World of Warcraft rant

[Khairn]

driver8, as a player on one of those famous "20" servers I assure you that there hasnt been nearly enough attention, focus and communication from Blizzard, and any article that lights a fire beneath them is a good thing in my eyes. I'm really glad that PenneyArcade took away their award. Maybe Blizzard will actually be able to fix the broken product that they sold me.

Last week I ended up cancelling my account on WoW due to these horrendous problems and the very poor response/customer service from Blizzard. I'll take a look at playing again once they fix things.

This problem has already caused my guild to scatter to the 4 winds with their alts, and is preventing me from playing the characters that I have spent days in developing. Blizzards response has been equally as bad as Verant/SOE in EQ's heyday.

If 20% of any business was unable to operate, there would be continuing and detailed updates with realistic ETA's as to when the problem would be corrected. But Blizzards arrogance, combined with the high demand for the game, allows them to trivialize the loss of players.

I love the game, but I refuse to be treated in such a way by a company that I pay for the use of their product. The many fanboi's that attack the 20% of the players that are impacted and complaining about this poor performance don't help to improve anything. (not saying that you are doing that, just making a general statement)

Sorry for the rant, but I'm kicked out again and my alts are on a server with a 45 minute queue.

 

[KenM]

Quick question, how do you "unjoin" a guild? I was asked to join one by some other player and accedently hit "yes". When I see my name in the guild member list, I can't just remove myself.

 

[Enforcer]

Quick question, how do you "unjoin" a guild? I was asked to join one by some other player and accedently hit "yes". When I see my name in the guild member list, I can't just remove myself.

type /gquit

 

[driver8]

driver8, as a player on one of those famous "20" servers I assure you that there hasnt been nearly enough attention, focus and communication from Blizzard, and any article that lights a fire beneath them is a good thing in my eyes. I'm really glad that PenneyArcade took away their award. Maybe Blizzard will actually be able to fix the broken product that they sold me.

Last week I ended up cancelling my account on WoW due to these horrendous problems and the very poor response/customer service from Blizzard. I'll take a look at playing again once they fix things.

This problem has already caused my guild to scatter to the 4 winds with their alts, and is preventing me from playing the characters that I have spent days in developing. Blizzards response has been equally as bad as Verant/SOE in EQ's heyday.

If 20% of any business was unable to operate, there would be continuing and detailed updates with realistic ETA's as to when the problem would be corrected. But Blizzards arrogance, combined with the high demand for the game, allows them to trivialize the loss of players.

I love the game, but I refuse to be treated in such a way by a company that I pay for the use of their product. The many fanboi's that attack the 20% of the players that are impacted and complaining about this poor performance don't help to improve anything. (not saying that you are doing that, just making a general statement)

Sorry for the rant, but I'm kicked out again and my alts are on a server with a 45 minute queue.

I understand completely. Im actually surprised these problems happened now rather than at launch. Given the fact that there are soo many exisiting Warcraft III and Diablo clans, as well as groups migrating from other MMOs, Blizzard would have seen that some servers would get really overloaded..or that they would have had an escape plan to let players/ guilds move to other servers. A perusal of the official boards before launch would have given an indication of how many people were not only planning on joining the game, but to do so in groups/clans.

Im not trying to defend Blizzard. It seems by now they should have already given people a chance to move to other servers, especially after they put up all the other extra servers right after launch. Hopefully the people waiting in queues and dealing with delays will get credit for not being able to play on their accounts.

And IMHO, I dont think its arrogance on the part of Blizzard. Any company SOE, whoever doesnt want things like this to happen, and they dont want to alienate their fanbase, no matter how rabid. These problems may be due to being caught off guard, incompetence, or just voodoo, but I doubt its arrogance.

My point about the journalism wasnt meant to be a fanboy stab at them in defense of Blizzard; I just found it humorous that so many sites crowned WoW as the greatest thing ever at years end when the game had been out 30 days, then become such harsh critics when the inevitbale diffuiculties arose.

I wish ya luck Deyvn..Id be going crazy if I were cut off from WoW for an extended period of time.

 

[kotik2]

Lag, RAM, and Connections

First, I have to both thank and curse Dinkeldog/Garos/Errand for hooking me on this game. He doesn't usually get me, but he did this time.

Second, through some actual trial and error experimentation, some of the lag problems are very explainable. Yes, there are servers with population problems, and yes, we all have more fun when we play together, which does create high and low volume server situations. The lag in the auction house is generally the longest, and the lag when you are looting a corpse and suddenly, while you are lagging, monsters spawn atop your position and kill you is the most annoying to me - but I have this thing against dying.

That being said, the computer upon which you play, and your internet connection are so very critical here. I have this game on more than one computer in my house, and the difference in the way it reacts with more and less RAM is one of the more profound I have seen. My daughter is running on a machine with 1GB, and that seems to be the minimum really easily playable level. I play with 2GB, and very rarely have problems. The spare machine in the house, which is our "guest" machine is 512MB. That was the speed at which I started playing, and almost immediately rushed out for a new computer - one I was planning to buy in or before March got bumped up to January.

The other thing is the connectivity. DSL or Broadband (or a T1 if you are really, really lucky) is almost a must. Dinkeldog will confirm this if you ask him. Dialup is for checking email.

Well, that's my rant on the subject. Even the death lag while looting and an injured primary hand has not slowed down my play, so none of it is bothering me that much. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go name a few more murlocs after the people who make my life h@ll and indiscriminately slaughter them.

Hail Enduring Nobility!

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I've been playing WoW since the day of it's release.
I had nearly four weeks holiday in that time, during which I played a LOT.

Anyway, I'm logging in from Australia. My typical time is about 500ms. I use broadband.
I play mostly a horde character on a medium population server.
I rarely have any noticable lag.
Admitidly I'm mostly on a quieter times, but even so, distance makes up for a lot of that.

I have found a bit of an issue if I quickly fly from one city to another, where I tend to get drastically slow response. I believe this is because it's not forgetting all the people in the city I was in, and is also adding all the ones in the city I've gone to. If it's bad I log off and back in and it's sorted out.

I think that Blizzard should contact guild owners on heavily populated servers and ask if they would be prepared to move their guild to a low pop. server. There could even be some kind of enducement for them if the guild accepts. This would allow a fair amount of balancing for the server populations, without expecting players to start over.

As for whether blizzard should have anticipated all of this use of their game, I believe they have been desperately trying to bring new servers on, but also need to train new GMs at the same time. While they did know how many copies were being sold, it sold out far faster than anticipated, and they were understaffed for it.
Let me explain. When the directors at blizzard get told "EB just ordered 100,000 copies", the directors say "make them and get the staff needed to manage them". It doesn't take long to fill the order. It takes a lot longer to advertise, interview, select and train new staff.

Duncan
(Orc Warrior 34, Tauren Shaman 23, Undead Rogue 18, Troll Mage 12 on Elune)

 

[Khairn]

I disagree with those who are posting and saying that Blizzard could not have anticipated the high sales volume on WoW, and that we need to give them a chance to fix the problem.

With hundreds of thousands of applications for entry into closed beta, over 300,000+ players in open beta, over 100,000 in actual pre-orders, and Christmas arriving just after its well publicized launch, how did they NOT figure out that they were going to have huge numbers?

Player feedback in Open Beta clearly stated that server lag and stability was an issue. Blizzard heard the early warnings and knew the sales numbers in advance but has been unable to fix the problem. It has now been over 3 months, and do those players who have been impacted by this see any real resolution? Nope.

My real problem is that in any other industry, poor performance like this would have generated massive effort and detailed communication with those who have been impacted. I expected alot more from Blizzard. But in the end they've performed worse than almost any other game publisher, with the exception of the fiasco known as Horizons. That one is in a league of their own.

 

[Pielorinho]

With hundreds of thousands of applications for entry into closed beta, over 300,000+ players in open beta, over 100,000 in actual pre-orders, and Christmas arriving just after its well publicized launch, how did they NOT figure out that they were going to have huge numbers?

Well, I'm not privy to their calculations, but I have no reason to believe that they're lying about this: after all, if they had thought they'd sell 600,000 copies so quickly, they would've had all the servers up at launch instead of a month or so later. They made a mistake, but I'm not sure why I'd doubt that it was an honest mistake.

Daniel

 

[LightPhoenix]

With hundreds of thousands of applications for entry into closed beta, over 300,000+ players in open beta, over 100,000 in actual pre-orders, and Christmas arriving just after its well publicized launch, how did they NOT figure out that they were going to have huge numbers?

Player feedback in Open Beta clearly stated that server lag and stability was an issue. Blizzard heard the early warnings and knew the sales numbers in advance but has been unable to fix the problem. It has now been over 3 months, and do those players who have been impacted by this see any real resolution? Nope.

What, Blizzard has psychics working for them now? I mean, that's the only rational explanation for your argument that they knew sales numbers in advance.

That bit of sarcasm aside, they took a look at the current state of MMORPGs, particularly Everquest, and estimated from there. The problem was they were too humble, and didn't think that their name alone would drive such a huge amount of sales. A mistake, perhaps, but I highly doubt that anybody expected it to be otherwise.

As for resolution, how about the free time that they gave some players? How about the constant stream of advice to move to new servers? How about constantly tracking down and addressing/fixing bugs causing lag, the most recent being the boats dropping people in the ocean?

My real problem is that in any other industry, poor performance like this would have generated massive effort and detailed communication with those who have been impacted. I expected alot more from Blizzard. But in the end they've performed worse than almost any other game publisher, with the exception of the fiasco known as Horizons. That one is in a league of their own.

Right, so you expect the CEO of Blizzard to whip you and how many hundred thousand other players a personal e-mail? Conveniently disregarding he did prepare a statement that was posted on the Bilzzard message boards? Or do you mean their blatant disregard for bugfixing? I mean, it's not like they haven't fixed anything... oh wait. As for poor performance like this in any industry? Paizo's distribution problems? WotC's huge delays in getting out errata? Or how about the iffy performance of electronic polling booths? Or the inability for fast food places to get decent intercoms? Or the struggles that the athletics groups have been dealing with in regards to steroids and other performance enhancers?

 

[myrdden]

If population on the server is the primary culprit, then I hope Blizzard is looking at a way for players to migrate existing characters to another server to help with the load. I only have so much time in a week to play the game (couple of hours) and I have had consistently queues trying to log in. I'd start another character on another (less populated) server but I have invested a lot of time on my current build and am now getting into the intersting abilities which makes it difficult to leave behind. I can see why people are getting frustrated by the situation.