin with the new 4.0.1 content, Blizzard has released a post about the known issues with the newest patch. We are confident that a lot of these issues, mostly tooltip problems or item costs, will be rectified soon. Other than that, enjoy some of the funnier issues, like how the new shaman spell Earthquake is "looking awkward."

Wojtek sent us this thread in which he posted a long series of emails between him and Blizzard about the ninja of an Onyxia Drake. There's a lot of back and forth, but eventually, the bottom line is that Blizzard was not able to help him, whether that's because he didn't have the information right, they couldn't find what they needed in the chat logs, or they just didn't want to. Later on, the thread is locked, and Wojtek is given the usual feedback address for the GM actions.

So what does all this mean? We've heard in the past that Blizzard will occasionally help with ninjas, and we've even heard unofficially that if you get the main looter in a PuG raid to state the looting conditions ahead of time, Blizzard can go back, look that up, and then reward loot based on who really deserves it. But of course, all of that is unofficial, and there are so many variations and issues in situations like these that there can't really be a hard and fast rule -- sometimes Blizzard can help, sometimes they can't.

I'm not sure how much of this is legit, but stick with us for the information first, and then stay for the debunking. Edward Hunter over at Gamasutra decided to do some poking around in comScore's MediaMetrix application (which can track, based on a survey of a few million users, access to various applications on a computer -- which programs are run when), and he found something that surprised him: despite the economic downturn and the emergence of a few other popular MMOs recently, World of Warcraft's audience is estimated globally at 13.1 million. In other words, it's still growing from the last official numbers (11.5 million players worldwide) we heard.

Now, the first issue we'd have with these numbers is the situation in China -- Hunter doesn't mention it at all, and in fact his graph (from comScore) doesn't have any dips at all in it, even though the game, and presumably its millions of players, went offline over there earlier this year. That right there throws a wrench into all of these estimations -- it's very likely comScore's information is just plain wrong.

Blizzard's mobile authenticator updated recently, and as soon as it did, we started getting tips on the tipline saying there was a major issue. Apparently the update reset the code associated with your authenticator, which meant that if you applied the authenticator update (and had the authenticator connected to your account), there was no way to actually get a code to login to your account. In short, if you apply the mobile authenticator update, you won't be able to log in to your account until you take the authenticator off completely (I'd assume you can then reinstall and reuse the authenticator, though people will probably be a little more trigger-shy about that one). There are instructions for how to do all of this over on the forums.

Of course it's a major issue, and in response, Blizzard has acknowledged the problem and apparently pulled the Authenticator from the App Store. So if (like me) you haven't updated yet, you won't need to worry about it, and hopefully the next version will fix the issue. But yes, if you have updated, you'll need to go through the steps above to remove the app from your iPhone and account, or just call Blizzard customer service at 1-949-955-1382 and they should be able to help you with the issue.

Update: So far we've only heard about problems with the iPhone version, and of course the issue is when you go from the old to the new version. If you use another phone, or have only used the new version, you shouldn't have any issues.

Dresorull has just released a list of known issues (unfixed bugs) in Patch 3.2. This patch has its fair share of bugs in it, however from personal experience I think it has a ways to go before it reaches the bugginess level of the patch 3.0.x branch.

This laundry list of issues comes after yesterday's first round of in-game hot fixes. Based on previous patches, I wouldn't be surprised to see another round of hot fixes released tonight.

Some of the more major bugs in patch 3.2 that are on Dresorull's list include:

• People are getting stuck in the portals to the Argent Coliseum raids.
• The Flying Carpet requires 410 tailoring to craft when only 375 is attainable at level 60.
• A number of items are displaying different textures in 3.2.0 from how they looked in 3.1.3.
• Master's Inscription of the Crag has not had its MP5 value increased.
• Some Stormjewels are still unique-equip.

Again, these are just current bugs in the patch. These issues have not been fixed yet.

The full list of known issues after the break.

Larisa's got a good rant about something I've considered before in a slightly different context: players aren't very good at anticipating how temporary game changes will work out. We, as a group (not individually necessarily), are quite quick to judgment when we see changes to the game, and the word Larisa uses is "conservatism" -- she notes the examples of the reaction to the zombie outbreak and the Children's Week batleground issues, and says that players "tossed the gift away, like spoiled kids." We (again, in general, not you specifically) have a very short view of how temporary changes will affect the game, lambast Blizzard for changing what didn't need to be changed, and very often, when the dust settles and the zombies are gone or the event is over, we realize that it wasn't so bad after all.

She's not talking about class changes here -- those are more permanent changes that affect the basic rules of the game. But specifically with temporary events (I'd even throw the Brewfest controversies, and the Headless Horseman complaints in the mix), players sometimes have reactions that are way out of proportion to the events themselves. These holidays and world events are temporary: shouldn't we just enjoy them while we can?

It's definitely a valid point, and something to remember for the next time a temporary event throws off your usual routine in-game. The fact is that we players are spoiled -- Blizzard generally does a great job keeping this game fun, and so when even a little issue sneaks into the game during a temporary event. But Larisa promises that next time she gets shaken up by a temporary change, she'll give it another chance. Sounds like a great idea to me.

Today is a Wednesday, and that means that there has to be some sort of Battle.Net authentication/login/game-version issue today. And guess what? There is!

There is a long thread in the support forums about it, and the only blue response so far is that Blizzard is aware of the problem and they're working on it. Many, if not all, Battle.Net users are seeing an error stating the client cannot validate the game version (even after they've patched to 3.1.1).

There is no known fix yet. We'll update this post when there is more information to report.

Update: According to Neth everything is working now.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Welcome, O WoW rookie, to patch week madness. If you thought run-of-the-mill maintenance and minor patch days could be dicey, here's your chance to enjoy the epic-level chaos wrought by epic-level content patches.

World of Warcraft has evolved considerably since its launch in what's now been almost a handful of years ago. Blizzard regularly releases downloadable updates, called "patches," to add new content and features, fix problems and tweak game play and balance. Through patches, players have gained access to new quests, instances, Battlegrounds, events, items and tools.

This week's Patch 3.1 is known as a content patch – a nice way of saying "a ton of new stuff we've added to the game that's going to make all hell break loose." The realms go up, the realms go down. The realms go up. Did we mention they also go down? You may log in only to find your characters nowhere in sight ("Oh #%$&, my characters are all gone!"). You may experience disappearing mail or auctions, random disconnections from the game and insufferable lag. You may find yourself merrily rolling along only to find the NPCs have disappeared, you can't zone in or out of instances or log out of the game, and you and every other player who's trapped in your zone are left with nothing to do but chat about the whole thing. (Almost makes you wonder if the Ice Stone has melted yet.)

We're not out of the woods with this patch yet. I'm seeing this message on a North American realm, and lots of other people are seeing the same thing. At least one of our bloggers is still in the game, though, and Blizzard is saying the Authentication servers are still up and running, so this should be fixed soon.

We'll keep you updated, stay tuned.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Update: A login server died. If you try signing in with a Bnet account, you should be able to get in. Otherwise, everybody PANIC hold on and they'll be back up soon.

Update 2: Everything seems back up. That was relatively painless. Thanks for playing, everybody!

Eyonix is now reporting, as an update to yesterday's update, that Blizzard has resolved the issues with Comcast. So to quote the late, great Douglas Adams, "anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem." Which is not quite true -- Blizzard tech support and Comcast are probably still happy to listen to your issues (assuming you can get through their phone system), but the major outages from this weekend are reportedly solved.

There are still three stickied threads going in the technical support forums, so you can possibly find help or more information there if you're still having issues: Eyonix encourages anyone still having a problem to go there.

I'm on Comcast here in Chicago, but I didn't have any issues connecting this weekend (save for the fact that I was offline for half a day yesterday due to an unrelated computer error I had). Still, though we're not sure just how widespread the problem is, there were definitely some players suffering from lag and disconnects. Hopefully the problem is cleared up for good.

Snowman Eyonix posted an update to the ongoing Comcast issues on the forums today: he says that Blizzard is talking to Comcast about the problem, and that they may have identified the problem in a third-party network between the affected folks and Comcast themselves. He says work on the issue is ongoing, and that while they don't have an ETA, he'll let us know when there is more to know.

We don't know if the "third-party network" includes those Los Angeles datacenters that were being blamed earlier, and to be honest, we don't even know how widespread the problem actually is. A few of our writers are on Comcast -- most of us haven't had any problems at all, though one of our writers in LA is experiencing lag and the occasional disconnect.

We'll keep an eye on Eyonix's thread and let you know if anything changes. At this point, it seems the problems are known and Blizzard is doing what they can to solve things.

This week's question for you, our readers, comes from an anonymous asker. He wants to know what the best option is for a widespread problem in this time of high realm populations and camped quests aplenty:

There's been a lot of talk on your blog about people ninjaing spawns but I'm not entirely sure that it's as cut and dried as that. Consider this: I was in the Borean Tundra and had to kill the mob on the island that's up the top of the steps. when I arrived there were around 10 other 'toons all waiting around. I had no idea who was there first, who might be grouped, or anything else about them. The first thing I did was /s 'group?', at which point someone invited me, and I grouped with them. Second time it spawned one of us tagged it, I looted, disbanded the group and left. Did I ninja it? If so, how was I supposed to have acted? With new people coming all the time, no knowledge of who had been there longest and no visible queueing system I'm not sure how else to behave. Thoughts?

A little more analysis after the break, and don't forget to post your own answer in the comments below. If you've got a question for our readers, send it to ask@wow.com, and we'll ask it for you.

Previously on Ask WoW Insider...

Thundgot over on the EU forums says there's a pretty drastic solution incoming to the busy servers incoming: Blizzard is going to offer free server transfers from high pop servers to low pop, so if you've really been driven nuts by all the queues and lag lately, this might be just what you need. On the other hand, don't jump into anything too quickly -- traffic problems are pretty common, especially when big patches (and, you know, expansions) come down, and odds are that once the expansion actually releases, things will die back down after a little while.

Of course, if you just don't want to wait, and don't have any particular ties to the server you happen to be on, then by all means, keep an eye out for the transfers. We're not quite sure which servers will be affected yet, but We Hate PUGs saw Quel'thelas on the list already along with a long list of high pop realms, so while we'll probably see more servers added to the low pop side, the high pop side there now is probably a fairly good indicator of the realms Blizzard sees as trouble. If you're on one of those realms and ready to transfer, sit tight and wait for the announcement today, help is on the way.

The opening announcement on the game is currently letting us know that realms will be down for maintenance tomorrow from 5:00 a.m. PDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT. While the realms are going to be down, we are not expecting patch 3.0.2 to drop.

Earlier last week it was announced that 3.0.2 would come when season 4 ended. Season 4 was announced to end on October 14th, and thus we are all expecting patch 3.0.2 to come on October 14th.

However if for some reason it starts raining cats and dogs and the patch does drop, we'll let you know. But I wouldn't count on it.