WoW server issues continue

By Ellie Gibson Published 7 September, 2005

Blizzard pledges compensation.

As European World of Warcraft players grow increasingly frustrated with the lagging issues that continue to plague many servers, developer Blizzard has pledged to compensate players for their trouble.

"Two days' compensation will be offered to everyone, even those who remain unaffected by the problems," a Blizzard spokesperson told Eurogamer.

"In addition, everyone will receive level one and a half extra rest so they level up quicker."

Last Friday, Blizzard attempted to solve the problem by replacing a piece of equipment, but many players are still reporting difficulties. Engineers now suspect the latency issues may be related to Blizzard's third party ISP partners.

"Fixing the problem is our number one priority," the spokesperson said.

"We at Blizzard don't like seeing players unhappy and we really do want to fix this as soon as possible."

WoW fans have been posting increasingly angry messages on the official forums of late, and it remains to be seen whether Blizzard's compensation offer will be enough to appease players.

"Two days doesn't seem very good for six days (and counting) of problems," one poster wrote.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Khanivor #1 7 years ago

    The buggers have us over a barrel by creating such a fantastic game in the first place.

    It's like crack or smack. An addictive substance that users will continue to crave even when the experience is a nightmare.

    I'd also like to add that Blizzard claim it is only a small number of players experiencing the problems. Well, if taken in context of the global 4 million subscriber base this may be true, but for the EU it is a straight-out bare faced lie. Entire servers are beset by lag every day while others are lag free. There is a serious problem somewhere and if anyone knows what it is they sure aren't saying.

    Those who have had a lag-free experience are going to get the same compensation as those of us who had a broken game for the last six days. And the only reason I can think of is because Blizzard cannot let the lie be exposed now by compensating only those who have been affected. A very expensive lie for them. Hopefuly they won't do it again.
    Edited by Khanivor at 07/09/05 @ 16:37

  • sir_tripod #2 7 years ago

    ... and just like smack, it's the user's fault for getting into that state. No-one FORCED you to play that game. You're just pre-disposed to addiction.

    I'm sure a self-help group would be good for you but you have to admit to the problem but you must WANT to change.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #3 7 years ago

    Totally agree with above - not him ^^, but Khanivor. People put up with the problems in the hope they're going to be fixed. It's almost two weeks now that I can remember where we've had consistently shocking lag.

    Taking the realm I play in as an example. It's a high population PvP server, there are regularly queues to play in the evening. Blizzard have introduced new realms for new players, or people who just want to move. When you make a character you're advised to join a certain realm. This is a method whereby Blizzard can point people at one of the lower population servers to spread the playerbase out. Only in this case they biffed up and pointed people towards my server! Queues have soared now, and to wait to play when you have 2000ms+ ping is ridiculous. Also bear in mind that if you disconnect from the server which is happening lots due to the problems, that you have to reconnect and queue again, and well - you're starting to see the problems.

    Cue the thought that high population was causing the lag. Not so. Even now when the server isn't full and there are no queues to join, the spikes are prevailent. The lag can get so bad that no matter how easy the enemy you face you just can't respond to them causing death and untold fustration.

    Our server is also regularly taken down, along with others for 'surprise' maintenance. There are no warnings in game that this is about to happen, or for how long the server will be down. Blizzard have only recently started to respond to the server issues that this article is about. Most topics about these issues are locked and disposed of.

    It's a great game, I approve of it in almost every respect: but with this customer care and failiure to support a service that we are after all paying for, they're seriously damaging their reputation. MMORPGS are a massive undertaking, espescially when you have a player base as big as theirs, but the bottom line is that a subscription to these games is a fee you pay to guaruntee that the servers you play on, and the support / feedback you get is of a high quality and reliable.

    Oh, and a note about the compensation. 2-days free is laughable. Rested experience? Well, that's nice for those who aren't 60 already, but the people most put out by this lag are those who have coordinated and organised large scale raids - those playing the end game content. I couldn't really give a monkeys about the compensation we get, but just say sorry and admit you borked up! They're only just now admitting that it may be a server side problem after all.
    Edited by Bertie at 07/09/05 @ 16:52

  • Dizzy #4 7 years ago

    >grow increasingly frustrated

    Never had any problems at all. Servers have been down once or twice for me the last 6 months, but nothing to get "frustrated" about. I also never had a queue.

    I guess it happens more on big PvP servers..

  • O-Fox #5 7 years ago

    It only seems to happen once I get a few precious minutes in betwen mountains of work where I can finally achieve any hopes of raching level 60. Of course, I finally get comfortable and the lag bar goes from green to red - more or less the kiss of death for the server. 2 days compensation? Yeah for the people who play all day that may be kind of fair, but these issues have happened for at least a week now, and only at the time when us casual folk come online. Such a good game too :(

    in regards to getting myself 'in this state', I sure as hell don't remember the game being like this when I 'got myself into it'. It's like you buy a delicious cake but someone takes it away after the first bite.

  • Khanivor #6 7 years ago

    From what I can gather this problem only affects three servers - Blooscalp (FTW!1!), Burning Legion and Warsong.

    In fact, I think a trip to petitions online may be in order.

  • Huddy #7 7 years ago

    Nope. It's Arathor to and many others. Although some have gotten a little better over the past few days.

  • Orange #8 7 years ago

    My server is now high population and there are some problems in terms of ques and more importantly lag spikes in certain areas and instance bugs. If you compare the number of high pop servers on the EU English side to the USA and the German servers, we are getting a raw deal.

  • Khanivor #9 7 years ago

    I set up a petition about the derisory compensation:


    I posted a link to this on the genral forum. About five minutes later I was banned from the forums for two days, apparentyl because of trolling. Does' this sound like trolling to you?

    I know these things are little better then useless, but if you fancy venting at Blizzard without clogging up the forums I’ve set up a little petition. It would be appreciated if anyone affected by the lag who agrees with the petition were to sign it.

    http://www.petitiononline.com/wowlags/petition.html

    It asks for targeted compensation, not necessarily monetary but relevant to lvl 60s, directed specifically at those servers which have been lagging badly, rather then the FFA currently suggested by Blizzard.

    Cheers.

  • ekko #10 7 years ago

    I stopped playing and got my life back... well what is left of it.

  • Sko #11 7 years ago

    "In fact, I think a trip to petitions online may be in order."
    Yeah, 'cos online petitions have a long-standing history of bringing about change? Ummm.

  • Xerx3s #12 7 years ago

    Diablo 3, anyone?

  • Mr.Roboto #13 7 years ago

    I would stop playing this game as a protest if I didn't bought it last week and if it stoped sucking my entire life.

  • Ciaran #14 7 years ago

    Err, I have a couple questions, if you don't mind...

    Is this game *really* that good? (ok, so you don't need to answer that)

    How is it for complete newbies only just entering the worlds of both Warcraft and MMORPGs?

    Can you get by (ie. have fun) only being able to play say 2h a day, 2-3 nights a week?

    And most importantly, how can I expect it to run on my Pentium M 1.7GHz lappy with 512 ram and the rather obscure nVidia QuadroFX Go700 video card?

    /is so tempted

  • Ciaran #15 7 years ago

    Thanks for the tip rhythm, I guess I'll try it out!

  • Inigo #16 7 years ago

    I'm currently playing on the PvE realm Doomhammer and have experienced no problems at all. However, when i first started i was on a different server that was always lagging and kicking me off. I luckly changed and everythings fine. My suggestion to anyone starting WoW is to join a PvE world. There 10 times better.

  • DrDamn #17 7 years ago

    Ciaran wrote:
    > How is it for complete newbies only just entering the worlds of both Warcraft and
    > MMORPGs?

    It is perfect for you - which is why it is so popular. Very well designed for both the novice and veteran MMORPG player. If you don't like WoW there is little chance you would like other games of this type. They even put in design for the casual gamer by giving rest XP bonuses.

    I used to be a big EverQuest player, but in comparisson that was a grind that only the hardcore would really enjoy. You could play for 4 hour and actually achieve very little. With WoW I find I can always get something done of substance - even in short 30 minute plays.

    As for the problems. We have had bad problems on Argent Dawn for some time (more than the last two weeks). This is one of the two English speaking Roleplaying servers and is very high population with queues to log on most evenings. If population is a factor Blizzard have been doing very little to help here as they have not added any more RP servers since the Euro launch. There are also 2 French RP servers and 3!! German ones. Given that any non-French and non-German players tend to come to the English servers this seems a bit unbalanced.

    There have also been some cases of bias in the information given out. For example on a recent outage which affected the login server some useful info was posted on the WoW website ... in the French forums, in French. Nothing in the other forums.

    Lack of information is a big issue when problems are experienced. If the system is down and likely to be that way for the rest of the evening - fine - at least let us know eh?

  • BradlayLaw #18 7 years ago

    Eathen Ring has problems too. They really need more than two RP servers.

  • Ryu #19 7 years ago

    play Guild Wars

  • Phishy #20 7 years ago

    lmfao...Guild Wars.....LOL.....Sorry....*snigger*.....

  • Burton2000 #21 7 years ago

    guild wars rocks especialy the guild batle aspect and pvp aspect truly great.

  • O-Fox #22 7 years ago

    Eathen Ring has problems too. They really need more than two RP servers.

    the reason earthen ring has so many problems is because people like us:
    http://photobucket.com/albums/y288/OFox/
    use it as a playpen when our server is down. Please don't hate me, but it was the most hilarious thing I had ever been a part of in this game.

  • tincanrocket #23 7 years ago

    @O-Fox - why choose an RP server to muck about in? Kind of goes entirely against the purpose of that server, doesn't it? I don't play on PvE or PvP, but imagine they are more "fun" focussed, whereas RPers are struggling to combine the "fun" element with a reoleplaying environment. Nothing is more bl000dy annoying than arriving in Goldshire or wherever to find a bunch of goons running around naked, challenging everyone to duels, and using text and leet speak - do that on PvE or PvP by all means, but at least try to respect what the RP gamers are trying to do - after all, we only have 2 flipping servers. Sorry if I sound extreme, but it's the equivalent of logging onto a Battlefeld 2 server, running around TKing and laughing at your team-mates. By all means, enjoy the game, but try to respect other players' enjoyment also. Thanks for listening, and apologies if I sound like a gaminbg fascist, but it's just one of those things that really gets my goat :)