World of Warcraft Trial Period Extended 59
EvilAvatar has details on the recent World of Warcraft server issues. This despite the addition of over 88 servers in the last week. Total game population is already in the 200,000 subscriber neighborhood and rising. As a result of the lag, the free month included in the box is being extended for an indetermined amount of time. From the article: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and are dedicated to providing World of Warcraft players with the best play experience possible. Therefore we'll be adding a small trial-period extension for players who created accounts before or during the downtime. In the days ahead, we'll provide additional details on how the trial-period extension will be determined."
Been playing since day one... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have experienced the loot lag though, but I'm cutting Blizzard some slack as they would have had a totally smooth launch if they didn't have so many fans of the game coming out in droves to play it. 200,000 plus accounts made within the first two days? That tends to slow things down.
By contrast, EQ2 had a flawless launch by all accounts I've read, but when you have what, 5 people buy the game it tends to run smoothly. Ok, that's not fair, they had many more people than that. At least over 20 or so.
But WoW is running smooth now on my server. No lag now, never a que still...for me at least. So far it's been a great game. And no, it's not a "MMORPG for newbies" either. No more than any other MMORPG out there.
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:2)
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:2)
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:3, Interesting)
I almost bought it the other day, but $15/mo seemed a little expensive to me, too.
However, after this article, I have decided I'm going to go out and buy it today. This action by Blizzard has made the decision for me. I've played so many MMORPGs that were boring level treadmills *and*
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:3, Funny)
Everquest had its extended by 2 weeks in 1999. Since then, nearly all MMO companies with bad launches have been extending the trial period. It is the default behavior to expect. Traditionally, if a MMO had an awful launch and *didn't* extend i
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've had bad experiences with MMORPGs in the past. Aside from them simply being incredibly boring, I've found that they always fail to plan ahead to handle the sheer scale of players. Not to mention massive glitches. Sometimes major ones like only getting 3fps and not being able to login got the first few weeks to smaller but annoying things.
I've had good experiences with Rubies of Eventide and A Tale In The Desert - but everything
Re:Been playing since day one... (Score:2)
I do highly doubt though that EQ2 has hit even a total of 200k subscribers at this point.
Very stand up (Score:2)
I will probably try WoW, but I really wish that SWG had been the Space/Sci-Fi MMO I was looking for.
It was bound to happen (Score:1)
Re:3 Servers are STILL down from 2nd day of "launc (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it like this: WHAT do you want them to do, exactly? Migrate your entire clan to another server transparently?
They have too many people on your server. Now, they've created 88 apprently new servers for people to use, but you begrudgingly want to stick to the server that has horrible performance because you have a 2 day frigging history. If you play the game for more than a month, will it really matter in the long run? Nah. You'll probably end up having characters on other servers anyways to play horde & alliance.
Honestly, you have to stop being stubborn and realize that this problem can't be fixed without people making concessions, and for me, my first server was ItemLaged since day 2. What did I do? I moved to a new server. Problem solved. Alliances are more difficult, but it comes down to the same principle, if you start the game from day 1, expect problems, I don't care how confident you were with pre-open beta (open beta did suck a$$ for item lag, you can't deny that), this is slightly larger scale.
Re:3 Servers are STILL down from 2nd day of "launc (Score:2, Troll)
This isn't just a prestige/ego thing, although that's no small part of it. In the first few months of a MMORPG, those who are at the "top" get to engage in the greatest share of genuine discovery, in terms of quests, abilities, areas to explore and so on. Once you fall behind the pack, the rest of the game i
Re:3 Servers are STILL down from 2nd day of "launc (Score:3, Informative)
Across all 88 realms, there is only 1 Legions of Doom (made up name, probably a real guild).
That's a cool name, im sure the guild master from beta wanted that name and joined the first realm avialable. The problem is that there are hundreds of names that people wanted to re
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad thats BEFORE expenses. Say 1/3 of that goes to server maintanence, another 1/3 goes to salaries and working on upgrades and add-ons, and finally another 1/6 for everything else (break downs, advertising, paying the GMs, etc). After all that, its $250,000 ASSUMING nothing goes wrong, not counting taxes, and no one attempts to sue Blizzard because 'their game made their son/daughter/husband/spousee commit suicide/run away/divorce.'
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:2)
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:2)
They upgraded to 80 servers recently right? Considering we're talking about high-end, 1000+ users minimum servers a price tag of $10,000 is nothing. 80 * $10,000 is $800,000. Thats more than 1/2 of their first month of income if they pull in $1.5 million a month. Assume 2 system operators for all the servers and they each get paid a simple salary of $60,000 a y
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:1)
So they are easily bringing in more than a million a month profit, assuming of course bandwith + salaries + maintenance is under $500,000 a mo
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:1)
What I suggested was merely an overhead view of what they'll have to pay. If you want to sound fancy with tax write offs, crediting, fixed costs, and revenue in the long term rather than short term, you still don't pull an income for at least a year. Blizzard probably OWES an easy 5 million just fo
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:1)
Even if they did use cash to buy the servers outright, the accountants will amortize (I think that's the correct term) them over their expected lifetime.
As for the other expenses, well I don't have the foggiest idea what they are. Electricity, bandwidth, payroll, and the other expenses would be too hard to guess
Re:200,000? Talk about a few bucks... (Score:2)
They say they yearly bring in around $45 million and spend around $14 million on costs.
Not a bad profit.
Does No One Know How to Read? (Score:5, Informative)
Why do none of the
From the *LINKED* article:
To keep up with the demand from our players, 47 new servers were made available, increasing the total number of servers to 88.
Is the above sentence really that difficult to comprehend?
I've thought about becoming a paid subscriber many times, but goofs like this always prevent me.
Europe (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Europe (Score:1)
Free Trial? Free Month?? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about: Month included and paid for as part of the $50? $50 for a game engine (no source) and no right to play would be silly.
Guess that doesn't roll off the tongue however...
Re:Free Trial? Free Month?? (Score:1)
No your example has absolutely nothing to do with this situation. No it does not prove anything.
Please go away.
People buy in the box MMOG with the full expectation of receiving a free month. That is always how it has been. It was also written on the box.
Thus if they fail to deliver, they should reemburse. This also has always been done. In fact I don't know of a MMOG release that did not end up having to do this?
I am sure there must be one....
88 servers (Score:2, Funny)
Re:88 servers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:88 servers (Score:1)
Re:88 servers (Score:1)
No link to the Blizzard forum post. (Score:2, Interesting)
I haven't...
Also, Blizzard forum accts have been hacked before iirc.
I'll believe it when the announcment is sitting in my inbox...
Re:No link to the Blizzard forum post. (Score:2)
Love the game (Score:1)
Re:Love the game (Score:2)
Re:Love the game (Score:2)
Re:Love the game (Score:1)
Re:Love the game (Score:1)
Re:Love the game (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 has how many players? (Score:1)
Re:EQ2 has how many players? (Score:1)
Both games are great in different ways; both have outstanding merits on a technical and game design/philosophy level. They are vastly different in style and in their mission: WoW is focused on providing a world for players to play in however they wish, with an emphasis on allowing people to solo up to 60 if they wish, whereas EQ2 co
Pretty small servers (Score:1)
Re:Pretty small servers (Score:3, Informative)
Still, even with everyone in the newbie zones, it is not as bad as say the bazar from EQ 1. The trick right now it se