It appears Blizzard are still having significant issues with server stability in their hit Massively multiplayer title, World of Warcraft. Well over a year since the game was released, Blizzard are still plagued with server stability issues on the WoW platform, with no sign of any light at the end of the tunnel.

Several months ago, at the request of Australian and New Zealand players, Blizzard created a new oceanic realm list, populated by one PVP and one PVE server. Due to the popularity of these servers, new character creation was halted on Frostmorne, the PVP server for oceanic region, when the user did not already hold a character on the server. To deal with this a new Oceanic server was added for PVP, however this has since been full constantly and again character creation is disabled.

In addition to this, there has been massive server stability issues for these servers, including frequent outages, the loot server dying, or stalling, to the point that even though you can connect, you cant play anyway! The problems for the poor Australian WoW player dont stop there, going from bad to worse, Blizzard has today taken their Oceanic servers offline for the whole day:

Unfortunately, Frostmourne and Khaz'goroth need to be taken down for urgent maintenance. We anticipate that these two realms will be down for the remainder of the evening, with a current ETA of midnight, PST. We'll provide an update as soon as additional information becomes available.

We thank all players affected by this maintenance for their patience and understanding.

This maintenance outage comes after a week of frequent outages and other issues wholey related to server stability. Blizzard have not provided any information on if there will be any credits offered for Australian and NZ users, however its noted that Vivendi Universal Australia released a press release last week boldly stating the 100,000 copies of the game sold in Australia, wouldnt it be nice if they had somewhere to play! Check out the thread on http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.

We'll contact Vivendi Universal Australia for comment on this today!

I still dont know why they dont educate some of you AGN fags to run servers on our shores, we'd probably do a better job at it than some dumb yanks.

ps: I know its not that simple, I only wish it was.

last edited by casa at 17:42:18 21/Feb/06

I play wow for around an hour a day on frostmourne (5 weeks, lvl 18 warrior, go me)and i've found the server to be inadequate at best. Normally I don't mind paying 20 a month, that's walkin' around money, but for this s*** I may as well be distributing it to homeless men.

Incidently, buy 20 bucks worth of cheap wine/cider, and you can hold 'tramp olymipics'. we had tramps racing each other up trees for a free cask of wine back in sunny brighton.

sheesh that sux. that's like not being able to buy H from your dealer.

thanks Term.

For those who don't play WoW This issue really is a joke. not only are paying customers being jibbed out of countless hours of play week in week out but It is basically impossible to play on these servers during prime time such as weekends/school holidays due to factors like being unable to authenticate, unable to loot and discusting lag spikes. To add insult to injury blizzard refuse to even give a reason to why these problems are occuring and with that offer no insight into what they are doing to resolve the issues, the most we ever get is "sorry" and "thanks for being patient"

I've completely given up playing on high populated servers and resorted to playing character on a low to medium populated server. Althought having to put up with a ping of around 300ms it is infinatly better than the frustration caused from the above fiasco

dragonmaw seems fine, suck s*** to you fools playing on oceanic servers

I know we don't really notice the ping, however once you've played on sub 100ms pings in pvp and the like, things just get so simpler, and the game seems to run much smoother... Just ask saint, hes played wow in the states with like a 40ms ping, it would have owned.

I've completely given up playing on high populated servers and resorted to playing character on a low to medium populated server. Although having to put up with a ping of around 300ms it is infinitely better than the frustration caused from the above fiasco

After learning about their infrastructure, it isn't going to get any better =( As time goes on and the overall population keeps growing, all servers will become s***house.

To make matters worse, while the population keeps growing there is no economic need to fix the problem. Even if WoW was an order of magnitude smaller it would still be an amazingly popular game. Actually, it would improve its network stability.

I have a gut feeling that Blizzard won’t release WoW into the hands of a third party company, and they don’t feel that the Australian player base is large enough to justify setting up shop here.


last edited by typo at 17:59:06 21/Feb/06

It's true :( Put up with it on all mmogs

Come play on Eldre Thalas. It's always up and the only time the ping is s*** is Monday and Tuesday. I've found the servers run like ass just before maintainance time. Prolly why they do it every week because the game wouldn't survive longer than that.

But seriously, if Vivendi has sold 100,000 units in Australia they can afford to put at least 2 f***ing servers here.

How much of a refund do you get for the downtime?

How much of a refund do you get for the downtime?

If the probem is profound you get free days played.

To add insult to injury blizzard refuse to even give a reason to why these problems are occuring and with that offer no insight into what they are doing to resolve the issues, the most we ever get is "sorry" and "thanks for being patient"

Because that would confirm everybody’s worst fears are true. Blizzard can’t and wouldn’t fix it.

We did get 1 day free on 3/02/06, but one day free isn't much

We did get 1 day free on 3/02/06, but one day free isn't much

especially since when most people stop playing it's going to be before the end of their subscription, so "free days" just go unused.

It's back up. Huzzah.

Korea and china have their own servers managed by third parties, so I'm not exactly sure what typo is on about

What's the ratio of players between Australia and either Korea or China? What's some of the major problems western companies have when entering eastern markets?

China's and Korea's market make Australia's market look like a petting zoo compared to Disney land. Adding the way their infrastructure is looped into the way the entire game works just makes it a bad economic decision.

With the exception of the incessant crying by Australians on Tuesday night, would they even notice if every Australian un-subscribed? If anything, it would probably be cheaper for them if we left.


last edited by typo at 18:50:48 21/Feb/06

What's some of the major problems western companies have when entering easten markets?

There clothes are different from our clothes.

There clothes are different from our clothes.

The major problem that Western countries have had on entering Asian countries is one of culture differences. After the insane success of Starcraft, Blizzard has been working hard at capturing the Korean (and other nearby) markets. The easiest way is to get third party organisations to modify, organise and administer your remote dealings.

If the probem is profound you get free days played.

it has to be pretty proufound though, they are tight arses about giving away free time i think i've only ever been credited once in 6 months

We aussies aren't the only ones being hard done by, just about everyone is suffering from the server stability problems. The game really is suffering the effects of its own success.

I've been playing on Blackrock since day one so s*** like this really doesn't suprise me. I either just play another game or go and play an alt on another server.

I would really like to get some technical details on the architecture they used for how the servers and communication between them work, as it seems like it was terribly designed. WoW in my mind certainly doesn't come close to being classed as an MMO. It seems to top out at about 6,000 simultaneous players before it starts falling over. Even if that were being run on a single box, it'd be bad imo :/

I have however spoken to some people within Telstra who were dealing with Vivendi. While obviously they can't give that many details, they did inform me that the kind of deal if any that would have been arranged with them was similar to the one my own company has - and that means that even though we're paying for colo, WE also have to be able to meet Telstra's SLAs. If that were in fact true, I think you might in fact find that Telstra rejected Vivendi/Blizzard, not the other way around. But I'm guessing, and don't know for certain.

The problem is that Vivendi are making USD15m/month. What do they care if they lose 100,000 players, they're still making a truckload of money. For them, there is currently absolultely no financial reason whatsoever to fix things, because it's pretty bloody clear the gamers threats to quit are iether hollow, or they just keep coming in by the busload.

Oh, by the way: Blizzard employ 49 GMs full time across all US servers. Yep, all 200 or whatever there are.

Interesting to note however the Europeans are getting a LOT more information back from the GMs etc than the North Americans. The US group don't release a lot of info, but if you trawl around the EU forums enough, you can actually find out most of what you want to know - including a lot of technical details.

haha term has the poo's because wow is down

deal with it.

Asif pay $90 (or whatever it costs) for a game and then an additional monthly subscription, they saw you suckers coming.

go read this article in the downtime (it even has MPU's own 'Genesis' - Ben Hubbard) http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/the-downside-to-online-fantasy-games/2006/02/15/1139890778823.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2



last edited by HeardY at 21:08:46 21/Feb/06

Y'know, if you organised every Australian to stop playing WoW until you had a physical server residing in Oz...
Meh, I laugh at you all for playing WoW anyways suckers =)

also - as per this press release http://www.blizzard.com/press/051219.shtml ~5 million people play WoW, but I have seen that number around 5.5 million

EVERYONE pays $15 per month

5,500,000 x $15 = $82.5 MILLION f***ING DOLLARS A MONTH!! and they can't evne provide servers?

can't you people see you are being ripped off, extorted even!

last edited by HeardY at 21:14:49 21/Feb/06

i play on tichondrius PVP high population server and its always been fine for me, even in peak hour. im with iinet adsl and i average around a 300 ping in the worst of times. i think the problem lately is because of AQ opening, being in sithilis today during the opening was 10000ms lag fest and kalimdor side of the world crashed every 10 minutes with 10 minutes trying to get back on.

Term, I dont see how it would help. The problems all appear to be design and coding related from what as an outsider we can visibly observe, so I'm not sure how relocation of servers would help in the slightest. Not saying I don't agree it would be nice to have local servers, but them being local isn't actually going to fix anything other than pings.

Simple fact is, it's pretty glaringly obvious the backend needs a rewrite :/

All I'm saying too is stuff oceanic servers. The only difference with them is the time on them is set to here.

It is a complete and utter joke regardless of what they say.

I have been playing WOW for about 2 months now on proudmoore. I do not know what other oceanic servers are like but proudmoore is terrible. Everytime you log on no matter what time of the day it is, you get lag , massive lag. Like today for example. Two consecutive lag spikes both lasting 10 minutes each. Players getting stuck on load screens between the islands.

And all we get its a constant reminder that blizzard is "aware" of the stability issues. Well being "aware" is f***en fantastic. How about doing something about it. Its been like this for a long time and I am over waiting for a resolution as i do not think it is going to come. I am not far off working up the heart to quit WOW. What everyone else is saying makes pure sense, we pay all this money for what??? absolutely nothing it seems.

I agree with Term.

I just started a palladin on Eldre Thalis if anyone is thinking of jumping realms.

i second this motion to quit wow. i started 2 months ago on khaz'goroth and the lag spikes and constant downtime appall me. its f***ing pathetic, plain and simple. FIX YOUR s*** UP BLIZZARD!!!!!

yea the instability of the servers is another thing that really pushed me to quit the game. i sucks paying for a service you dont get.
every time the servers go down they tell people to be patient. i wonder how patient they would be if people were late in making payments..im glad i quit WoW.

I've been playing wow for close on two months now, all the time using dialup. Being on dialup you expect higher latencies in games, but world of warcraft is for the most part playable with a sub 1000ms latency, providing you don't actually want to do anything. But when you get constant (and I mean constant being for upwards half an hour) latencies of over two seconds, it becomes a joke.

I get it worse than that. My ping constantly sits on 400-600. Today i experienced a 10 minute lag spike, At the end of it i ended up with the group I was in. Following that everyone on kalimdor promptly got disconnected.

It just seems an endless wind of complaining that leads to nothing. Blizzard just do not care. It does not take this long to fix the problems we are experiencing. They just do not want to spend any money fixing it.

I look forward to selling some items to the merchant tommorow, no doubt it will take 5 minutes per item.

Something happened to the AH on Eldre today. Heaps of auctions disappeared and might be gone for good. So that means anyone that had items for sale have probably lost them and now the AH is pretty useless for buying good weapons. I'm just glad I'm starting a new character and can send a heap of gold to it and start fresh.

I play on Shadowsong. A 'full' west coast server. I have a dodge ass computer and play on a 56k modem. I get constant pings of 500-900 which are perfectly playable unless you want to PvP in Alterac Valley. I get maybe one or two 10 second lag spikes once an hour. Server is never down and i have never had ANY problems which you guys speak of.

Obviously you need to move to a better server. Enjoy!

I've even have a few characters on Khadgar which is a 'full' EAST coast server and get pings of 600-1000. Even with that the game is perfectly playable. Only once have i even got constant lag (more than 10 minutes) on that server.

Been playing on Proudmoore since May, 60 mage, blah blah. On the weekend I was getting constant disconnects and it's been taking half an hour from login to character select then another 15 minutes to actually get in the game, which then constantly lags to the point of being unplayable. And this is with a decent PC and ADSL2+.
So I've cancelled my WoW account, might see if EQ2 has gotten any better or give DDO a try.

life be in it

your stories while troubling make me so glad i never got started on this game.

Don't knock it til you try it ;)

wow was interesting, then it got more interesting when i quit the game after 5 annoying months of playing it and selling it on ebay for $190 and buying cases of beer instead :D win win

I actually just got my hands on a 14 day trial key for eve online and have been meaning to get it going. I had to email eve support to get a trial key because the web site that is supposed to issue them just didn't work, and on tuesday when I went to use the key their web site was down, so already it feels like the MMO experience and I haven't even gotten into the game yet.

I have heard its not the game for everyone, with a much steeper learning curve than most, but I'm willing to put up with that if the game itself proves interesting and fun. I need to find out if there are any aussie groups playing it.

Maybe they should get Google to host thier servers!. Then get the Google engineers to redesign thier code. That'll fix the problems.

Anyways, I see a lot of you guys like PVPing and to be honest one of the best games for it is EVE Online.

Unfortunately, it doesnt even come close to daoc pvp -_-

Oh how i miss the old days.

*sigh*
I use to own all the noobs in UO.

*sigh*
I used to have a life, now I just play WoW all day.

blackrock big it up

Even also only has about 40,000 people playing it, Wow has 5.5 million. Drop 5.5 million players on the Eve servers and see if they're still so stable and wonderful.

Advantage.....Khel

Even also only has about 40,000 people playing it, Wow has 5.5 million. Drop 5.5 million players on the Eve servers and see if they're still so stable and wonderful.

and WoW's 5.5 million playerbase is split across over 200 seperate servers while Eve only has a few. The key difference here is that Eve is capable of not only meeting basic server demand, but exceeding it.

Drop half a billion dollars in subscription fees a year on the WoW servers and see how they are... oh wait.

40k, what a nice number.

You know what you get if you divide 5.5m by the number of servers WoW has..

I have started playing some eve, and its quite refreshing. So far the fact that I don't have to 5-man with a bunch of retards is giving me great hope. There is only one server, but its pretty massive and apart from the server upgrade downtime it has been running very nicely.

The only down point to the game to a noob like me is the steep learning curve, and that its not very action packed. Kinda like freelancer but 100 times more complex. I'm finding it hard to find some of the most basic information. They have a rookie chat channel where you can ask noob questions, but it can be hard getting a response if lots of people are in it.

Not a game for everyone, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Eve's boring combat (boring boring boring) and steep learning curve stave most people off, but it has alot of scope and awesome player-run economies.

What are you playing at the moment hashy? I have also been playing a bit of DoD:Source.

(rise from your grave!)

I'm suprised there are so many old-school AusGamers staff acting suprised as to why there are no servers - especially since I know at least trog should remember hearing the stories about Blizzard trying to set up battle.net hosting through Telstra/BigPond a few years ago and Blizzard getting royally screwed over in the process.

I suspect that in the rare case that Blizzard/VUGA attempts this again, it won't be through anyone related to Telstra.

Personally I think it was becuase term refused to get down on his knees.

Thanks god he doesn't refuse these days.

8-)

This like all stories are completely confused, Blizzard have never approached us to run battle.net. The whole battlenet story is this (please note that this is how I remember it discussing issues with the various heads of the two services):

My apologies - I had heard a 90% similar story directly from a member of the b.net team, except they mentioned "Wireplay" instead of "Multiplay", and gave the reason as "horrible communication and hardware that just vanished" rather than "held up by liquidators". Considering the similarity in names, I can totally see how a US developer could confuse them while telling a story.

Even so, it doesn't change the root of my post - which is it shouldn't come as a surprise as to why Blizzard doesn't want to set up servers here again.

BTW, the main thrust of things from both the b.net guy I talked to and from Bill Roper when he was down here at AGDC'04 was that the vanising hardware was the final straw, not the sole cause - they talked about massive issues with synchronising b.net data in the months that the b.net servers were up in Australia (which was functionally much longer than a week - I'm assuming that your week comment is referring to contract time)

(And Term - try not to take posts like that as a personal attack on yourself, you know that I love you guys ;p)

last edited by sprayNwipe at 15:56:53 03/Mar/06

last edited by sprayNwipe at 16:05:40 03/Mar/06

because I'm old and crusty

You sure are!