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WoW Not-So-Live Maintenance
scdeimos writes "WoW servers are currently displaying the following Welcome message:
Breaking NewsSo much for Blizzard implementing Live Maintenance in WoW to bring an end to Patch Tuesdays! The WoW Realm Status forums page has nothing further to add at this time."
All realms will be offline for scheduled maintenance.
* Date: January 2nd 2007
* Time: 5:00am — 11:00am PST
For more information, please check our realm status page.
Thank you,
Blizzard Entertainment.
Working as Intended
This is only a story if you make something up about them eliminating maintenance days in the first place. Thats not what they said.
What they actually said is that they were working on reducing the number of maintenance days by doing some things while the realms were live, and that they were trying it for the first time December 26.
Somehow that got morphed by people into "there will never be another maintenance day," which is flat out wrong.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I won't be able to get my WoW fix tomorrow morning. Oh noes! Whatever shall I do? Clean house? Work? Interact with family members? Oh noes! Not that!
This "Not-So-Live" maintenance is the "Not-Really-Possible-To-Do-Live" 2.0.3 patch.
Last weeks maintenance went off without a hitch, so expect it become more like one day a month when bugfix patches are rolled out.
They never "implemented" live maintenance, they were just testing it. They could test it again next week for all anyone knows.
You know, those of us who have never played World of Warcraft always find these headlines rather amusing. Beneath our stolid contempt that is.
May the Maths Be with you!
Especially when players make up promises they didn't make!
Blizzard actually said they were working on having fewer maintenance days, and that they woudln't have one December 26.
That was entirely correct.
Somehow, people took that and read it as "there will be no maintence days, ever."
They never actually promised there would be no maintenance on January 2, or any time after December 26. Made up promises don't count.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Ahh the irony of taking the servers down to install a patch so that the servers won't come down. :)
I think we will see a lot more emergency fixing. I have 5 lvl 60 chars and my frost spec'd mage seems to get problems with the elemental he summons. The elemental refuses to attack until you manually make it fire a frost bolt off at a monster. Just clicking the agressive button and "pet attack" (special action 1 usually) does not make it enter combat, but it's fine if you make it use frost nova on the mob first.
Of course it could just be the fact that i'm not that smart. Who can tell.
Delete this non-story. Bliz never promised no more maintanence days, just reduced them for normal maintanence tasks. This Tuesday is a patch day (or have you not noticed the 140+M file you've been background downloading recently, that should have been your first clue), and thus NOT "normal maintanence." Non-story, should never have been posted, and full of misinformation.
If by "inferior by design" you mean "designed for different things".
It seems like you have a strong World of Warcraft bias, but I wouldn't completely disregard Guild Wars. Don't get me wrong, I love both Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, but they are definitely geared towards different play experiences.
Contrary to your post, Guild Wars is quite expertly designed. It's system allows for players to get into engaging gameplay without being a huge time sink, even down to its implementation of patching. What you list as its flaws are actually it's greatest features; it's instancing prevents things such as griefing, camping spawn points, and allows for fast travel. It focuses on careful choice of skills and weapons vs. level and equipment. In doing so, it sheds some of WoW's most grievous points, but also loses some of what makes WoW special. It largely depends on what kind of experience you want.
WoW allows for a large and vibrant world; you can run around in raids of 40 members, even if it's just to destroy a town of the opposing faction. You can participate in long, epic PvP struggles. In order to do this, though, you will have to join up with a serious guild, and commit a large portion of your time. In Guild Wars, you can jump in, and do most missions in around an hour, and if you don't want to bother forming a party, you can hire AI mercenaries. If you are interested in PvP, you can instantly create a max level character for that purpose. Guild Wars attempts to offered a more stream-lined experience, whereas World of Warcraft attempts an everything and the kitchen sink approach.
I think it is ignorant to say Guild Wars is the "inferior" game; it is just a different experience that World of Warcraft.