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Expansion Day, Disaster waiting to happen or Perfection in Waiting?
shae
Member Posts: 2,509
So I think we all have a good idea on the history in regards to Blizzard patching WoW. Even the most basic of maintenance has quite often sent the servers reeling for 12 to 24 hours and the larger updates have often seen people continuing to have issues 3 and 4 days later.
We know this, we accept it as a quirk and move on, for the most part.
But this begs the question, Expansion Day is getting closer and closer, WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?
Let's face it, Blizzard's servers are going to take a beating, between people already playing, people waiting in the wings, re-subscriptions and new sign up's, stack that on top of a new patch AND an entire Expansion pack... is this a recipe for a complete Blizzard meltdown? Who knows.
Of course, it could also go the other way, hopefully the developement teams and engineering teams are hard at work and getting everything in order but again, if you take Blizzards previous experience into account that's not exactly a sure thing.
I know this is alot of heresay and guess work but hey, it's just for fun. So, add your thoughts. Whats going to happen?
Comments
The only thing I hope for is that they can deploy the expansion without major bugs etc. I can accept that the servers are overloaded, but I would hate to see the expansion bugged, or major stuff not working. I hope they decide to take some extra time to do it properly.
As for the server load I have to assume that populations will increase some, but how much I don't know. I would expect box sales to be high just from current subs alone, but I kinda doubt tons of new players will come in from the expac. I also have a hunch the number of old players coming back will not be all that high. If WoW is still increasing in western markets then there will probably be a bit of a jump in subs in December just due to holidays and then the expac will bump the subs up somemore. But I am doubting an explosion in subs even if box sales are good.
Combined with new hardware I don't think the load itself will be a problem, but I'm sure they will have all sorts of other funkiness.
I can't imagine that release will be an improvement over any ordinary patching day. As with the original release, I'm anticipating the heavier populated servers to be down for most of the day, with the smaller populations experiencing lag.
I'm sure the forums will be ablaze with hate and discontent, but I can't really blame players. If there's one real critique I have of WoW it's the server technology. My hope is that Blizzard, at least, makes an attempt to set player expectations.
Having said that, I'm sure I'll be one of the bazillion with game box in-hand, trying to load into WoW. ^_^
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Magic 8 ball says . . . .
The game will down for a day or more, and be lagged out and close to unplayable on most servers for days after that, maybe even a couple of weeks. If you are on an older server it will be worse, because they will get hit with new players and resubs at the same time. Newer servers won't have as many resubs because most folks don't quit until they hit 60 once or twice. There will probably also be a series of "emergency patches" in the month or so following launch in addition to the regular Tuesday maintanence, with the servers going down for 6-24 hours each time (and individual users beeing offline for longer than that because of Blizzard's goobtard patching system). In short, it will be hellish.
I hope I'm wrong about all this. But Blizzard has the worst patching system I've ever seen, and more server downtime than any other MMORPG I've played. The latter is probably due mostly to the fact that they are dealing with an order of magnitude more customers than most other MMORPGs, so I can't be too uspset about it. On the other hand, whoever designed their horrific patching system (take down your firewall and watch as your system struggles for an hour to dowload a 3 meg patch...umm derrrr...) is definitly on my doodoo list. One of the devs at the Austin conference noted in his address that it seems more designed to get customers to host the patch files themselves than to deliver the data effeciently....an accuarate assessment in my mind.
PS: Despite what I'm expecting, I'll be right there with you Ico :P
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Expect the same in BC launch, until everyone spreads out.
I suggest everyone starts on a low pop server.
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Joking aside, its going to be ugly no doubt about it.
D
I've officially said goodbye to WoW for the last time.
I will not be re-new my sub. I'm gonna play Oblivion until some of these new titles come out.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
D
I know that Blizzard has spread server population around with new realms and transfers, but it will be horrible.
I'm opting out of buying the expansion. If I ever buy the expansion it will be a few months after release.
I would hate to see the lag in Hellfire Penisula.