Slashdot Mirror


World of Warcraft Server Problems

vjmurphy writes "Connectivity to the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft servers and web site appears to have had some difficulties over the past week. Their hosting is provided by AT&T." That includes my raid's dying twice in MC due to 4000 latency, and also a soft reset of MC. Good work, AT&T.

17 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. What 'problems?!' by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Funny

    Note: the following post has been graciously hosted by AT&T.

    This [Connecting...] is [Authenticating... ] absurd. I [Authenticating... ] demand that all of [Authenticating... ] these false [Authenticating... ] allegations be stopped. There [Retrieving character list... ] is no way [Retrieving character list... ] in hell [Retrieving character list... ] that anyone [Retrieving character list... ] has ever [Retrieving character list... ] suffered [Retrieving character list... ] from any kind of [Loading... ] lag [Loading... ] while playing [Loading... ] World of Warcraft. The [Loading... ] hosting has been [Loading... ] meticulously [Loading... ] perfect and infallible. ["Ok, I'm in game, why don't I see anyone in Org?"]

    When will you learn that if a company takes your money, they are providing a service that cannot fail? [/console reloadui]

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. Makes a news item in Slashdot by penfold69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Try living on the EU servers - its been like this for a year.

    P.

    --
    Beer Coat: The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3 in the morning.
    1. Re:Makes a news item in Slashdot by Khuffie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They matter only when the EU is suing Microsoft. *rimshot*

  3. Possible cause.... SBC/ATT merger? by 8282now · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Haven't been terribly impressed at the technical capabilities of SBC....

  4. working by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This feature is working as intended

  5. well... by Churla · · Score: 2, Funny

    We almost beat razorgore this last week DUE TO the lag. Seems mind controlling him and destroying the eggs was good and the mobs that were supposed to be attacking him weren't. They'd just stand next to him, I suppose hoping the disapproving stares would cause him to stop destroying eggs. On the other hand, Blizzard has not been above doling out a free day here or there when server issues erupted into full scale cratacularness. I also strongly suspect AT&T beta/piloting it's "Wouldn't it be a pity if something nasty happened to your precious data?" scalable bandwidth usage plan.

    --
    I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
  6. I warned you... by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 3, Funny
    That includes my raid's dying twice in MC due to 4000 latency, and also a soft reset of MC. Good work, AT&T.

    I warned you against buying that Adaptec shit. Get a decent RAID controller that isn't so touchy with latency issues.

  7. DDoS Attacks, Perhaps? by Zaffo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh, I'm as peeved about crappy connectivity as every other WoW addict, but couldn't it also be the result of one or more Distributed Denial of Service attacks against Blizzard's servers? I'd be quite surprised if this hasn't been attempted already.

  8. This is exactly why I cancelled my subscription... by wbren · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well this, and the fact that it completely took over every aspect of my life.

    --
    -William Brendel
  9. What's New? by blunte · · Score: 2, Interesting

    WoW has had "issues" since hour one when it went public. Right now their troubles may indeed be their "provider" (just one? they have that much money riding on just one provider?), but in the past they've had plenty of issues of their own creation.

    If we could see inside Blizzard I think we'd find a company that knows how to make good games, but one that doesn't have a good record at making good management decisions on how to run them.

    There's little point in me going into great detail about the many mistakes and poor decisions they've made, but I can say that if they were a financial institution we wouldn't be discussing this. Finance seems to have this understanding that time is money. Somehow Blizzard hasn't quite caught on that 5.5 million subscribers might eventually go away, especially if they get frustrated enough with the downtime/lag. Sure, there's not much place for those gamers to go, but this may not be true in 1-3 years.

    --
    .sigs are for post^Hers.
    1. Re:What's New? by hab136 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If we could see inside Blizzard I think we'd find a company that knows how to make good games, but one that doesn't have a good record at making good management decisions on how to run them.

      Or, a company that made good games, got bought out by an evil company (Vivendi), and had a considerable portion of their developers leave for NCSoft. Everything since live has been done by the people left behind, or newly hired.

  10. Oh? by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Funny

    Did they port the server code from Europe?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. Re:Suck it up by Cabriel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You know, this argument is often perported but really holds little credibility.

    Sure, it's a game, and sure the rewards appear to be entirely virtual and owned by Blizzard. However, this is not completely the case. While it is just a game, millions of people are putting a lot of effort into it. The rewards they reap aren't just items, reputation, and experience. They are also getting personal satisfaction and developing relationships with distant friends and guildies. The amount of effort put into this game by an average player still deserves respect. When their efforts result in nothing, it would be akin to working at a real job and your employer suddenly saying they won't pay you for your last 6 or 8 hours of work. I'd rather be kicked in the jimmy. >_> <_<

    To think about the argument from the other side of the street, what would you say if your job decided to heap three times your normal workload on you and not give you any extra compensation? It's only a job, right? You only do it for 8.. 10... maybe even 12 hours a day, and in the end you still get paid, right? You've still got the rest of the day to do what you need to or want to. Why should you be upset? (Before you start answering with reasons to be upset, realize that this specific argument is designed to be fallacy.)

    Inevitably, someone will argue that a job gives real rewards (money) as opposed to programming code that is technically not owned by the player, but I would argue we need personal satisfaction and relationships at least as much as we need money or we stop being human.

  12. DDoS possible by Daggon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Several months back there was a similar rash of instabilities and sever restarts. There were a bunch of rumors that gold farmers were using something to de-stabalize the servers. It used to be that zoning into instance under high lag was used to dupe items, never confirmed it actaully worked but that was the rumor.

    I mention it because perhaps something similar is going on here. The servers are getting destabilized and forced to restart. And you can use a server restart(and the small rollback that usually hits because of it) to dupe items or gold(this works, I've seen it done).

    In the end its just a random collection of rumors that fits the facts. So take with whatever amount of seasoning you need.

    1. Re:DDoS possible by HycoWhit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I should have been more clear in my first post.

      There is most definately an exploit involving the Dire Maul instance that is causing the increased lag. Of the dozens of players in Dire Maul--only a few are causing the server lag. They tend to be easily identifiable by their names and lack of guild tag. i.e. the chinese farming brigade.

      Regular players aren't causing the lag. On our server there are 5 to 6 of the farmers on the Horde side and double that number on the Alliance side. Our server runs lag free until these 10-15 players connect--then wham! Lagcity until they disconnect.

      What they are doing to cause the problems I don't know, just that rthe exploit seems to involve Dire Maul, Hunters, and produces lots of Traverler's Knapsacks, Major Health Potions, Major Mana Potions, and Ace of Warlords. (probably more stuff I haven't noticed.)

  13. Sounds like nothing has changed... by CokoBWare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We were using AT&T a few years back for our business connectivity in Florida and they were always having problems, going up and down like a yo-yo. It sounds like their reliability hasn't changed at all. I'm glad we don't use them anymore.

  14. Re:Refunds? by C0rinthian · · Score: 3, Funny

    Blizzard Server Admin 1: Hey, some guy on Slashdot said we should fix the servers!
    Blizzard Server Admin 2: *facepalm* Shit, I NEVER thought of that.
    BSA1: Imagine the implications of such a radical approach!
    BSA2: My god, thank you ZombieRoboNinja! Your insight will revolutionize server administration around the world! Fix the Servers! Simply amazing.