Yup, it’s that time of the lifecycle of an MMORPG (massively multi player role playing game) when Blizzard has released another expansion for World of Warcraft. True to form, millions of people purchased the expansion and tried to log on to play it.
True to form, Blizzard has had issues around the rushed release, server access and in-game problems… like those fucking awful toy trains and mammoth mounts causing problems for players.
There has been outrage and mockery.
World of WarList
Warlords of Disconnect
Some of the complaints:
- Play cycle: Queue. Lag. Disconnect. Queue.
- Or, better yet: queue for hours. Log in. 10 minutes of play time then ROLLING RESTARTS.
- Rants abound about a monthly fee for not receiving the advertised service.
- Some people are complaining about people complaining about inadequate service; having paid for a game and a fee for access to a server, HOW DARE YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT RECEIVING SAID ACCESS.
Meanwhile, some people have set up A WHITEHOUSE PETITION about the Warlords of Draenor queue times. Seriously. The petition says:
On the day of November 13, 2014. We the people of this great nation have been distressed by the queue waits on World of Warcraft.
It has been estimated that some people have been waiting from 2 to 7+ hours on queue wait times !
This needs immediate attention, the world of Azeroth is in peril of being invaded by the Iron Horde and we need to defend against the evil that threatens their world !
ROFLMAO.
In the below video, Francis rants about his experiences logging in, being disconnected, logging in, being stuck…
A group has been set up just for people to complain about World of Warcraft.
Death marches in a Blizzard
To be fair to Blizzard staff, they are currently on a death march. Seriously. In the IT industry, when you’re at work around the clock — or working ridiculous hours and lucky to be allowed any sleep — it’s called a death march. Adam Holisky says:
Yesterday the server engineers didn’t go home. The community managers didn’t leave. Developers were cranking out hotfixes at seven o’clock in the evening. From my vantage point as an observer of this company, they were firing on all cylinders well after the close of business. Was it enough? No, not by a long shot.
After I started researching this article, intending to mock Blizzard relentlessly for another difficult launch, I discovered that it’s not all Blizzard’s fault. A bunch of hackers launched a distributed denial of service attack on Blizzard servers, causing many of the problems players have experienced. So a bunch of script kiddies (wannabe hackers) decided to ruin everyone’s fun. Not cool.
Blizzard’s most recent update
Update 5:50 a.m. PST:
The servers are now down for maintenance, and the attack is over. If further ones happen, we’ll announce accordingly.
Last words
In case you’re wondering if I’m a player: yes, I have played World of Warcraft. I have been on a break for a while. Yes, I have the expansion. The collector’s edition with the pet and the pretty art book. No, I have not paid the monthly fee to start playing the expansion. Why?
BECAUSE I EXPECTED A DEBACLE.
I’ll wait a month or so before signing up…
