Comments on: 'World of Warcraft' battles server problems

As online game draws more than 6 million subscribers, players find that it's going through growing pains.

[Dragon Forge]

State Of The Union

Just as in many 'fronts' the competitve battles are in constant flux. But with continued "smash and grab" tatics by developers gaming is going to give it up.

EA games spent billions on licensing rights but nothing on improvements to their games but forcing on-liners to buy slightly modded older version sold as <current year> - otherwise they won't be able to access the servers. They have no visible support for current releases but always releasing new offerings in terms of booster pks and expansion paks.

PhysX, video, game play, audio is at a standstill because developers know they can get you to pay for 2 inferior "new" games but not so sure about the market for an expensive real game. New technologies are not being used in games just because of the extra resources required to learn and code for them.

E.g the much heralded PhysX will be an eye-candy offering only and beause of developers "game developement" (if it can be called that) strategies we are years away from real game play physics.

I am no gladhander so,... there is no reason for WOW to go down. No one else is having that problem with the massive online offerings or equipment! Again it gets down to cheapness and leaving the consumer out in the cold because there is no one to call them on it and they know they can get away with it. Ooo! Ooo ! We grew too fast. Wake up and take a swig of that fruity effedra and caffeine maco, rad sounding brightly colored coolaid crap yall hype out on.

Take off the kahoonas and hand them back to the industry cause you're just their witches and you wouldn't really know what to do with them.

No it is always economics with wishywashy excuses that this class of citizenry wimpers to and swallows.

[Dragon Forge]

State Of The Union

Just as in many 'fronts' the competitve battles are in constant flux. But with continued "smash and grab" tatics by developers gaming is going to give it up.

EA games spent billions on licensing rights but nothing on improvements to their games but forcing on-liners to buy slightly modded older version sold as <current year> - otherwise they won't be able to access the servers. They have no visible support for current releases but always releasing new offerings in terms of booster pks and expansion paks.

PhysX, video, game play, audio is at a standstill because developers know they can get you to pay for 2 inferior "new" games but not so sure about the market for an expensive real game. New technologies are not being used in games just because of the extra resources required to learn and code for them.

E.g the much heralded PhysX will be an eye-candy offering only and beause of developers "game developement" (if it can be called that) strategies we are years away from real game play physics.

I am no gladhander so,... there is no reason for WOW to go down. No one else is having that problem with the massive online offerings or equipment! Again it gets down to cheapness and leaving the consumer out in the cold because there is no one to call them on it and they know they can get away with it. Ooo! Ooo ! We grew too fast. Wake up and take a swig of that fruity effedra and caffeine maco, rad sounding brightly colored coolaid crap yall hype out on.

Take off the kahoonas and hand them back to the industry cause you're just their witches and you wouldn't really know what to do with them.

No it is always economics with wishywashy excuses that this class of citizenry wimpers to and swallows.

[mztower]

Queues for WoW

I play on a RP server, Feathermoon, and have been there since the game came out. Blizzard makes all kinds of new servers but RP servers. I have experienced over 1,000 in a que many times since the Christmas Holiday and if I expect to log in during prime time, it is definitely 1/2 to 1 hour wait times, thus I do not play nearly as much as I used to and my interest in the game is waning,because of the long wait times to get into the game, plus world server outages and authentication problems at least once a nite. Blizzard knew in the beginning they had a winner and there was nothing else to compete with it when their game was wiped off the shelves within the first 24 hours, they should have been making preparations then and again before the Christmas Holiday, but instead they seem to be burying their heads in the sand. It is evidenced by their "Official Boards" being out everytime there are server issues and they remove any negative posts about them immediately and ban the user from their boards

[mztower]

Queues for WoW

I play on a RP server, Feathermoon, and have been there since the game came out. Blizzard makes all kinds of new servers but RP servers. I have experienced over 1,000 in a que many times since the Christmas Holiday and if I expect to log in during prime time, it is definitely 1/2 to 1 hour wait times, thus I do not play nearly as much as I used to and my interest in the game is waning,because of the long wait times to get into the game, plus world server outages and authentication problems at least once a nite. Blizzard knew in the beginning they had a winner and there was nothing else to compete with it when their game was wiped off the shelves within the first 24 hours, they should have been making preparations then and again before the Christmas Holiday, but instead they seem to be burying their heads in the sand. It is evidenced by their "Official Boards" being out everytime there are server issues and they remove any negative posts about them immediately and ban the user from their boards

[mztower]

If there were any competition

You would see massive exodus from WoW, the problems is they just have no competition, really ATM for the type of game they offer.

[Bryan Bartlett]

Totally True

While I will agree that WoW is a fantastic game and a wonderful experience through your first 2-3 characters, there is only so much in WoW and it only goes so far.

If you look at what has come out since the release of WoW, there really isn't a decent alternative that isn't a niche MMO or a completely half-ased MMO that should never have a $15/Month price taged to it.

And while it would be nice to go back to the MMOs we all came from, it just doesn't work out because it's not the same considering how lacking the population in those games are compared to what they were before WoW.

Hopefully game companies stop putting out these 'get rich quick' type of games that lack any depth and someone comes out with something really solid.

(Pray 'Lord of the Rings Online' & 'Warhammer Online' don't suck)

[mztower]

If there were any competition

You would see massive exodus from WoW, the problems is they just have no competition, really ATM for the type of game they offer.

[Bryan Bartlett]

Totally True

While I will agree that WoW is a fantastic game and a wonderful experience through your first 2-3 characters, there is only so much in WoW and it only goes so far.

If you look at what has come out since the release of WoW, there really isn't a decent alternative that isn't a niche MMO or a completely half-ased MMO that should never have a $15/Month price taged to it.

And while it would be nice to go back to the MMOs we all came from, it just doesn't work out because it's not the same considering how lacking the population in those games are compared to what they were before WoW.

Hopefully game companies stop putting out these 'get rich quick' type of games that lack any depth and someone comes out with something really solid.

(Pray 'Lord of the Rings Online' & 'Warhammer Online' don't suck)

[anndr0id]

More problems than just the servers

A large reason many WoW players including myself are so insanely fustrated at the situation isn't strictly because of the server problems, its Blizzard's lack of recognizing and giving feedback to its users. Yes, millions of complaints is a lot to answer, but they don't even have any sort of error acknowledgement and information system. I recently spent two days trying to get into the account management to update my credit card to pay them, and it was down for almost 24 hours before that. It took hundreds of forum replies and "Evan" from tech support in forums to tell us "He wasn't having a problem" (from inside the network, of course) and I saw people left and right cancelling because of that. They aren't listening or giving feedback to their customers, and it is taking them 3 days to even recognize that they are having a problem! If they had something that said "We've been informed account management is down, and we're working on it, estimated 3 days until uptime" that would have ceased my anger. Luckily, I received an e-mail back after a day from techincal support saying "That there was no problem with account management, but I could call billing at #" - I tried the number they gave me all day, it was busy the whole time.

[anndr0id]

More problems than just the servers

A large reason many WoW players including myself are so insanely fustrated at the situation isn't strictly because of the server problems, its Blizzard's lack of recognizing and giving feedback to its users. Yes, millions of complaints is a lot to answer, but they don't even have any sort of error acknowledgement and information system. I recently spent two days trying to get into the account management to update my credit card to pay them, and it was down for almost 24 hours before that. It took hundreds of forum replies and "Evan" from tech support in forums to tell us "He wasn't having a problem" (from inside the network, of course) and I saw people left and right cancelling because of that. They aren't listening or giving feedback to their customers, and it is taking them 3 days to even recognize that they are having a problem! If they had something that said "We've been informed account management is down, and we're working on it, estimated 3 days until uptime" that would have ceased my anger. Luckily, I received an e-mail back after a day from techincal support saying "That there was no problem with account management, but I could call billing at #" - I tried the number they gave me all day, it was busy the whole time.

[zushiba]

thats not the half of it.

Someone needs to write an article on the class issues. Rogues for instance being the redheaded stepchild of the game.
Authentication syste issues.
Blizzard deleting posts which may possibly be negative in an attempt to keep the boards looking as if everyone is 'happy' with their product. etc, etc.

[zushiba]

thats not the half of it.

Someone needs to write an article on the class issues. Rogues for instance being the redheaded stepchild of the game.
Authentication syste issues.
Blizzard deleting posts which may possibly be negative in an attempt to keep the boards looking as if everyone is 'happy' with their product. etc, etc.

[SamadhiSplitpaw]

No Competition? Too true.

OK, disclaimer: I'm a busy man, so I've not gone through the 80 replies to this story, I've just checked the subject lines. So apologies if this has been covered.

The author of this story is correct: there is no direct competition to WoW. There is no other MMORPG that has anywhere near the number of subscribers, or the brand presence in the media / population.

However, as an MMORPG addict of many years (5 at last count) and a player of both games I can testify that EverQuest II is superior in terms of gameplay, graphics, maturity of playerbase and sheer immersiveness. (And from the looks of this article, it may be slightly more stable... /duck)

No competition.

/flameshieldon

[SamadhiSplitpaw]

No Competition? Too true.

OK, disclaimer: I'm a busy man, so I've not gone through the 80 replies to this story, I've just checked the subject lines. So apologies if this has been covered.

The author of this story is correct: there is no direct competition to WoW. There is no other MMORPG that has anywhere near the number of subscribers, or the brand presence in the media / population.

However, as an MMORPG addict of many years (5 at last count) and a player of both games I can testify that EverQuest II is superior in terms of gameplay, graphics, maturity of playerbase and sheer immersiveness. (And from the looks of this article, it may be slightly more stable... /duck)

No competition.

/flameshieldon

[Sepulchrum]

New Hardware

Didn't they buy some 1500+ AMD Opterons recently? Plus they have announced that servers are being migrated to the new hardware. The recent issues are probably a result of the different hardware.

[Sepulchrum]

New Hardware

Didn't they buy some 1500+ AMD Opterons recently? Plus they have announced that servers are being migrated to the new hardware. The recent issues are probably a result of the different hardware.

[Xalorous]

Hey, I have an idea. Why not nerf the WHOLE game?

I'm sure it is < 50% what it was. Our guild left, except for 2 out of 30 or so members who stayed around. Our player city is a ghost town. Many of them are by now.

In EQ and EQ2, SOE has frequently nerfed items, spells, lines of spells, and changed recipes and modified classes to bring about class balance. I'm sure WoW has done the same thing.

However, SOE's actions with NGE are equivalent to nerfing the whole game.

I just wish I could have back the hours I spent developing my characters, not to mention the cost of the game and monthly subscription fees.

"Game content may change" yeah right.

[Xalorous]

Hey, I have an idea. Why not nerf the WHOLE game?

I'm sure it is < 50% what it was. Our guild left, except for 2 out of 30 or so members who stayed around. Our player city is a ghost town. Many of them are by now.

In EQ and EQ2, SOE has frequently nerfed items, spells, lines of spells, and changed recipes and modified classes to bring about class balance. I'm sure WoW has done the same thing.

However, SOE's actions with NGE are equivalent to nerfing the whole game.

I just wish I could have back the hours I spent developing my characters, not to mention the cost of the game and monthly subscription fees.

"Game content may change" yeah right.

[FFXI2006]

Message has been deleted.

Time to play EVE-Online

While EVE may only have 100,000 players, it also has the most powerful gaming cluster in the world. Worth checking out, www.eve-online.com They don't have these issues, even with 25,000 players online at once.

WOW players might have some trouble playing though, it's no easy hack/slash game.

[katamari]

False.

Apparently you've never bothered to visit the EVE Forum called "Known Bugs & Workarounds".

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=3510

This game is riddled with bugs, on a much larger scale than WoW (believe it or not). Player beware.

Time to play EVE-Online

While EVE may only have 100,000 players, it also has the most powerful gaming cluster in the world. Worth checking out, www.eve-online.com They don't have these issues, even with 25,000 players online at once.

WOW players might have some trouble playing though, it's no easy hack/slash game.

[katamari]

False.

Apparently you've never bothered to visit the EVE Forum called "Known Bugs & Workarounds".

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=3510

This game is riddled with bugs, on a much larger scale than WoW (believe it or not). Player beware.

[dczyz]

What about deleting problem reports?

I am unhappy about the service problems that they have had since launch... (these are not knew issues) and I wish they would be proactive in crediting accounts for service problems.

My biggest problem, and one I can not get them to answer is why it is acceptable for their customer service people to delete reports of problems on their service. They have done that twice to me for posts reporting outages that were not listed a known issues. (and I followed their posting guidelines)

I also filed that complaint with the BBB. Waiting to see what happens from that.

No response to their customer service address at [e-mail], [e-mail]