Two FREE days of WoW

In case you missed it, Blizzard is giving everyone two free days due to the recent server issues.

Here's the linky: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/

Bear

While I think it''s a nice gesture, I''d be much happier if they would just be up front about telling us WTF is going on with the servers, why the lag is unbearable, and giving us a ""real"" timetable as to when they _think_ it will be fixed. Stop stonewalling, stop removing all ""real"" information from the info threads because you think all your customers are dolts and techno-dumb. If it''s the hosting provider, give us every bit of info that the contract allows you to give. If it''s the database being poorly planned, tell us.

2 free days is, what, $1?
Whee.

Um, duck, they may not know what the issues are. We should be happy they are doing anything for us.

2 free days is, what, $1?

$13,000+ alone on one high pop server with everyone getting a free 2 days.

"Flux" wrote:

Um, duck, they may not know what the issues are. We should be happy they are doing anything for us.

2 free days is, what, $1?

$13,000+ alone on one high pop server with everyone getting a free 2 days.

While I agree they may not know what is wrong they could come out and say that too but doubt that would happen.

Duki though is right and while it may be $600K or so the company is eating from his point of view they are giving him a $1 for his trouble and no real answers.

This to me is one of the biggest problems all MMORPG face in attracting main stream customers. Hard core fans will put up with this and be happy that they are getting something at all but more main stream crowd will be more likely to take thier money else where.

But WoW is playable every night, quests actually work, and lag spikes (outside of IF) are few and far between.

People keep jumping to conclusions and saying WoW is broken when it isn''t.

I really don''t think Blizzard knows the best way to fix the mail lag and other random spikes or they would have done it by now. Why tell all your customers ""hey, we have no idea how to fix this issue at this time, but keep sending us money!."" That is bad business.

While I agree they may not know what is wrong they could come out and say that too but doubt that would happen.

Duki though is right and while it may be $600K or so the company is eating from his point of view they are giving him a $1 for his trouble and no real answers.

This to me is one of the biggest problems all MMORPG face in attracting main stream customers. Hard core fans will put up with this and be happy that they are getting something at all but more main stream crowd will be more likely to take thier money else where.

So whats your solution? It sucks they have problems... and from reading between the lines and from what little they have posted so far about the changes they''ve made to the DB and then the effect of those changes it does sound to me like they arent 100% sure exactly what the problems are.

If your solution is simply to not have problems then thats not much of a solution.. I''m sure Blizzard would have loved to not have problems..but like most products especially MMORPG''s they''re feeling the rookie mistakes.

Again... casual gamers may very well not even read a message board...or even begin to understand what the issues may be. I''ve had a few players ask me in game how they save their game. How can Blizzard reach these type of players? And would it even matter? They would probably have allready stopped playing by your definition.

They did explain what happened to some degree. I saw a post a couple of days ago that referenced an upgrade to new servers. If I remember correctly, they said that the new servers performed flawlessly at first but under heavy load they crumbled.

That''s the extent of my techno-savy understanding.

We should be happy they are doing anything for us.

I couldn''t disagree more. If this were beta, sure. It''s not. I''m not happy they are doing anything. I expect it. Not because they are the hailed Blizzard, but because I expect communication, information, and service either rendered OR refunded any time I am paying someone a monthly fee.

Look at it this way. If your power went out one day every week between 6am and noon, would you be satisfied to just go with the flow and be happy with 2 days refund? I wouldn''t, and I''m not even thinking about things like weather and impact on family, just to keep it relatively similar.

I''m paying for a service, access to a game. If I can''t access the game and the problem lies at the feet of the provider, no, I''m not going to do somersaults every time they refund me for services they did not render.

You know what would make me think they really, really were sorry? In addition to refunding for downtime, refund for every minute I spend in the queue, among other things.

Am I rabid? No, but I''m just saying $1 doesn''t exactly same ""Ducki Lama, we are sincerely sorry for all the time you have been unable to play our game when you wanted to. We are working tirelessly to bring our infrastructure up to expected performance levels, and until it is acceptible, we will continue to subsidize your bill.""

I agree they may not know what the issue is. I''m 99% sure the guys that actually post to us don''t. I''d bet the developers have some ideas what''s wrong, and I''m 99% sure we''ll never know.

Am I glad they are refunding something? Sure. Do I think they are working very hard at finding a solution to the problems? Of course. But that still doesn''t mean 48 hours of free game time is going to make me suddenly forget every time I''ve sat in the queue or been unable to play or even unable to log into the forums to let someone know I can''t log in.

Bottom line.. if your unhappy to this degree I would immediatly cancel my account..

Giving Blizzard your hard earned money when your this upset with their service is basically then your fault.

The only way you can reach them is by making a statement with your checkbook (so to speak)

If enough people cancelled their account dont you bet your ass Blizzard would jump to it?

I agree, I would cancel and vote with your wallet.

The game works almost flawlessly for me every night which shows me their product is a good product. I even had the queue last night during primetime (which they explained they will be doing = communication) and it was a 50 person queue. Total time spent waiting in queue = 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

"Flux" wrote:

But WoW is playable every night, quests actually work, and lag spikes (outside of IF) are few and far between.

People keep jumping to conclusions and saying WoW is broken when it isn''t.

I really don''t think Blizzard knows the best way to fix the mail lag and other random spikes or they would have done it by now. Why tell all your customers ""hey, we have no idea how to fix this issue at this time, but keep sending us money!."" That is bad business.

I also sometimes wonder exactly if we are even understanding the mentality of the ""casual gamer"" One could argue that the casual gamer may approach a MMORPG very differently than we think...they may view downtime or lag as no big deal and simply play another game. They may very well not get so worked up at all.

It seems that the most vocal (at least in the official forums) are the ones that will then talk about their experiences in all the other MMOG type games.

Flux, by the same token, you''re high enough level, I believe, that you aren''t trying to play in the zones that are broken. And the last stealth patch broke a lot of content, but again, you may be too high level. I''ve got at least 3 gm mails where I''ve reported broken quests and the response is ""Yes, we know it''s broken. No, we don''t know when it will be fixed."" I''ve been kicked off the server, I see a queue every time I try to log in.

I''m just saying, your mileage may vary based on a whole host of things, including how close you are to their server host. The game rocks, don''t get me wrong, but there are serious flaws, which have been made only worse by bad decisions and sketchy implementation testing.

That people will complain about a product that was delivered with flaws after the sheer volume of propaganda surrounding the launch is hardly surprising. Nor are they wrong to expect final code when they pay for final code. If the game isn''t ready for gold, then by gods, don''t burn the damn master.

"TheGameguru" wrote:
While I agree they may not know what is wrong they could come out and say that too but doubt that would happen.

Duki though is right and while it may be $600K or so the company is eating from his point of view they are giving him a $1 for his trouble and no real answers.

This to me is one of the biggest problems all MMORPG face in attracting main stream customers. Hard core fans will put up with this and be happy that they are getting something at all but more main stream crowd will be more likely to take thier money else where.

So whats your solution? It sucks they have problems... and from reading between the lines and from what little they have posted so far about the changes they''ve made to the DB and then the effect of those changes it does sound to me like they arent 100% sure exactly what the problems are.

If your solution is simply to not have problems then thats not much of a solution.. I''m sure Blizzard would have loved to not have problems..but like most products especially MMORPG''s they''re feeling the rookie mistakes.

Again... casual gamers may very well not even read a message board...or even begin to understand what the issues may be. I''ve had a few players ask me in game how they save their game. How can Blizzard reach these type of players? And would it even matter? They would probably have allready stopped playing by your definition.

My solution? heck if I know I am not a MMORPG programmer or server architech. Not to mention I think I fall into the fan of MMORPG category so I put up with this stuff.

For people that do not read boards you have to make information available at login time. I seen them do it some and while it does not gaurnteee that anybody will read the info everybody has to login unlike going to a message board.

No I never said all main stream players, clueless MMORPG newbie :), will leave first sign of trouble but it certainly does not help retain them.

Customers should not have to read between the lines. Especially when a company like Blizzard known for releasing quality products but a slow patching pace I would think they would try to provide as much information as possible.

I agree they are making a lot of the rookie mistakes some of which I guess can not be avoided even seeing what others have gone through but customer service is certainly one where anybody can see how important it is by past products.

Want to make a meaningful statement to show you are serious about geting things right? Then you make this statement:

We are sorry that WoW has not been performing at a level we find satisfactory and until we address these issues you will not be charged for game time.

I know of only 1 game that has done that and if you ask me that is the right thing to do.

Flux the game is unplayble at times at least for me. If you have 30 minutes to play and have a 20 minute que or expereince 2k latency while trying to fight that certainly makes playing hard. Plus extended downtime and the like just adds to the issues.

I understand though that you may not be having these issues sort of like in EQ I had no bad issues but it does not mean they do not exsist.

--edit--

Missed your second post GG and you may be right that the casual gamer then goes plays something lse when it is down.

I know I do but the prolbem I think is people are paying for a service and really want what they are paying for.

I know when my cable goes down I am calling in asking what is going on and getting the downtime off my bill and I do not even watch much TV.

They also lowered server populations as a temporary fix.

But WoW is playable every night, quests actually work, and lag spikes (outside of IF) are few and far between.

WoW is _usually_ playable every night, _most_ quests actually work, and lag spikes outside of Ironforge, _Dun Morogh_, and _Stormwind_ are few and far between.

Bottom line.. if your unhappy to this degree I would immediatly cancel my account..

See, I think we have a miscommunication going on here. I see people getting excited about a $1 refund and I''m saying it''s just a dollar, you still don''t know what''s wrong, when it _might_ be fixed, or if you''ll be able to play when you want, where you want.
I''m in the ""Man, this game is awesome when it works"" camp. It''s great, but Blizzard seem no better equipped to deal with servicing and maintaining a MMOG than Sony/Verant, Mythic, or anyone else.

Giving Blizzard your hard earned money when your this upset with their service is basically then your fault.

But, see, I''m not that upset. I''m pointing out that 2 free days isn''t much, and that I''d much rather them keep that dollar and tell us what they _think_ is wrong, what they _think_ will fix it, when they _think_ they''ll be ready to test the fix, that they are implementing a Test server for people who want to play there and help test changes and fixes, etc.
I don''t want my dollar. I want to believe 100% that the weekly scheduled maintenance will eventually shrink in duration, that the emergency maintenances and crashes will eventually be stopped, and that Blizzard is willing to let us help test fixes on a test server. I want to think that there''s somebody in Blizzard saying ""I bet we could save that half a million dollars if we just released a bit more information to our customers.""

The only way you can reach them is by making a statement with your checkbook (so to speak)

I''m not picking on you, I''m not trolling, but this is exactly the sort of thing I''m pointing out about the ""TWO FREE DAYS"" gift from Blizzard. It''s a dollar. Me cancelling is $15/month.
They care about whether I stay or go about as much as I am excited they are giving me a dollar back. Which isn''t that much.

Like I said, I love the game. Love it. When it''s online. When it''s not, all I really want is some Community Relations manager to pop onto the forums _before_ I do and say ""Bob, our DBA, says part of the Login DB got corrupted, but since we have hourly backups and the transaction log is not corrupted, we should be back up and running in an hour. Last time this happened, it did take a bit longer, but the event this time occurred just after the hourly backup, so there''s less of a transaction log to restore. Until then, please flame us in Thread A, tell jokes in Thread B, and if you are a DBA or Programmer, peruse our Jobs page here.""

How hard would it be for them to say ""Woops, corrupted database, we''re on it!""? Do you realize how much that would be worth? Far more than $1 per player per month.

Want to make a meaningful gester to show you are serious about geting things right? Then you make this statement:

We are sorry that WoW has not been performing at a level we find satisfactory and until we address these issues you will not be charged for game time.

Sorry...your overstating the level of problems WoW is having..

Its simply not that bad for them to have to resort to that level.

The game is not perfect but its not as bad as your making it out to be. There will always be a vocal minority that will have issues no matter what happens.

Here''s their problems as posted last night 2130PST.

"Ordinn" wrote:

The overwhelming success of World of Warcraft has brought hundreds of thousands of people together to adventure in Azeroth, and concurrency numbers are well beyond what we expected or even hoped for. Unfortunately, this high concurrency, especially when concentrated on a small number of realms, initially caused issues with our hardware infrastructure. We were able to streamline our code to increase performance in the weeks following launch. However, the holiday season nearly doubled our player base, and it quickly became apparent that in order to handle not only the current player base, but all future players as well, we needed to make some upgrades to our infrastructure.

Last Thursday we made our first such upgrade. 20 of our 88 realms were moved off of the original hardware and placed on a new hardware configuration. These 20 servers initially performed very well, up until we reached our maximum concurrency Friday evening. The high population numbers uncovered an issue in the new backend shared infrastructure. This issue caused some players to experience severe lag and disconnects on a few of the realms, making them virtually unplayable.

In order to stabilize the affected realms and allow as many players as possible the ability to continue playing, we lowered the population caps by 30%. This stabilized the realms to the point where 70% of the players on the realms in question could play, but it also resulted in large queues.

The problems were attributed to high concurrency numbers on individual realms putting extreme stress on the backend infrastructure. We were able to address this problem by implementing additional hardware into the infrastructure this afternoon. This additional hardware has allowed us to stabilize the affected realms, and thus increase the server caps. We will continue to monitor the performance throughout the evening. If we notice any of the performance issues starting up again we will lower the population cap level enough to stabilize performance.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this caused our players this weekend. This process coincides with our constant efforts to improve the current performance of World of Warcraft, and sometimes issues can arise when implementing these improvements. We will do our best to prevent similar situations from happening in the future, and we once again thank you for your patience and understanding.

"duckilama" wrote:

How hard would it be for them to say ""Woops, corrupted database, we''re on it!""? Do you realize how much that would be worth? Far more than $1 per player per month.

I understand why they don''t do that. 95% of their users would either not care/understand. 1% would understand. 4% (and this is the worst segment) would *think* they understood and cripple the support lines and forums with ""suggestions"" and ""advice"" on how to fix the problem. And to top it all off, everyone would then expect that everytime there was a glitch Blizzard would take the time to give a techie explanation when they ought to be devoting their efforts to just fixing the problem.

"TheGameguru" wrote:
Want to make a meaningful gester to show you are serious about geting things right? Then you make this statement:

We are sorry that WoW has not been performing at a level we find satisfactory and until we address these issues you will not be charged for game time.

Sorry...your overstating the level of problems WoW is having..

Its simply not that bad for them to have to resort to that level.

The game is not perfect but its not as bad as your making it out to be. There will always be a vocal minority that will have issues no matter what happens.

Yes and no.

I am not saying the game is horrible far from it play and enjoy my time.

I am pointing out the difference in what I call great customer support and poor to adequate support.

Want to be the Nordstroms of the MMORPG world you bend over backwards when you can.

Want to be the Hects then you do what is required.

I know Blizzard will get it right in the end. It may not be until the release of WoW2 after a failed joint venture with Games Workshop to release Starcraft online but I have faith.

I think one of their major problems is that there werent enough servers at launch...and those servers werent powerful enough.

To make matters worse on heavily populated servers new players can still join... case in point Alleria is a large pop server but we get new people daily...

As now guilds are attracting former guildmates from other games... we''re getting 2 more players in my guild in a few weeks from EQ.

As much as I hate to suggest this I think the high pop servers probably need to be capped... and then incentive''s must be put in place to move people to low pop servers.. and then even more important that process has to be managed to the point that you simply dont create a new problem from an existing problem.

If what is needed is a wave of server moves then so be it... simply capping it at 1 move may not solve the problem long term

I don''t buy that, hubb. Here''s why.
Even the people that don''t understand the tech answer appreciate that it''s a ""real"" answer and not some CSR boilerplate response. The last part of your post also doesn''t float with me. It would take Adam-the-CSR about 5 minutes to walk over to Bob-the-DBA''s desk as say ""Gimme the short version"", Bob says ""corrupt login db, restoring from hourly and transaction log, 1 hour, maybe 1 and a half."" Adam-the-CSR types it up, gets his manager to clear it, posts it, and viola, you don''t have as big of a customer problem.
Am I still annoyed I can''t play? Sure, but at least I know not to keep trying to log in for the next hour, and I know what type of issue it is.

"duckilama" wrote:

I don''t buy that, hubb. Here''s why.
Even the people that don''t understand the tech answer appreciate that it''s a ""real"" answer and not some CSR boilerplate response. The last part of your post also doesn''t float with me. It would take Adam-the-CSR about 5 minutes to walk over to Bob-the-DBA''s desk as say ""Gimme the short version"", Bob says ""corrupt login db, restoring from hourly and transaction log, 1 hour, maybe 1 and a half."" Adam-the-CSR types it up, gets his manager to clear it, posts it, and viola, you don''t have as big of a customer problem.
Am I still annoyed I can''t play? Sure, but at least I know not to keep trying to log in for the next hour, and I know what type of issue it is.

I think your nitpicking...their posted response is fine... thats plenty of information to give people (majority) warm fuzzys

"duckilama" wrote:

I don''t buy that, hubb. Here''s why.
Even the people that don''t understand the tech answer appreciate that it''s a ""real"" answer and not some CSR boilerplate response. The last part of your post also doesn''t float with me. It would take Adam-the-CSR about 5 minutes to walk over to Bob-the-DBA''s desk as say ""Gimme the short version"", Bob says ""corrupt login db, restoring from hourly and transaction log, 1 hour, maybe 1 and a half."" Adam-the-CSR types it up, gets his manager to clear it, posts it, and viola, you don''t have as big of a customer problem.
Am I still annoyed I can''t play? Sure, but at least I know not to keep trying to log in for the next hour, and I know what type of issue it is.

They did issue an answer, it took them until last night but they did put one up. It''s posted above. Should they post it in game as they''ve done on other stuff.. probably but the General Forum for WoW is there for anyone interested.

So their permanent solution is player caps and ques? They better get to work on the server migration or a lot of people will be really pissed.

So their permanent solution is player caps and ques?

no

"Dr.Ghastly" wrote:

So their permanent solution is player caps and ques? They better get to work on the server migration or a lot of people will be really pissed.

It''s their stop-gap solution not the final.

Article here.

So their permanent solution is player caps and ques? They better get to work on the server migration or a lot of people will be really pissed.

Please read what they said again. They plan to increase hardware to the point that they don''t have to use the player caps, in fact they said they already did it last night.

Seriously, everybody''s getting really worked up here. They''re working on it, I think the whole reason everybody''s getting up in arms all of a sudden is the PA comments on the subject. Before it was like ""There''s some problems because of the Christmas rush, but they''ll fix it."" Now it''s ""They owe me an apology/explanation and they''d better fix it right now!""

I don''t even have the game and I can tell people are generally getting more upset than they need to. If you don''t think you''re getting your money''s worth, quit until they fix it. It''s not like they''re going to delete your character in the interim. Until you''re willing to stop playing, it''s obviously not bad enough to get upset over.

"Pyroman[FO" wrote:

""]

So their permanent solution is player caps and ques? They better get to work on the server migration or a lot of people will be really pissed.

Please read what they said again. They plan to increase hardware to the point that they don''t have to use the player caps, in fact they said they already did it last night.

Seriously, everybody''s getting really worked up here. They''re working on it, I think the whole reason everybody''s getting up in arms all of a sudden is the PA comments on the subject. Before it was like ""There''s some problems because of the Christmas rush, but they''ll fix it."" Now it''s ""They owe me an apology/explanation and they''d better fix it right now!""

I don''t even have the game and I can tell people are generally getting more upset than they need to. If you don''t think you''re getting your money''s worth, quit until they fix it. It''s not like they''re going to delete your character in the interim. Until you''re willing to stop playing, it''s obviously not bad enough to get upset over.

Pyro stop that this instant with your rational explanations!

This is a MMORPG and these are love hate relationships. Not to mention players get so fanatical about them that we have to bash other similar products at any chance we get.

Yeah, I missed the part where they said caps might happen again that night only if there were more problems.

Not to mention players get so fanatical about them that we have to bash other similar products at any chance we get.

Tastes bitter in here all of a sudden

"Certis" wrote:

Tastes bitter in her all of a sudden ;)

Uh...no comment. But she might want to see a doctor about that.