Losing some love for Blizzard... please read if you play ANY online games!

[coltyhuxx]

Hey guys-

I put thispost in the general thread -- I think you'll see why.

I'm a World of Warcraft player (my second MMORPG, the first being Guild Wars). Here's the problem, the servers have been down or screwy at least four time this past week. We're talking like down on Saturday from 4pm-10pm... down yesterday from 6-8pm... these are pretty critical times for working gamers to play and probably for students/kids too..

Before we get started here: the problem is not my internet connection, as I have many other friends in RL that are similarly affected.

I fully would understand if this happened once in a while (few times a month) but it's been happening more and more frequently and pretty much crippling or completely ruining plans with my group of friends to game. It takes a long time to get a group of RL friends together for a session.

Last night I opened a ticket with Blizzard to ask them what they were going to do about this and I felt better just from speaking up about it and not taking it in stride or as a give anymore. While waiting for a reply (and since the server was down) I went to a local bar and talked to the bartender who also plays. Here is our disagreement:

He says that Blizzard (and I'm assuming other online games) are protected by saying online experience may change and that I forfeit any rights by clicking accept. He also went on to justify how hard it must be for them to maintain this persistent environment. He is very sympathetic to Blizzards issues and says that they are doing everything they can and that it doesn't bother him that much.

While I empathize that Blizzard is overrun with demand for their game I don't think this gets them off the hook. Last I read, they had 4 mil active players @ $15/mo.. these are *active* players keep in mind. That's FRICKING 60mil a month. You could build a BRIDGE with that money. Right now, I'm thinking (and I requested from Blizzard) that I should recieve a free week of gameplay. We'll see if that happens. Otherwise Blizzard should not ACCEPT ANY MORE PLAYERS until this is resolved.

If your cable TV (which I happily don't subscribe to :) or cell phone didn't work for hours at a time several times a week, especially during peak periods you would want some reparations made, right?! I love Blizzard's games and respect their company in general, but this attitude of "it works when it works." I don't want to see an apology from Blizzard every third time I log on!! Listening to one of my friends defend them like this is something I should be more sympathetic to just strikes me as ridiculous. Where's my sympathy for my $15 that is being wasted?

SO, I turn to you my CAG brethren... what are you experiences with this topic. It doesn't have to be with Blizzard necessarily. I'm new to the online gaming world and would be interested to hear your perspective.

Coltyhuxx

[Kapwanil]

It depends. I've never really played too many MMOs myself but my friends were (and still are) heavily into WoW and other similar games. As far as their WoW experiences go, I remember when Tycho and Gabe over at Penny-Arcade were having massive server issues yet my friends barely saw any problems whatsoever on their server. So I guess these things may depend upon where you are located server-wise and such. I do recall my friends having issues here and there with connecting for a good week or so but they were reimbursed for the problems. However, during that time the servers were pretty much down for 12 hours at a time or so, so it put quite a crimp on their gameplay.

So...YMMV, I guess. Blizzard does seem to be responsive about downtime and resolving those issues as best they can, however, from what I've seen of the WoW forums and how they handle tickets in the past.

[Shion]

I don't really consider GW a MMO.
It's sort of a unique hybrid of several online genres.
The PvP for GW is very balanced, and there isn't even a subscription fee.

Didn't Blizzard do that for a bit a while back? Didn't they stop making new CD keys to have just somewhat of a handle on the population?

I don't play MMOs like WoW anymore. I still have friends who do, and from watching them, it seems to me that in the endgame, there is nothing worth doing except raids, which generally take 3+ hours and consist of mostly shooting the shit, and testing your attention span in order to "get more stuff." It just seems too much like real life for me to be doing in a virtual world and paying a subscription for.

[ragepower]

Completely agree, Im a retail manager (EB Games errr Gamestop now) and I get a few hours a week to play the game Im dishing out 15/month.. EVERYTIME I swear EVERYTIME I've gone to play server has been down, or not letting people log in. This has been happening over the last month and a half.

[Noodle Pirate!]

Good luck getting that free week lol.
Their attitude is that they know you'll keep playing whether there's downtime or not since your addicted. They know you will bitch and moan like everyone else who is dissatisfied with their crappy server problems but will continue to pay.

I know it sucks and theres nothing you or anyone can do with it since they know that everyone will keep paying cause they can't give up the game. You are at their mercy.

I agree with you. You'd think that with all the money they are making in monthly fees that they could afford better servers, or more skilled people to maintain them. They give the same excuses everytime.

"we are aware of the problem with server stability and are working on it."
" We are aware of the lag issues and are working on it" LOL this one is the best I think, since they never fix the lag issues. They only tell us they do but it still lags the same as ever.
"We are aware of the bugs and are working to correct them" meanwhile weeks go by before they fix it. They don't punish the bug abusers and let them destroy the economy.

I don't think they will actually work hard to fix anything unless a mass exodus ensues. That might wake them up to work faster but untill that happens, we will just have to suffer their incompetance.
They have a long way to go before they become a decent mmorpg. Its not the game itself that is the problem, its the way it is run and maintained that sucks. (tickets, bug fixes, new content, downtime, attittude toward handling scammers/abusers etc.)

[jlarlee]

man I think you are right on to.There are two factors that keep me away from those games one is I would get way to addicted and two I'd hate shelling out monthly fees after I just spent 50 bones on their game. At $15 a month if I wa sunable to play more than once because of serve rissues I'd be incessed. 60 million should be able to buy high end servers that can handle the crush.

[howlinmad]

I sympathize with you, and I understand your frustration. I guess I just let it not bother me as much. Sure, I get pissed when I can't log in, I get frustrated with the lag and wait. I usually find something else to do however. I still get my money's worth I feel when I do play, so I guess I'm a little more passive towards it. I just go do something else. Granted, I'm a fairly casual player.

Did it 5 years with EQ, I guess however I'm in the minority though. Every time I had to deal with CS there, they were helpful and couldn't have been more friendly. Haven't had to deal with Blizzard's CS too much though. I guess this is where I don't have alot of feedback.

It does suck though when they take their servers down to investigate a shaman getting killed in PVP. :)

Best I can say is, unfortunatly it looks like this is fairly normal for MMOs (I don't see Guild Wars being an MMO in the same sense however.) I'm not taking up for them, I do expect this of SoE, I expect more from Blizzard. That said, server and bandwidth upkeep must be massive on these things, there's just too much to possibly go wrong.

I know that doesn't make your problem better, all I can say is your wallet is probably your best source of protest. Problem is, it takes alot of wallets protesting in harmony.

[Robobandit]

I give them a break, because this is one of the most popular mmorpgs in history and has one of the world's largest subscriber bases. (not sure if Lineage or Lineage II in Korea still have it beat.. )

That many people anywhere with any kind of concurrency is going to cause server problems. That said, in my case it has only been a few select servers and I've always been able to play on one of the other servers where I have characters (Cenarion Circle is my main, and has had problems in the last week.. but I could play on Twisting Nether and Lightbringer without a problem).

Depending on available time to play, the $15 (+tax for some people) a month to play WoW is a bargain compared to purchasing new games,even at $20.

My personal opinion is that their infrastructure just plain wasn't designed to handle this many people and they have been trying to throw more hardware at the problem.

Unfortunately, there are so many people on crowded realms and not enough opportunities to move characters to one of the MANY low population realms. That queues and lag are still a problem for some players, and the numbers are also affecting realm stability and the log in system.

However, if they tried to redesign their infrastructure and shore it up with better hardware the resulting downtime would be far greater, no one would get to play and they would have more cancellations by doing that. I think they are in a damned if they do and damned if they don't scenario, and a lot of people think that throwing gobs of money at any problem will fix it, but I don't think that lack of spending is an issue for Blizzard with World of Warcraft.

Bottom line, computer hardware will always fuck up. It is inevitable, it will happen constantly despite anyone's best efforts to the contrary, especially when you have 4.5 million users. When servers have been down for most of a day, they usually hand out 24 hour extensions.

However, the fact that you can't play the game more than 1 or 2 days per week (not you personally, but a lot of people complain about this in particular) is not a concern of theirs, and it really shouldn't have to be. Most of their servers are up at any given time, though a lot of people would rather complain than play on a different one. Technically, the service is available to you, you just choose not to accept it because it isn't available on "your" server.

Just my 2 cents. Mmorpgs are not for people who don't have assloads of time, and this one is no exception, despite the fact that it is more casual friendly than most.

[whitereflection]

I agree with your bartender friend. Obviously, you would remember the times that it didn't work than when it did work, and you don't even have to play the game to know that it works just fine most of the time. And it might even happen more often than other online games, but 9 times out of 10, it'll play.

Even with cellphones and cable TV, you should expect some downtime. I don't have cable TV, but I know with satellite, you have to let it update every once in a while, and it doesn't work whenever it's raining. Cellphones also don't work in some cases, like when you're underground or in an area with bad reception.

Think about this: when you get into heavy traffic on the road, do you blame the road? With all the tolls they collect, they must be able to build new roads. Do you blame your car? No, because unless your car could fly, you'd run into the traffic sooner or later. If anything, you'd have to blame other drivers or yourself for all being there simultaneously at the same time. Servers work exactly like that; their performance and accessibility depend totally on your's and other players' time of being there.

If nothing else, you can always stop playing.

[afedock]

I used to be addicted to everquest...and it sounds like you are addicted to WoW. When EQ servers used to crash, ya it would suck, but I would have guilt free time away from that damn game and could do other things without thinking about Everquest. Think of the server downtime as god's way of saying "Get your ass outside".

[sblymnlcrymnl]

I don't play ANY online games. Thanks for excluding me, asshole. :bomb: :cry: :lol:

[dreamvsps2]

Meh, thas nothing.
WoW servers used to go down for hours and when they came back it would lag non stop.

[wageslave]

I don't do MMORPGs but I'm going to get back into Diablo II online. I'm kind of wondering of those servers will also be effected now.

[Kayden]

Its a simple matter of numbers. If a server can only hold 60000 people, don't try to be #60011. They have about 30 servers and create new ones every few months. I've had problems with my server, but nothing major, just wait two minutes and try again. Sometimes on a week night when everyone gets on, things get bad, but thats just how shit goes. When they have collosal problems and the server is down for a week, they generally give out free months or discounts. They are by no means unfair.

[woobacca]

I agree with your bartender friend. Obviously, you would remember the times that it didn't work than when it did work, and you don't even have to play the game to know that it works just fine most of the time. And it might even happen more often than other online games, but 9 times out of 10, it'll play.

Even with cellphones and cable TV, you should expect some downtime. I don't have cable TV, but I know with satellite, you have to let it update every once in a while, and it doesn't work whenever it's raining. Cellphones also don't work in some cases, like when you're underground or in an area with bad reception.

Think about this: when you get into heavy traffic on the road, do you blame the road? With all the tolls they collect, they must be able to build new roads. Do you blame your car? No, because unless your car could fly, you'd run into the traffic sooner or later. If anything, you'd have to blame other drivers or yourself for all being there simultaneously at the same time. Servers work exactly like that; their performance and accessibility depend totally on your's and other players' time of being there.

If nothing else, you can always stop playing.
I disagree with your analogies, especially the heavy traffic one. The roads are a public infrastructure maintained by obligatory taxpayer revenues. Blizzard is a for-profit company, and the OP is choosing to spend his money on a quality online experience. He has every right to complain to Blizzard if the quality of that experience is suffering due to the company's lack of foresight. The "online" part of WoW is not just another option of the game. It's pretty much the fundamental feature and selling point. As for cable and cell phone outages, I guess I should expect them once in a while, but not four times in a week like the OP's recent experience.

That said, I think it's too simplistic to assume Blizzard doesn't care about this issue. It would just be bad business to keep ignoring it, especially if the problems are recurring at critical times like 6-8pm. Whether they can reimburse users for specific outages is another question though. How would they decide where to draw the line? If they give the OP a free week of service, should they give someone else that plays twice as much two free weeks? Blizzard's best option is to maintain their legal mumbo jumbo while doing their best to keep users happy and informed. If it were as simple as throwing more hardware at the problem, I'm sure they would have done it ages ago. There's probably some other bottleneck that's taking them a while to iron out.

[coltyhuxx]

Hey Robobandit (and all)

Thanks for your posting your varying perspectives.

"However, the fact that you can't play the game more than 1 or 2 days per week (not you personally, but a lot of people complain about this in particular) is not a concern of theirs, and it really shouldn't have to be. Most of their servers are up at any given time, though a lot of people would rather complain than play on a different one. Technically, the service is available to you, you just choose not to accept it because it isn't available on "your" server."

This stream of thinking I would disagree with. For one, it's been fairly consistently more than 1 or 2 days per week. The last 6-7 times I've tried to play (all different times) it's been down FOUR times:bomb: .. totally unacceptable. Frankly, I think one or two times a week is too much downtime.

Second, it is not valuable nor my responsiblity to server jump and have a character, especially with the timesink req'd for a game like this. I would argue this analogy to that thinking: if your cell phone isn't working just try and call another person ... ???!!

"Depending on available time to play, the $15 (+tax for some people) a month to play WoW is a bargain compared to purchasing new games,even at $20. "

I also don't consider that I'm getting a new games worth of content, or even half a games ($20) worth of new content each month. I'm not 'hatin' on WoW but the updates are mostly game balance and a few new items, occasional dungeon here and there. I think a considerable amount of my $15 should be going toward ensuring a stable server environment.

I want to say one more time, I don't think that this is easy for them to fix. I don't think they should be getting rich ($60 MILLION a MONTH!!) while we are paying for a semi-functioning product. I'm not trying to come across as whiny or penny pinching. I just feel like I'm not able to do ANYTHING with a game that require connection to their server which is down a LOT.

Blizzard is making lots, nay, TONS/MOUNTAINS of money!! I just don't think it's our responsibility to grin and bear it while they happily take our full payments, that all I guess.... my thesis... ;)

Anyway, again, totally respect your opinion - my beef is with Blizzard alone.

Coltyhuxx

And don't get me started on the fairly meager sounding expansion pack that we have to pay $35 for??

[Maynard]

If your read there forums you would realize that they're launching in Asia and servers are going to be up and down while they change them over. When should they work on them? Should Blizzard contact you and say "Dear user, are you asleep? Is it cool if we work on the servers now? OH good i was just worried that you might be awake and wanting to play. Wait, what about the 4,499,999 users? OH WE DONT care about them, just YOU! Your the best 15$ a month we have Coltyhuxx!"

Gimme a freaking break, down time is just part of a MMO ok? My best friend plays FFXI and they have scheduled matienence during the mornings 9 am - 1 pm. IMO thats WAY worse.

Plus if you think i'm not a player of WoW i have 5 lvl 60 Characters and have been playing since beta of summer 04' so i'm used to some down time. IMO quit your crying and play another game for a little while.

dont mean to flame too much, but i'm sick to death of these whiners plaguing the god damn blizzard forums and now here.

[coltyhuxx]

If your read there forums you would realize that they're launching in Asia and servers are going to be up and down while they change them over. When should they work on them? Should Blizzard contact you and say "Dear user, are you asleep? Is it cool if we work on the servers now? OH good i was just worried that you might be awake and wanting to play. Wait, what about the 4,499,999 users? OH WE DONT care about them, just YOU! Your the best 15$ a month we have Coltyhuxx!"

Gimme a freaking break, down time is just part of a MMO ok? My best friend plays FFXI and they have scheduled matienence during the mornings 9 am - 1 pm. IMO thats WAY worse.

Plus if you think i'm not a player of WoW i have 5 lvl 60 Characters and have been playing since beta of summer 04' so i'm used to some down time. IMO quit your crying and play another game for a little while.

dont mean to flame too much, but i'm sick to death of these whiners plaguing the god damn blizzard forums and now here.

OH MAYNARD!

The audacity of those players to flood the forums with complaints! I am going to light a little candle in window for all the high ups at Blizzard... I hope they're doin ok.

That's a great attitude toward the customer/gamer you hold :applause: . Uh, no, a great company (which I still consider Blizzard to be at this time) should attempt to treat or at least create the illusion that "Your <sic> the best 15$ a month we have Coltyhuxx!"

Before this gets out of hand, let me state I am a casual WoW'er.. I'm not drooling on my keyboard hunched over 24/7 crying every time there is a spot of lag or a down day. This is why there are key times for me to play and sometimes it's not all that often. So if I can't play at nighttime, I pretty much can't play. Maybe you've been sated by the game already (5 lvl 60's) but myself and five RL friends just started playing a few months ago and we're still pumped on the game.

Read my post again: the server has been down for significant periods of time four times in one week for hours at a time (and probably other times I was not on). Other friends of mine also wrote in to them. I may not have your MMO experience but let me tell you from perhaps a fresher noob perspective... this is NOT OK. Maybe you guys should become unaccustomed to this regularity and not so complacent and try and perform substantiation for the company thats screwing you.

So yes, I want some service for my $15, Maynard and not to be locked out especially if its on PURPOSE (of which I was previously unaware) for a game I'm PAYING for while they dick around launching in Asia. And no, I don't want to dick around manually logging in over and over again from the hours of 6-9pm (especially if that's the only time I have to play).


Coltyhuxx

[Apossum]

glad I chose GW instead of wow this week. I admit, my inner CAG got very sentimental about "Free Online play" :-)

[coltyhuxx]

Here's what happened with my friend sent last night and what he rec'd from Blizzard. I think it's very well written and expresses some of the resentment I'm feeling toward them right now. His second response actually made me laugh...

To whom it may concern:

I have been a subscriber of yours for only a couple months now. While the game has been a wonderful experience for me, I am very disappointed at the number of times the servers have been unavailable. Tonight, again, I am available to play and yet I can not log on due to difficulties on your end. I am curious at what point are you going to offer credits towards game time. I pay (as do all of your subscribers) to be able to play at my convenience yet it seems that far too often I cannot.

Please advise at what point I can expect to be compensated with a credit towards game time for all of the times I have not been able to play. I would expect you to ask the same question of me if I were on your servers enjoying the game without payment to you.

Regards,

Scotty B.

RESPONSE:

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Blizzard Entertainment with your concerns. I would first like to sincerely apologize for the recent authentication issues we have been experiencing. While I know an apology can only go so far, please rest assured that one of the highest priorities at Blizzard Entertainment is to constantly improve and maintain the stability of the World of Warcraft servers. When we run in to these types of authentication issues, it becomes our top priority to immediately address these issues and forestall future ones. In this particular case the login server was experiencing difficulties. When this occurs the game servers can be still up, so you may notice people playing while you are not able to get in.

We play on the same servers as our customers, and find bouts of server unavailability as frustrating as they do. As with any system that is processing large volumes of data, the World of Warcraft realms require regular maintenance to ensure they are operating correctly. There are times that may require unscheduled maintenance or downtime, but when we are forced to take down a server, we will work to get it back up and running as soon as possible.

Again, I do apologize that you have not been able to access the realms when you wanted to, or that the game play was not to the standard you have come to expect from us.

I appreciate your understanding with this matter. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to email me back directly or check our support forum.
Regards,:bs:
Eric S.

Blizzard Entertainment

***** RESPONSE

Hi Eric,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I truly appreciate that you are in fact "somewhat available for comment" on my woes, and while I can understand the growing pains of the most popular MMORPG in history working through an Asian launch, I do feel that you have somewhat abandoned a subscriber here. I have a very limited amount of time to enjoy playing WoW and the time I do have has been plagued with these server difficulties the past week. Call it bad luck if you like, but I have a grievance and you have not answered it with your "first email response" template. While I can only imagine that my $15 alone this month is an insignificant piece of your machine, I worked hard for it, and what's more is that I chose to give it to Blizzard in return for a gaming experience that I have not received this month so far.

It's not as if I'm going to cry my way home and uninstall WoW in hopes of starting a coup (as if you care), because by and large I have truly enjoyed the game before this month (as I stated earlier). . .but while I find comfort in knowing that you all are "aware that some people might be experiencing long log in times" and "customer satisfaction is a top priority here at Blizzard Entertainment", I would also appreciate knowing that giving Blizzard my $15 this month will provide a better return than say. . .throwing it in the toilet.

I hope that things get better soon.

Thanks,

Scotty B

[Roufuss]

This has been going on since launch... this is nothing new, and one of the reasons I ended up leaving the game (that and the fact the end game content is largely monotonous).

My favorite Blizzard phrase through? "Working as intended".

They'd usually say this when they stealth nerfed a class, since it wasn't in the patch notes everyone thought there was a bug or glitch, but good ol Blizzard would simply say "working as intended" and that would ALWAYS get the community going apeshit.