# World of Warcraft rant



## KenM (Jan 17, 2005)

OK, WoW is the first MMORPG I really want to try and get into, it might change my option of MMORPG's. But no store has it in stock, I heard Blizzard is holding them back to create demand. Anyone know if this is true? IMO they don't need to, from what I understand its very popular.

 EDIT: Spelling.


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## Krug (Jan 17, 2005)

Some say they're holding it back because the servers are overloaded right now.


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## KenM (Jan 17, 2005)

Great, another MMORPG screwed up because the company hypes it up for a year and half before it comes out, then when things go wrong with the servers getting overloaded, ect. they say "we did not anticapate such a high demand."


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## msd (Jan 17, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Great, another MMORPG screwed up because the company hypes it up for a year and half before it comes out, then when things go wrong with the servers getting overloaded, ect. they say "we did not anticapate such a high demand."




This is totally believable btw.  I basically stopped playing because I couldn't find a server where the lag was anything less than unplayable.

It's not a bad game, but it ain't worth the monthly charge to play at this point (IMHO...I'm sure other people's experience has varied).


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## KenM (Jan 17, 2005)

msd said:
			
		

> This is totally believable btw.  I basically stopped playing because I couldn't find a server where the lag was anything less than unplayable.
> 
> It's not a bad game, but it ain't worth the monthly charge to play at this point (IMHO...I'm sure other people's experience has varied).





 They must be having some MAJOR server trouble if all you get is major lag. ANyone else have other info on it? There is nothing about server troule on the WoW site.


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## Enforcer (Jan 17, 2005)

I only occasionally experience lag. This is usually upon entering the city of Ironforge (where the Auction House is for the Alliance). I really have no major troubles beyond that--occasionally it'll take 15 more seconds than usual to mine for ore or sell an item to a vendor, but that's it. Then again, I chose Feathermoon originally because of its Low population (which is now Medium during peak hours).

I'm sorry you can't find the game! If Blizzard is holding it back, I'm sure it's because of server population, not to encourage demand--more sales now mean more monthly fees next month and so on.

To be fair, every time the servers have had problems to the point where one can't play, Blizzard has extended the free trial month by a day. They extended my trial period even though my server never had a problem!


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## TheAuldGrump (Jan 17, 2005)

*Blink Blink* Last time I was in Best Buy it certainly seemed like they had plenty of copies. And a friend of mine who plays the game has had no serious lag issues.

It might be that the chain stores purchased enough copies that Blizzard has none on hand themselves.

The Auld Grump, or maybe Maine isn't selling them as fast as other places...


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## KenM (Jan 17, 2005)

I'm on Cape Cod. I checked the sites of Best Buy, EB, and Comp USA, none of those stores within 75 miles of me have a single copy. *SIGH*


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## Dreeble (Jan 17, 2005)

Heya:

 There are at least 20 servers (of a total of, what, 80?) that are having _severe_ problems.  If you look at the stickied posts at the top of the official WoW General forums there is some discussion of these problems.  Then the non-stickied posts made by regular people are brimming over with discussion of the problems.

 There's definitely something kerflooey with those 20 servers.  They're up and down a lot, experience horrible lag, and have other problems.  Anyone who started on those servers, I feel for ya.

 I was the first in my guild to get the game (drove up to LA for the midnight release, ugh) so it was up to me to choose our server.  Fortunately, I chose the Garona server and despite a few problems in the first month of release, it hasn't been too bad.  There was extremely noticeable lag last night, however it didn't prevent us from clearing all of the pre-key area of Blackrock Spire.  And Omokk dropped his gem, so just one more gem from Wyrmthalak and I'll be keyed, woo.

 They've stated that the reason they're not sending out more copies of the game is because they can't guarantee a fun environment right now with the load.  Or something to that effect.  I don't believe they're trying to create more demand.

 For anyone who has actually managed to find a copy of the game somewhere I'd strongly suggest looking over the General forum to see which servers should be avoided.  And don't get too attached to whichever server you choose, of course.  If I had somehow chosen one of the Broken 20, my guild would have certainly moved off of it almost immediately.

 Lastly, um, don't look too closely at the World of Warcraft official forums.  They're really kind of a cesspool and finding the good posts among the vast majority of dreck is a challenge (and can be depressing, to boot).

Take care,
Dreeble


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## Dark Jezter (Jan 18, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Great, another MMORPG screwed up because the company hypes it up for a year and half before it comes out, then when things go wrong with the servers getting overloaded, ect. they say "we did not anticapate such a high demand."



 Well, considering that WoW sold more copies on its day of release than any other PC game in history, sold over 600,000 copies during the holiday season, and broke the record for the most users online at a single time, it's understandable that they did not anticipate such a high demand.

As for lag, it hasn't affected me too bad.  There are occasional server downtimes, but most of the time the game runs just fine for me.


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## Spatula (Jan 18, 2005)

"Trying to create demand" makes zero sense.  "Trying to limit server population" sounds more reasonable, if Blizzard is indeed holding back copies.

I haven't had any real problems on the servers that I've played on (Lothar, Feathermoon, Shadowsong), and one of those (Lothar) is on the other side of the country from me.  Those servers that have problems really do have problems though (Icecrown is one of them, I played on it briefly) and if I were Blizzard I'd ban new characters from being created on those until they rectify whatever the trouble is - mainly to keep new players from having that be their first exposure to the game.

I will say that the lag has gotten somewhat worse since New Year's.


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## KenM (Jan 18, 2005)

I managed to finally get a copy, my local EB got 2 copies in, so I grabbed one. I'm playing a Night Elf Warrior on the Draenor server. I have not had that much time to play, I got called into work for a bit. But I like it so far, better then EQ, seems alot more solo friendly. I'll have let you know what I think after I played it more.
Anyone know why the download for the patch was so slow? It took me like an hour and half, with Broadband.
Also, how many characters can one account have?


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## Dark Jezter (Jan 18, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Also, how many characters can one account have?




I seem to recall hearing that the limit is 8 characters per account.  It's possible that this may have been changed since then, though.


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## Captain Howdy (Jan 18, 2005)

Glad you found a copy. They are sold out where I am too (Detroit area). Luckily, I got a copy for x-mas, but some of my friends are having trouble finding it... I think they all ended up getting it online. 
Lag hasn't been an issue for me. Although, when my guild (Sturmgrenadier; Bleeding Hollow server) raids a major alliance city, we tend to crash the server. Muhahaha...


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## LightPhoenix (Jan 18, 2005)

The biggest times I have lag are in the major cities... at least Ironforge and Stormwind on the Alliance side... haven't played a Horde character yet.  Gryphon riding tends to lag a lot too, but I suspect a lot of that is because of how fast terrain happens to go by.

Seriously, I don't think anyone expected WoW to shatter the kinds of records it did.  I mean, most people expected Blizzard to put out a quality product, and be among the top-tier MMORPGs, but not to blow every other MMORPG completely out of the water.  I'd rather Blizzard stop and address the issues they are having before starting a second wave of games being released.


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## Kitsune (Jan 18, 2005)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Well, considering that WoW sold more copies on its day of release than any other PC game in history, sold over 600,000 copies during the holiday season, and broke the record for the most users online at a single time, it's understandable that they did not anticipate such a high demand.




Considering that they printed each and every copy sold, no, it's not very understandable that they didn't have the server capacity to go with those copies.  It's not as if those 600,000 boxes suddenly materialized on store shelves by themselves, after all.  Vivendi printed each disk that went out the door of the warehouses, and they should have known full well that those copies were bound to sell in fairly short order.


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## Thanee (Jan 18, 2005)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Well, considering that WoW sold more copies on its day of release than any other PC game in history, ...




 Did it? I would understand, if this is true for MMORPGs, but any other PC game?

 Wasn't there some shooter recently, that sold 2 million copies on the first weekend?



> ...sold over 600,000 copies during the holiday season, and broke the record for the most users online at a single time, ...




 That is also hardly believable, there are MMORPGs in asia with 5 million (!) active accounts. Or is that in the US only?



> ...it's understandable that they did not anticipate such a high demand.




 I'd be rather worried, if they did not expect at least half a million to a million customers... I'd actually expect more than that, once europe goes online (is asia online already?), too, but they have their own servers (asia, too, of course), so I suppose that doesn't make much of a difference in the end.

 I think, every Blizzard game of the last decade or so sold millions of copies.

 Yes, all three (or was it four?)! 

Also considering, that 500,000 US open beta accounts were gone within 24h, that certainly hints at a high demand. The european pre-order was sold out after a couple days, too, and that was also some hundreds of thousands copies, which you even had to pay for 3 months before release.

 But they already doubled the servers right after release in the US, I heard. They certainly will resolve those issues, just give them some time. They really should have enough experience with server load. You can always just try another server, which might be less problematic.

 Anyways, I'm sure WoW will break all international MMORPG records (maybe not in asia, but anywhere else).

 Well, mid february I'll be able to join the fun, too. 

 Bye
 Thanee


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## KenM (Jan 18, 2005)

BTW, my character name is Aldar, Night Elf warrior on Draenor server. One other quick gameplay question. The WoW fourms are a mess, IMO, and i have trouble logging into them from time to time as well.
Anyway, my question is about stances, how do you change it?


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## Thanee (Jan 18, 2005)

(see Rugger's post next page)

  Bye
  Thanee


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## Klaus (Jan 18, 2005)

Is there a demo one could check out?


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## Rugger (Jan 18, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> BTW, my character name is Aldar, Night Elf warrior on Draenor server. One other quick gameplay question. The WoW fourms are a mess, IMO, and i have trouble logging into them from time to time as well.
> Anyway, my question is about stances, how do you change it?





You'll earn them as quests (Defensive at lvl 10) and then get new buttons automatically above your toolbar to switch between them.


And to Claudio's question: No demo...I'm betting they'll do a "10-day trial" offer somewhere down the line, but I can't imagine it being anytime soon.

Regarding the general complaints:  I play on 2 different servers (Darkspear and Bloodhoof) and have had little to no downtime. It really is the "Big 20" that have problems. And DO stay away from the General forum on the official site...cesspool doesn't begin to describe the quality of posting there...

-Matt


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## Thanee (Jan 18, 2005)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Is there a demo one could check out?




 Well, the european open beta right now only allows pre-order customers in, but I'm sure there will be one week or so (probably last week in january or first in february, judging from how the US beta went), where anyone can play. You just need to be fast enough to snatch an account, the 500,000 US beta accounts were gone in 24 hours (at least not 60 seconds ).

 Bye
 Thanee


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## Klaus (Jan 18, 2005)

Oh, well... 

The game looks mighty pretty, but I'd be a bajillion times more interested if it allowed for Single Player, with some quests and stuff...


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## javapadawan (Jan 18, 2005)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> I seem to recall hearing that the limit is 8 characters per account.  It's possible that this may have been changed since then, though.




At one point while trying out different classes I had roughly 20 characters spread over 3 servers, so it must have changed. I think the limit is somewhere around 8-10 per server rather than per account.

I too have been lucky enough to have few problems with logging on and lag, even on Silver Hand, which is usually at "High". Playing Horde helps, as in most cases there are quite a few less of us in comparison to Alliance.


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## Dark Jezter (Jan 19, 2005)

javapadawan said:
			
		

> I too have been lucky enough to have few problems with logging on and lag, even on Silver Hand, which is usually at "High". Playing Horde helps, as in most cases there are quite a few less of us in comparison to Alliance.




Yep.  On most servers, Alliance characters outnumber Horde characters by about 4 to 1.

This is hardly surprising.  In virtually every MMORPG, the "pretty" races (usually humans and elves) are the most popular by a large margin.

Me, I'll stick to killing humans and elves with my level 44 orc shaman.


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## KenM (Jan 19, 2005)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Oh, well...
> 
> The game looks mighty pretty, but I'd be a bajillion times more interested if it allowed for Single Player, with some quests and stuff...




  I heard from alot of sorces that WoW is easy to solo, but you still have to play online.


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## Thanee (Jan 19, 2005)

Klaus said:
			
		

> The game looks mighty pretty, but I'd be a bajillion times more interested if it allowed for Single Player, with some quests and stuff...




 You can play it solo and there are quests (quite simple ones mostly, but together they form a whole with story and all that, especially the class-specific quests) and stuff, yes there is also stuff, I'm sure , but it's still a MMORPG, not a single player game, of course.

 Bye
 Thanee


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## javapadawan (Jan 19, 2005)

Klaus said:
			
		

> The game looks mighty pretty, but I'd be a bajillion times more interested if it allowed for Single Player, with some quests and stuff...




As Thanee and KenM mentioned, soloing is definitely doable, probably more so than any other MMO I've played, including City of Heroes, especially if you play a hunter. 

I've levelled my troll hunter up to 32 solo, and have never had to group out of necessity to finish a quest. On the few occasions when I had trouble, I simply gained a level or two and tried again. (The only time this doesn't work is with instanced dungeons, which are generally filled with elite creatures that sometimes attack in groups of three and four.)


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## KenM (Jan 19, 2005)

Found this on Gamespot, interesting.  

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/18/news_6116566.html


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## Dinkeldog (Jan 20, 2005)

Don't get me wrong.  Complain and vent all you want.  But to call that "article" journalism would be a stretch.  The writer has an axe to grind.  Insinuation that Blizzard was not performing upgrades when they said they were is poor writing.  To say that people are angry, possibly even justifiably, is acceptable, but I really think that saying the game is "wracked with problems" only creates the environment, rather than informs on the condition of the game.  

I personally have had very few problems, mostly some lag issues and some logging issues only on days when I try to go on immediately after the maintenance period.  The people I'm playing with are experiencing the same issues and lack of issues.  Overall, I'm having a lot of fun.  Of course, I'm going to be busy playing, and not all stirred up, so I'm not going to go screaming to Gamespot or Penny Arcade and complain that they should take the recommendations away.  

So yeah, Gamespot shouldn't have put that on their site.  It's irresponsible and they should know better.  I do have a simple solution for some of the overpopulation issues, but I'm not on the inside, so it wouldn't even be heard.  Therefore, I do very little screaming about it.  I just play.


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## evildm (Jan 21, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Also, how many characters can one account have?




50 per account, 10 per server. Probably the most out of any MMORPG. Additionally, if you cancel your account, your characters remain forever, allowing you to come back whenever you like.


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## TheAuldGrump (Jan 21, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> *Blink Blink* Last time I was in Best Buy it certainly seemed like they had plenty of copies. And a friend of mine who plays the game has had no serious lag issues.
> 
> It might be that the chain stores purchased enough copies that Blizzard has none on hand themselves.
> 
> The Auld Grump, or maybe Maine isn't selling them as fast as other places...





And this time when I went into Best Buy there weren't any. I guess the local store just bought a lot of copies when they ordered it.

And my friend does say that there is some lag in the cities on the busier servers, he frequents lower use ones.

Or in other words - I was wrong.

The Auld Grump


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## Ruined (Jan 21, 2005)

A friend of mine was glancing around for a copy for me, and ran across this article:

http://articles.filefront.com/No_More_Players_for_World_of_Warcraft/;340;;;/article.html


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## mattcolville (Jan 21, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Great, another MMORPG screwed up because the company hypes it up for a year and half before it comes out, then when things go wrong with the servers getting overloaded, ect. they say "we did not anticapate such a high demand."




It's not demand that's got them flummoxed, it's networking. The kind people do. 

People want to play with their friends, something Blizzard didn't count on. They counted on people being relatively evenly distributed across servers. No. They counted on the Queues getting people to switch servers. Didn't work that way.

So now they're trying to deal with this.


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## Pielorinho (Jan 21, 2005)

I've had problems in the game on my high-population server (Argent Dawn), but nothing game-breaking:  the worst I've had is minute-long lag when I'm at the auction house at peak hours.  It's frustrating, but it sure doesn't stop me from playing it obsessively.

I'm hoping they allow for character migration soon: this seems to me as if it'd be the easiest fix.  From my little bit of DB knowledge, this would entail moving one record from a character table, up to 51 records from a talent table, up to a couple hundred records from an items table, up to five items from a skills table, up to a hundred records from a "learned recipes" table, up to two items from a mount table, and then possibly a handful of records from a handful of other tables.  It doesn't seem as if it'd be too difficult to design a button on the character screen that allowed for this export/import to occur.

Daniel


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## KenM (Jan 22, 2005)

I have had a couple of lag issues at a few times. Most frustrating was I had lag when I died and got back to my corpse and clicked that I was ready to be raised. 5 minutes later I was back in my body.


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## Urbanmech (Jan 24, 2005)

I've been playing for about 2 weeks and the only real annoying day was last Monday when it took me an hour to log on with the que.  But after that everything was smooth sailing.  The only time I lag is when I'm running by the auction house in Iron Forge.  Other than that I have nothing but good things to say about this game.  Extremely playable either solo or with a group, fun quests galore, and lots of little features that make it great.   If you don't play that often make sure to log off at an inn and then gain x2 exp when you come back.  You can mail things to other players and even your own characters on the same server.  Flying around on Griffon back is awesome.  I hope Blizzard keeps up the work on this because in a few months once all the wrinkles are out it will be beyond great.

Gimble 25 Gnome Warlock, Silver Hand


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## Ruined (Jan 24, 2005)

Update on my situation: Friend who sent me article calls on the cell phone Sunday and lets me know that EB Games just got in a small shipment. So against better judgement, I go and grab a copy. I've had no problems logging into the non-high servers. For fun, I did look at Tichondrius (sp?), and it had the queue going, starting me at 310. Luckily, that wasn't where I wanted to play.

And btw, curses to you all. This is a fun and addictive game...


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## driver8 (Jan 25, 2005)

Well Ive been playing since Dec 6..on Llane. Its a low to medium population server. Ive had about 3 really bad distruptions. Two caused log in to go wonky for about an extra hour and the other was around Christmas when alot of the servers went down for the better part of a day.

I am really enjoying WoW..its kept me away from ENWorld, and kept my attention more than any other MMO to date. I feel for those on the infamous 20 servers, but it seems alot of the "journalism" on the outages is a bit overblown. 

For instance, Penny Arcade took back their Game of the Year Award it gave WoW becasue of the outages. Why would anyone give a MMO that was out a month Game of the Year? Alot of sites and publications jumped on the bandwagon, then jumped off at the first sign of difficulty. And lets face it.. what else was there ot write about in January?

Anyway, Im sure Id be complaining if I was on one of the 20, but alot of people got the game at Xmas and the population jumped. Id still recommend the game, if you can find it.

And, if youre on Llane give Rumspringa the Night Elf Druid a shout.


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## Panthanas (Jan 25, 2005)

I've been playing for a little less than a month now, and I've experianced very minimal lag, even when in Ironforge (although I'm not there that often).  I've never gone over 275 ms on the little "Lag-o-meter".  I am on a low to mid population server, Dragonblight.

Anyway, the game is a blast although I don't think my fiancee thinks so 

If anyone is on Dragonblight and wants to look me up:
Nightelf Druid named Pantuke.


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## Khairn (Jan 26, 2005)

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.


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## KenM (Jan 26, 2005)

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.


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## Enforcer (Jan 26, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> 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


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## driver8 (Jan 26, 2005)

Devyn said:
			
		

> 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.
> 
> ...




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.


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## kotik2 (Jan 26, 2005)

*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!


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## Duncan Haldane (Jan 27, 2005)

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)


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## Khairn (Jan 27, 2005)

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.


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## Pielorinho (Jan 27, 2005)

Devyn said:
			
		

> 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


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## LightPhoenix (Jan 27, 2005)

Devyn said:
			
		

> 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?


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## myrdden (Jan 27, 2005)

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.


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## Pielorinho (Jan 28, 2005)

myrdden said:
			
		

> 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.




They're definitely looking at character migration, and I hope they've got a system set up soon.  The point about the days they're giving us for free is a good one: if you're paying $14.95 a month (the month-to-month price), and if you get a single day of free service, that's about fifty cents.  Multiply that by 500,000 accounts, and you have a quarter-million dollars in revenue they're losing every time they give a single day extension of service.  (this is a simplistic calculation, inasmuch as it doesn't take into consideration the people who have long-term accounts or who won't renew their monthly accounts; however, it also underestimates the number of users).

Given how many extensions they've handed out, I think they're taking the problem pretty seriously.

Daniel


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## myrdden (Jan 28, 2005)

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Given how many extensions they've handed out, I think they're taking the problem pretty seriously.
> 
> Daniel




I have no doubt about that.  I have noticed a more visible pressence by the mods in the WoW forums (when I can stand going there) delivering more information.


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## KenM (Jan 31, 2005)

So, can someone tell why in WoW a CLOTH BAG  costs 25 silver and a cutlass cost like 20 silver and some cooper?


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## myrdden (Jan 31, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> So, can someone tell why in WoW a CLOTH BAG  costs 25 silver and a cutlass cost like 20 silver and some cooper?




It's all about value.  A cloth bag allows you to carry more items which (in my opinion) is more valusble than a cutless.


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## CLAVDIVS (Jan 31, 2005)

Okay, you people. Calm down, step off your high horses, and listen.

If you haven't already, go read the Penny Arcade interview with Blizzard. you can find it here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-01-24
Scroll down to see it.

Simply put, since day one Blizzard has been trying to manage a firehose aimed at a teacup. If they had predicted before hand the number of players they actually got, _they would have been laughed at_. They had to expect the game would be popular, but the reality was simply beyond reasonable expectation. It's their job to make the game work right, I agree; but when the unexpected happens you have to cut people a little slack. Besides, humans are fallible, and it's better to judge them on how they deal with their mistakes than on whether they make them at all.

Yes, they did print enough copies for all these unexpected players, because manufacturing costs per unit go down the more you make at once. Vivendi probably decided to print the largest quantity they could for a single run to save money, because they had faith in Blizzard and knew they'd sell eventually. That's the key word: _eventually_. The same principle applies with the servers. They'd planned to roll out those extra servers gradually as more players joined over the coming months; if they'd lauched with all of them, and even their most optimistic estimates were true, either half of them would go unused or they'd all have too few players for any sort of community to form.

And from what I've seen, Blizzard has been busting their collective hump to fix the problems that have arisen. Do you honestly think they don't care about their customers? People who didn't just buy the software, but are continuing to pay a monthly fee to use it? When the game has been unplayable for too many for too long, they've credited players' accounts with extra time, and that's money out of their own pockets. They put a freeze of distributing more copies to keep the population from getting bigger and harder to handle, which is even more money lost. And beyond the money, there's the egoes of the creators: They put all their creative energy and talent into making this game, and to some of them it must feel like a personal failure on their part that it doesn't work. You can't honestly tell me that they don't want the game to work right at least as much as you do; for you it's just entertainment, but for them it's their livelihood and their professional reputation.

And no, they haven't been terribly forthcoming with status reports and explanations of the problems, but that's probably for three main reasons: One, they're afraid of making promises they won't be able to keep because of problems they haven't forseen yet. Two, when you're trying your hardest to fix something, it's annoying and frustrating to have to stop working on it to explain what's wrong and what you're doing about it. And three, they know that most people simply don't care _why _they can't play, they just want to be able to.

We would'nt be so frustrated with these problems if the game wasn't so awesome. With that in mind, and the knowledge that Blizzard is doing the best they can in a difficult situation, I'm willing be lenient in my criticism for the time being.


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## KenM (Jan 31, 2005)

Another quick WoW question, how do I get my Warrior able to use axes? Seems strange I can swing a sword or a mace/ club but not an axe.


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## Cule (Jan 31, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Another quick WoW question, how do I get my Warrior able to use axes? Seems strange I can swing a sword or a mace/ club but not an axe.




Go to a weapon trainer. If you are alliance then I believe the trainer is in Ironforge. Ask any guard there and they'll tell you where the trainer is.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 31, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Great, another MMORPG screwed up because the company hypes it up for a year and half before it comes out, then when things go wrong with the servers getting overloaded, ect. they say "we did not anticapate such a high demand."



No, it's screwed up because the publisher (Vivendi Universal Games, whose only other MMORPG is Dark Age of Camelot, the RC Cola of MMORPGs) didn't want to front sufficient capital to buy a gazillion servers.

Blizzard had this exact same problem with Battle.net not being ready for the hordes of people who wanted to play Diablo I online. They KNEW to overcompensate, but they don't have the resources to buy all the servers needed, so VUG had to front it. VUG execs said "well, sure, 600,000 people signed up in 24 hours for open beta, but that was FREE. We know how many people really play these games, because we have DAoC. Here, you can have a quarter of a gazillion, and we're being generous."

VUG execs, of course, have about zero knowledge of gaming, since most of them came from other parts of the megacorp. Witness how few parts of VUG actually are successful (Valve, Blizzard, one or two PS2 development studios and whatever poor bastards are servicing the Hoyle license) compared to how many studios they have (a quarter of a gazillion).

Having said that, ordering from the Blizzard store directly (i.e. checking back every few days for more copies) seems to work best.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 31, 2005)

Kitsune said:
			
		

> Considering that they printed each and every copy sold, no, it's not very understandable that they didn't have the server capacity to go with those copies.



Boxes are printed for six months worth of sales in the computer game industry. Blizzard has since said that they had more servers available, but not fully ready, since they were expecting to phase them in, bit by bit.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 31, 2005)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Yep.  On most servers, Alliance characters outnumber Horde characters by about 4 to 1.



It's actually about 3:2. The WoW Census site relies on people opting in and using their download to "record" numbers. It's spectacularly inaccurate. People using the Cosmos population tools (which basically /who the population for all zones) show things are a lot closer than the census data claims.


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## KenM (Jan 31, 2005)

Anyone know if Blizzard is still holding back copies? I have not seen copies in stores since I got lucky two weeks ago and found one.


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## myrdden (Feb 1, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Anyone know if Blizzard is still holding back copies? I have not seen copies in stores since I got lucky two weeks ago and found one.




Most likely.  I don't believe they have the server load quite correct yet and I can't see them releasing more copies when massive queues still crop up on the "hot-20".  (As an aside, I have a character on Deathwing and have seen queues as high as 300 so far...).


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## kotik2 (Feb 1, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Anyone know if Blizzard is still holding back copies? I have not seen copies in stores since I got lucky two weeks ago and found one.




I think it must be a geographic problem.  I am in the Chicago metro area, and while I have to hunt a bit to find new copies, I can find them.  If you know anyone who is looking, and have a GameStop in your area, check there.  If not, I believe GameStop has a website.


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## loki44 (Feb 1, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> BTW, my character name is Aldar, Night Elf warrior on Draenor server. One other quick gameplay question. The WoW fourms are a mess, IMO, and i have trouble logging into them from time to time as well.
> Anyway, my question is about stances, how do you change it?




I also play on the Draenor server.  I play a Troll Shaman named Dramm.  Hope to encounter you someday.....


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## loki44 (Feb 1, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Anyone know if Blizzard is still holding back copies? I have not seen copies in stores since I got lucky two weeks ago and found one.




Don't know if they're holding back copies but it took me a couple of weeks to find one in Atlanta.


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## KenM (Feb 2, 2005)

Question about battle stances, as I am playing a warrior. I read awhile ago that after you hit level 10, you get more then one stance. I'm level 11 now, how do I change stances?  Do I need to go to a warrior trainer?


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## Chun-tzu (Feb 2, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Question about battle stances, as I am playing a warrior. I read awhile ago that after you hit level 10, you get more then one stance. I'm level 11 now, how do I change stances?  Do I need to go to a warrior trainer?




I'm not a warrior (I have a human warlock) but I believe you select a new stance as a talent.  Press N to access your talents, and choose wisely.  You can't take them all, so you'll have to choose what you want to specialize in.


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## reanjr (Feb 2, 2005)

Krug said:
			
		

> Some say they're holding it back because the servers are overloaded right now.




Yeah, I'd go with that one.  Hype doesn't help sell a product unless you make it available to an extraordinarily small group early, and then wait for mass distribution.  WoW has already been through mass distribution.  I know at least a dozen people playing it.  Taking it off the shelves now is just going to cut into sales while people get sick of waiting.  No one is going to suddenly think: Hey, it's not on the shelf, this game must be popular, and so good -- not when they have seen how popular it is already and can ask half a dozen people how they like it and try it out themselves.


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## myrdden (Feb 2, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Question about battle stances, as I am playing a warrior. I read awhile ago that after you hit level 10, you get more then one stance. I'm level 11 now, how do I change stances?  Do I need to go to a warrior trainer?




You will need to complete a quest to receive the defensive stance.  I play an Orc warrior, so my quests are different but you should have picked up a "Warrior" labelled quest which will put you on the path towards getting your next stance.  I believe the Bezerk stance is level 40.

Each stance should appear above your command bar and you switch between them simply by selecting the stance you wish.  Switching stances pretty much drains whatever rage you have so it becomes a bit more tatical than simply switiching stances to get other abilities.  I am finding the warrior to be a much more complicated calss to play than I originally thought.  Very much rooted in stratgey versus simply pressing buttons.


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## myrdden (Feb 2, 2005)

Chun-tzu said:
			
		

> I'm not a warrior (I have a human warlock) but I believe you select a new stance as a talent.  Press N to access your talents, and choose wisely.  You can't take them all, so you'll have to choose what you want to specialize in.




No - stances aren't talents, they are abilities for a warrior.  Evey class in effect has stances, it just that warriors actually have to consciously switch between them.  Switching stances for a warrior not only gives you access to other abilities, but they also grant certain bonus (frex: defensive stance reduces your damage output by 10% but also reduces the amount of damage you take by 10%).

Your talents simply enhance some of your skills just like the other classes.


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## LightPhoenix (Feb 2, 2005)

Sorry for terseness, running late for work, but would anyone be up for doing Deadmines or Stockades Saturday afternoon?  I also have a bunch of green items that I would like to get rid of... they'll probably be given to Vaslov unless someone wants a specific item, I'll post a list of what I have later when I'm not rushing...


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## MetalBard (Feb 3, 2005)

*Mac user interested in getting into World of Warcraft*

Anybody have any experience running this game on a mac?  I've got a 12" powerbook, 1.33 ghz, OSX 10.3 with the GeForce FX Go5200 64mb and soon to have 1.2  gigs of ram,  plenty of hard disk space and a broadband connection.  Please let me know if there are any issues I should know of before getting this game.

The reviews online make this game look awesome and I've seen it running on my little brother's PC and since it works on Macs as well, I'm officially tempted.


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## Enforcer (Feb 3, 2005)

MetalBard said:
			
		

> Anybody have any experience running this game on a mac?  I've got a 12" powerbook, 1.33 ghz, OSX 10.3 with the GeForce FX Go5200 64mb and soon to have 1.2  gigs of ram,  plenty of hard disk space and a broadband connection.  Please let me know if there are any issues I should know of before getting this game.
> 
> The reviews online make this game look awesome and I've seen it running on my little brother's PC and since it works on Macs as well, I'm officially tempted.




I run the game on my 12" iBook. 1.2 ghz, 512mb RAM, 32mb video card, OS X 10.3. Your system has double the RAM and video memory that mine does, and a slightly faster G4 chip--you'll be fine.


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## Purple (Feb 3, 2005)

MetalBard said:
			
		

> Anybody have any experience running this game on a mac?  I've got a 12" powerbook, 1.33 ghz, OSX 10.3 with the GeForce FX Go5200 64mb and soon to have 1.2  gigs of ram,  plenty of hard disk space and a broadband connection.  Please let me know if there are any issues I should know of before getting this game.
> 
> The reviews online make this game look awesome and I've seen it running on my little brother's PC and since it works on Macs as well, I'm officially tempted.




I'm running on a 17" Powerbook, 1.33 ghz.  Once I upgraded from 512 to a gig of ram the game has run great for me.  I could play it ok before, but now it just runs smooth.  The griffin rides aren't slideshows anymore. 

Purple


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## KenM (Feb 10, 2005)

I have been trying to log on to play tonight, all I get when I sign in is "autherising"      When will Blizzard fix these problems?


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## TheAuldGrump (Feb 11, 2005)

Hmmm, the New York Times online has an article about how much greater the response was than anticipated. This quote in particular caught my eye: "The happiness became terror on the first day," said Mr. Sams, adding that the company surpassed its one-year subscriber targets in less than a week. "We have a lot of high-class problems right now."

Sams is a V.P. at Blizzard in charge of marketing.

The Auld Grump


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## LightPhoenix (Feb 12, 2005)

I hate Ironforge.  With a fiery passion.

I also hate the Auction House.  With a fiery passion.


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## Enforcer (Feb 12, 2005)

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> I hate Ironforge.  With a fiery passion.
> 
> I also hate the Auction House.  With a fiery passion.




Yep. It sucks.


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## myrdden (Feb 14, 2005)

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> I hate Ironforge.  With a fiery passion.
> 
> I also hate the Auction House.  With a fiery passion.




Tell me about it.  The lag generated when flying in on a gryffen is huge.  I hate the AH.  Never bother checking them out because of all the lag.


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## KenM (Feb 14, 2005)

myrdden said:
			
		

> Tell me about it.  The lag generated when flying in on a gryffen is huge.  I hate the AH.  Never bother checking them out because of all the lag.




  What do you have for a video card/ RAM? I have a ATI 9600 XT 128 MB, no lag when flying on a grifin. I have not checked out the aution house yet.


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## myrdden (Feb 14, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> What do you have for a video card/ RAM? I have a ATI 9600 XT 128 MB, no lag when flying on a grifin. I have not checked out the aution house yet.




The card/RAM isn't the problem.  It's the server lag caused by umpteen billion people in the auction house - most of which are probably (AFK) monitoring their bids.


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## driver8 (Feb 14, 2005)

myrdden said:
			
		

> Tell me about it.  The lag generated when flying in on a gryffen is huge.  I hate the AH.  Never bother checking them out because of all the lag.




If you have "lag" while on the griffon ride , then that is most likely visual slowdown casued somehow by your visual settings/ vid card/ memory.

The AH is almost all server load. A faster CPU/card may help a little, but at peak times there aint nothin you can do....especially when all the idiots are dancing out on the bridges.


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## Chun-tzu (Feb 15, 2005)

My computer meets all the recommended specs, but I get griffon lag and AH lag.  I assumed it had to do with server problems they kept talking about, but from reading more on the WoW forums, I'm now fairly convinced it's a RAM issue.

Although WoW says 512 MB RAM is more than enough, it is NOT.  It is barely enough.  I can't run any programs in the background and use every possible setting to maximize performance, but it's not enough.  WoW runs fine most of the time, but becomes very jerky in the previously mentioned areas).  I've seen numerous posts by people with similar issues who upgraded from 512 MB RAM to 1 GB (including a friend of mine who knows computers fairly well), and suddenly WoW runs smoothly (lmost flawlessly) for them.

Unofrtunately for me, upgrading RAM is a huge undertaking.  My motherboard can't take more than 512 MB, so I'd need new RAM, a new motherboard, and I'm also running Windows XP.  So there's a good chance that even if I replaced the motherboard, I'd have to contact Microsoft to reactivate Windows XP.  And all that seems more trouble than it's worth, even though I'm addicted to the game.


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## KenM (Feb 15, 2005)

Chun- Tzu, what do you have for a video card/ video RAM? I was having trouble with Battlefield Vietnam running smooth when i was flying on my 64 MB Gforce 4 Ti4200, I upgraded to a 128 MB ATI 9600 XT and it was fine. You might be able to upgrade your video for improved perfomence. 
Also, when I play any computer game, I turn off most other programs, don't need them when I play.


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## Chun-tzu (Feb 15, 2005)

I already tried that, upgrading my Radeon 9000 with 32 MB to a Radeon 9600 XT with 256 MB, which is more than enough.  1.7 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, Win XP Home edition.  RAM is definitely the issue here, especially when dealing with large groups (either mobs or players or both), or moving from one area to another (computer needing to unload and load other areas), which sucks because at level 51 I travel around a lot.  I play on Stormrage, which is often highly populated.

512 MB RAM may be okay on a low-population server, if you use the minimum settings, but the recommended memory should really be much higher.


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## myrdden (Feb 15, 2005)

driver8 said:
			
		

> If you have "lag" while on the griffon ride , then that is most likely visual slowdown casued somehow by your visual settings/ vid card/ memory.
> 
> The AH is almost all server load. A faster CPU/card may help a little, but at peak times there aint nothin you can do....especially when all the idiots are dancing out on the bridges.




I should be a bit more clear.  The lag on the griffon is only when I land in Ironforge and the AH is busy.  I have had times where I have waited 2 or 3 minutes to regain control of my character after I have landed (or just before - it can vary).  Otherwise it is smooth sailing throughout the rest of the game.


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## LightPhoenix (Feb 16, 2005)

The AH in Ironforge causes a _ton_ of lag in that area.  No amount of computer power will help with that.

The gryphons lag because they move fairly fast, so if you have a lot of the graphics detail on, you're passing by stuff faster than the computer renders it, so it appears jerky.


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## myrdden (Feb 16, 2005)

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> The AH in Ironforge causes a _ton_ of lag in that area.  No amount of computer power will help with that.



I hope they fix that soon.  It really is a damper on the game and makes me not want to visit Ironforge for any length of time.


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## Droid101 (Feb 16, 2005)

I suffer no lag, and I play on dialup.


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## Spatula (Feb 16, 2005)

myrdden said:
			
		

> I hope they fix that soon.  It really is a damper on the game and makes me not want to visit Ironforge for any length of time.



I'm not sure what they could do about it.  It's a population issue - there's just too many players in Ironforge.  The situation is similar in Orgrimmar (where the horde auction house is), but not anywhere near as bad since there's fewer Horde than Alliance players.   The funny thing is hearing the horde players complain about the lag in orgrimmar - they have no idea how good they've got it.

They could open more auction houses, I suppose, all connected to the main one.  But they probably would have done that already if they could.


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## myrdden (Feb 16, 2005)

Spatula said:
			
		

> They could open more auction houses, I suppose, all connected to the main one.  But they probably would have done that already if they could.




I have both Alliance and Horde characters (on 2 different servers) and see a huge difference in lag between the AHs.  Definitely a population problem, exacerbated by the fact there is a limited number of AH.

I have no idea how to solve the problem in a simple straightforward manner.  It very much is a design glitch from the beginning.


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## Chun-tzu (Feb 17, 2005)

One suggestion I've heard seems a little odd at first, but it makes a lot of sense.  Make the AH an instance.  When I'm going to the AH, I'm doing it to see what's up for auction, not to see who's hanging out there and what idiotic things they may be doing (like dueling in the front door, or standing in the fires).  That said, I do not know how difficult that would be to implement.


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## D+1 (Feb 17, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> OK, WoW is the first MMORPG I really want to try and get into, it might change my option of MMORPG's. But no store has it in stock, I heard Blizzard is holding them back to create demand. Anyone know if this is true? IMO they don't need to, from what I understand its very popular.



I kind of doubt that.  Although finding the game is an exercise in severe frustration (even just ordering it over the net means an interminable wait for deliver, whereas looking in stores means looking EVERYWHERE for a 50 mile radius) I'm willing to believe Blizzards explanations.  Their side of the story is that the demand for the game is extraordinary; the TONS of servers they do have are all overloaded and there isn't yet the ability to migrate characters from high-demand servers to low-demand servers so population levels don't even out naturally; The tons of servers they have were originally PLANNED to go into service in the first place but the unanticipated demand caused those future plans to be greatly accellerated.  It makes far more sense that they were simply ignorant of what to expect than that there's some great plot afoot that ostensibly does them good by creating extreme demand that they then refuse to fill, thus piffing people off, and THAT somehow is GOOD for them to piff off their customers.  It is, in fact, utterly silly that they would decide specifically to NOT sell them the game, NOT take their money every month for an account, but instead do themselves a favor and just create DEMAND... by not selling anyone ANYthing?  Creating demand is good for business - but not if you don't FILL that demand as rapidly as possible.

They clearly have both code-related and service issues regarding lag.  Even on a "lightly" populated server in non-peak hours I see server-wide lag, localized lag in places like Ironforge and moreso near the AH and bank, a choice of a massive number of servers (I count 88 right now) most of which it seems are very over-populated even without the design related lag issues and still they need more, maybe even half again as many - 120 or more.

I tried EQII for a few weeks and dumped it just prior to WOW.  I got the sense that they made things more difficult than they had any right or reason to be, mostly in regards to tradeskills.  I just found it to feel "elitist", as if maybe by not ever having played the original EQ I just wasn't the sort of player they desiged it for.  Finding WHERE things were, how they worked, etc. just got to seem like too much work for very little reward.  I nonetheless strongly suspected that if you HAD migrated from EQ to EQII you'd be right at home.


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## driver8 (Feb 18, 2005)

Chun-tzu said:
			
		

> One suggestion I've heard seems a little odd at first, but it makes a lot of sense.  Make the AH an instance.  When I'm going to the AH, I'm doing it to see what's up for auction, not to see who's hanging out there and what idiotic things they may be doing (like dueling in the front door, or standing in the fires).  That said, I do not know how difficult that would be to implement.





Even if you made the AH an instance, and didnt make it large (which would be inconvenient for players) you would have congestion and lag for the AH users.

There is no easy answer anywhere alot of players want to be for important stuff, theres going to be congestion. I can recall Asherons Calls "portal storms" in towns, which was an inelegant solution to say the least.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 18, 2005)

Blizzard didn't have time to do the architecture work to make auction houses linkable across servers (as different regions of the world, even on the same continent, are on different servers, this is required), and since multiple auction houses just ended up with everyone ignoring two of them per side anyway, they went with the current solution.

They ARE now working on setting up auction houses in each racial city that will be linked together. Once one can be in Stormwind or Darnassus and access the same auction house, I think we'll definitely see a decrease in the number of people there. In alpha and beta, people congregated in Stormwind rather than Ironforge, and once they have the option, I suspect some people will move there again. Darnassus is a different story, but having the city be more useful should still ensure that people adventuring in Kalimdor at any level will swing by there -- if Darnassus and the AH is a short flight away, suddenly it makes sense to bind your hearthstone to Everlook, for instance.


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## Spatula (Feb 22, 2005)

5 new realms went live today.  How long they remain relatively empty is anyone's guess.  One 'normal', two PvP, and two RP.

For me, I am surprised at how Feathermoon (an RP server, that Enforcer started an alliance ENWorld guild on) went from being Low population in December to High now.  After some... questionable grouping experiences, I'm thinking that a lot of non-RP players have moved over to the once-low population RP servers, just because there were relatively few people on them.  Which is, as a result, no longer the case.


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## Stormfalcon (Feb 25, 2005)

driver8 said:
			
		

> Even if you made the AH an instance, and didnt make it large (which would be inconvenient for players) you would have congestion and lag for the AH users.




They could borrow a page from Guild Wars in terms of how that game handles towns and outposts.  Instead of making the AH one instance that everyone piles into in order to clear up traffic in the rest of the town, the AH would automatically split into multiple instances, putting incoming characters into a different instance when the current one fills up.  For example, when the first instance reaches its predetermined capacity, a second one is automatically created and incoming characters get put into that one.  When that one fills up, a third is created and so on.  When an instance drops in population, characters get directed into that one until it reaches capacity again.  Each instance is managable, and so is the hosting city in general.


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