Notes

World of Warcraft Expansion Hit by Server Bugs

Server issues cause World of Warcraft expansion to be stopped by Leo Kelion Technology desk Editor



17 November 2014



World of Warcraft subscribers are experiencing delays and crashes to start playing following the release of its latest expansion pack. was announced as the latest video game to be hit by computer server faults.



Developer Blizzard has published a series of blogs detailing their efforts to correct the issue from Thursday.



This included making servers in Europe unavailable for nearly five hours on Saturday to upgrade the hardware.



One company watcher commented that it was quite shocking considering Blizzard's past experience.



Warlords of Draenor - which went on sale on Thursday - is the fifth expansion to WoW's fantasy role-playing game that has been around for 10 years. It allows players to access Draenor the orc-controlled planet.



"While the majority of our players are able to play, we're sad that some are in line waiting to gain entry because of a combination of demand and the mitigating measures we've taken," a spokesman for Blizzard told the BBC.



"We have been working around-the-clock to upgrade our hardware and implement additional software solutions to cut down on the amount of queues we have to go through, and we have already noticed significant improvements."



Other titles that are experiencing server issues include Microsoft's sci-fi shooter Halo: The Master Chief Collection. This title also was released on Wednesday.



The company behind it, 343 Industries, has acknowledged "frustrating" issues with its Matchmaking system, which links players together over the internet for multiplayer battles. This has led to 343 Industries has delayed the launch of an esports league with an associated league.



A Microsoft spokesperson said to BBC that they are working around the all hours with the Xbox Live team to improve the situation.



"This is our top priority. We will keep everyone up to date via Halo Waypoint."



Sony's multiplayer racing game Driveclub continues to experience connectivity issues more than a month after it was released. Evolution, the studio that created the game announced on Friday that it would offer content for free.



James Batchelor, editor at Develop, stated that "if you are releasing an item for sale it is expected that it will work - it is basic retail manners."



"I don't believe that [server issuesaffect day-one sales, but it could harm a publisher's image.



"EA still has this kind of stigma following Sim City, which was more than a year ago, because of the fact that it took it so long to get that game working."



Crashes and lag



Issues with the update to WoW were exacerbated by the distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attack, which caused Blizzard's computers to be overwhelmed with traffic from the internet last week.



The US-based company acknowledges that it has seen unusually high peak numbers of people trying to log on, but isn't surprised.



Common complaints include "realms being down" or huge queues to join one.



Realms are a copy of WoW's fantasy world, each with different characters and the same content. Each is hosted by a different set of computer servers.



Nine of the 266 realms that comprise the game were down at the time of writing. 24 realms were "full" at the time.



Blizzard said that to improve stability it had cut the number of players that could be active in the realms at the same time, causing log-in delay.



Other issues are:



Players are prevented from connecting to the game because they receive error messages "Player not Found".



Access to dungeons is blocked



Characters getting stuck while using Garrison zones - a brand new feature that gives users a an fortress in which they can manage their operations



In-game lag: Some actions in densely populated areas are delayed, and some enemies attack early.



Blizzard stated that it was able to increase the number of players in each realm thanks to various hardware and software improvements.



It also stated that further oversight and testing was required to ensure that other planned fixes, such as adding more servers, do not cause more issues.



Balance act



Despite a string of video game launches that were impacted by similar issues One expert was shocked to see World of Warcraft struggle.



Piers Harding-Rolls (head of games at IHS) stated that "you would expect Blizzard to have a wealth of experience managing the load of the many servers it hosts."



"It has dealt with larger numbers of users in the past."



He said that if the primary reason for the issue was a greater demand than was anticipated this could prove to be beneficial If the company could fix the issue fast enough.



Blizzard announced that WoW had 7.4 million subscribers in October, a decrease from a high of 12 million in 2010 however, it was a significant improvement over August's figure of 6.8 million.



Mr Harding-Rolls claimed that the company needed to carry out a "balancing act" in deciding on the amount of server infrastructure it needed.



"When an innovative piece of content comes onto the market you have to anticipate what kind of demand there will be and what time of the day people will be using it.



"It's not an exact science. azov.tv You won't get the best results if you don't have the correct assumptions.



"And you must make it happen in a profitable way, avoiding ploughing into infrastructure too much and then not reaping the money you've invested."



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13 November 2014



The thought of the possibilities for life after Warcraft



12 November 2014



Driveclub was hit by a last-minute setback



8 October 2014



Destiny battles to find its route to sales



9 September 2014



Similar Internet Links



Blizzard Battle.net



Sony Evolution



Halo Waypoint



IHS



Develop



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