Blizzard Offers Look Inside WoW At GDC 188
Yesterday morning at GDC Austin, Blizzard's J. Allen Brack and Frank Pearce took to the stage to finally give a peek inside the inner workings of World of Warcraft. Tipping the scales at around 4,600 people utilizing 20,000 computer systems and 1.3 petabytes of storage, Blizzard has created a raging behemoth. The Online Network services group alone has "data centers from Texas to Seoul, and monitor over 13,250 server blades, 75,000 cpu cores, and 112.5 terabytes of blade RAM. [Pearce] points out the picture of the GNOC (Global Network Operations Center) in their slideshow, a data core that even has televisions tuned to the weather stations. They use those to ensure that conditions of the data center are up to their standards; with only a staff of 68 people they ensure connectivity across the globe for the numerous WoW servers."
Re:Well, Look at Their Monthly Revenue (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All I read... (Score:5, Informative)
I was told by someone at blizzard that they essentially implemented a fix across all battlegroups (which for those who don't know is a collection of realms at one data center) so you shouldn't see the error anymore. The problem was that each realm had a set amount of blades (something like 14?) for instances. Lower population realms didn't use hardly any of that capacity - whereas high population realms there wasn't enough. Well any good server admin knows you never can tell if a low population realm becomes a high population realm or visa versa so clearly you can't build these realms based off that alone - the app needs to scale accordingly.
The fix was that now all instances belong to a pool of servers now - which will eventually allow instance sharing across realms (that is - a party of players on different realms) once its switched on.
Re:Well, Look at Their Monthly Revenue (Score:2, Informative)
Also add in name changes ($10?), character re-customization ($20?), and server transfers ($25). Oh, and faction changes ($25?).
Re:Should I Be Concerned... (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the terms of service on your bank account. You might be shocked to learn the bank isn't responsible for your financial losses. Often, they specifically exempt themselves from all responsibility relating to fraud, mistakes, and/or computer errors. If they cash a bad cheque, you are on the hook.
There is a reason why people that survived the Great Depression hide money under their mattresses.
Re:Well, Look at Their Monthly Revenue (Score:3, Informative)
No, the 11.5 million number is accurate as at least up to 23Dec2008:
From: http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/081121.html [blizzard.com]
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licenseesâ(TM) territories are defined along the same rules.