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  1. #1

    Maintenance and Hardware Upgrades Saturday, Garrison Addons, Nov 14 Hotfixes

    Pylons in GR, Ancient Items, Blizzcon Interviews, D2 Ladder reset

    Goblins vs Gnomes Card Reveal: Shieldmaiden, Deck Talk: Darkwonyx's Paladin Mountain Giants

    BlizzCon Heroes Developer Interview With Kaeo Milker, BlizzCon Panel Recaps

    US and EU Maintenance Saturday
    Another round of maintenance is coming, this time with some hardware upgrades that should allow significantly more players to play at once. This will be done by phasing all of Draenor like the Tanaan Jungle intro zone.

    • US Maintenance - Starts on Saturday, November 15, at 03:00 AM PST and lasts until 9:00 AM PST.
    • EU Maintenance - Starts on Saturday, November 15, at 04:00 AM GMT and lasts until 10:00 AM GMT.
    • We obviously expected an increase in logins, and prepared for well above what we were expecting. The actual amount is far above even that. (CM_Lore)

    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Update 7:07 p.m. PST
    We’re making preparations for the Europe maintenance beginning in just an hour, and along with hardware upgrades we will be implementing some of the performance improvements we’ve been testing. One of these is a fairly large change to the way the game world is run by the servers—expanding the phasing tech used for the Tanaan intro experience to the entire continent of Draenor. This will allow us to run multiple copies of Draenor simultaneously, spreading out server population, while attempting to keep guilds and parties within the same copy. We’re currently running tests of this tech on a few North American realms, and have found we’re able to raise realm capacity by a significant amount. We’ll continue to provide updates as we progress through the Europe maintenance, and prepare to apply the same changes on the Americas and Oceanic realms.

    - - -

    Update 6:00 p.m. PST

    We’re continuing to work on improving realm and login stability, reducing Character Not Found errors, and hotfixing in-game issues. We’re making progress ahead of maintenance on a couple performance improvements, and we’re in the process of testing those improvements now on a few realms. Maintenance is beginning for our Europe realms in just a couple hours, and we’ll continue providing regular updates here throughout the night.

    Thank you again to everyone for your patience while we continue to work around the clock to address performance issues.

    - - -

    Last night we scheduled maintenance for Europe to implement server changes to help improve realm performance, and scheduled the same for the Americas/Oceanic realms today. With the maintenance in EU we experimented with raising population caps, and we’re continuing to make adjustments up and down to ensure a smoother game experience. Today we’re continuing to hotfix in-game issues, address any login and authentication issues occurring from the high number of players attempting to play, and make any changes and adjustments we can while the game is live. While these changes have made a marked improvement for the in-game experience, we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

    As most of you are aware, the demand on the game is extremely high right now, leading to increased queue times on many realms. We’re also seeing some login errors as a result. This is compounded by us needing to temporarily lower the population caps on all realms to help assist in realm stability issues due to a number of in-game factors that are putting greater than normal strain on the game servers. For those in-game now we’re seeing fairly stable gameplay, but with some continued issues when phasing into the Garrison. Even with lowered population caps we’re not seeing performance where it needs to be.

    We've been working toward much larger and longer term service improvements, which we’ll be implementing with off-peak maintenance tonight. A large portion of this extended maintenance will be upgrades to server hardware to help cope with the increased demand we’re seeing. We’re optimistic that hardware upgrades as well as some additional fixes and changes will resolve the in-game issues primarily centered around accessing Garrisons. We’re also continuing to test and implement new performance improvements whenever and wherever possible.

    We appreciate your continued patience, and we’ll be providing updates here as work progresses. If you use Twitter, we recommend following @BlizzardCS and @Warcraft for updates as well.

    Service Status and Communication
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    I get that this has been a rocky launch and the servers are stressed, you need to take them down for a few hours to resolve some issues. That's fine, we all would rather the game be running all weekend at 100%.

    I just wish you would communicate with your fans/customers better than the robotic way you do now.

    We can only communicate about what we know to be true. We're doing what we can to communicate as quickly as we can on key issues with everyone, but there's a lot being done on this end that can't be communicated or communicated right away. As you can see by the hotfixes (Rygarius has been posting), we've been sharing those out as quickly as possible. Both Zaryhm and Bashiok (among others on the team) spent time getting more information on things out last night as well. We have people from multiple departments working around the clock to monitor issues and work on fixes including the CS team here on the forums and on Twitter. This is not anything new for us though. It's what we strive to do with every patch and expansion.

    It may seem robotic to you, but we want to also make sure that when we are communicating that we're as precise as possible in what we say and don't want to come across glib to those who may not understand how seriously we take resolving these issues with everyone.

    We're working and trying to communicate that work to you as we can, but our primary focus is resolving issues as quickly as possible. We are right with you in that we both want you to play and enjoy Draenor and we also want to be able to play and enjoy Draenor. These things are not mutually exclusive. We're on the same side here.

    You should always add two hours to your estimate. Then it looks better when you finish early.
    We've had that occur many times. Rarely do people come to the forums to talk about it... because they're playing at that point.

    Unknown on the population numbers yet being bumped up. Believe it or not, sometimes we do end up waiting to the last minute in the hope we don't have to extend maintenance, but try to inform people right away.

    Honest question here - are you given the discretion to answer questions by yourself (or anyone else on the team) or do you guys kind of post by committee to make sure the posting is crafted properly, without giving too much information out, or worse, implying information you absolutely aren't saying. Again, an honest, no sarcasm question into the mind of a CM and how you guys communicate.
    It depends on the situation. Delicate high level information gets a lot of oversight to make sure it's correct and appropriate to go out. Other things can be more off the cuff and we're trusted to know where that line is.

    World of Warcraft Addon - Broker Garrison
    Today we are looking at another helpful addon, Broker Garrison. This addon requires a DataBroker display like Bazooka. It tracks garrison related things across all of your characters, making it easier to know when to check on alts:

    • Track the status of missions, building and upgrade processes, work orders, garrison resource and apexis crystals, and more.
    • Allows you to hide and mute Blizzard's notifications and replace them with custom toasts. You will have more control of the toasts with Toaster.
    • Invasion support is on the todo list.



    World of Warcraft Addon - Breeze
    Another garrison releated addon worth mentioning is Breeze. The animations that play after a mission are fun a few times, but the novelty will eventually wear off and you will want to click through them faster. This addon gets rid of the small animation that plays before you can collect your loot. Unfortunately it doesn't completely bypass having to click through mission results yet!



    Patch 6.0.3 Hotfixes - November 14
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
    • Mine: Mining carts should now be easier to spot and should contain more than 1 piece of ore.
    • Rangari Jonaa and Limbflayer should now spawn in for characters that have selected the Sparring Arena for their outpost in Gorgrond.
    • Followers
      • Artificer Romuul: Resolved an issue where characters were not receiving the quest.

    Classes

    Quests
    • Defense of Karabor: Resolved an issue where characters may not receive completion credit for the quest.
    • I See Dead People: Resolved an issue where Bryan Finn may become unresponsive.
    • Kaelynara Sunchaser: Resolved an issue where characters were unable to return to their bodies in Spirit Form if they die inside the Jorune Mines.
    • Leave Nothing Behind!: Kur'ak the Binder now spawns more frequently.
    • Mulverick's Plight: Increased the drop rate for Mulverick's Axe.
    • Save Wolf Home: Gronnstalker Korhol, Beastmaster Trokar, and Giantslayer Zhakta should now spawn more frequently. Additionally, resolved an issue where characters may be unable to complete profession quests while this quest is active.
    • The Defense of Karabor: Resolved an issue where completing this quest may cause characters to be unable to progress if they're also on the quest for The Righteous March.

    Creatures
    • Echo of Murmur now spawns more frequently.
    • Made a pass on a number of rare creatures to allow multiple players to receive credit for personal loot if they helped defeat them.
    • Reduced the density of Squirrels in Nagrand and critters and Icespine Hatchlings in Frostfire Ridge.
    Last edited by chaud; 2014-11-15 at 04:07 AM.

  2. #2
    Really.. ANOTHER Maintance? geezes.. you are a failure. Atleast you are "upgrading hardware" this time, but come on. I feel stupid for even paying for the game each month lol xD 2 maintances within 2days gg. You are not prepared!

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Im happy for the maintance. Its good because there is a chance it will be better... and its good, cause if I cant play, no one should

    I really like the animations when followers come back.

  4. #4
    Stood in the Fire m2geek's Avatar
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    Tempted to start a petition to get game time back, as well as some other compensation for this Monumental screw up. I'm a patient person, but having to wait 6 hours to log in, then to find out there is maintenance in 6 hours from now - Totally screws my weekend funtime plans.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by m2geek View Post
    Tempted to start a petition to get game time back, as well as some other compensation for this Monumental screw up. I'm a patient person, but having to wait 6 hours to log in, then to find out there is maintenance in 6 hours from now - Totally screws my weekend funtime plans.
    You don't need to petition. They have generally heaped generous amounts of game time on players after this sort of disruption happened in the past. Also, internet petitions are pretty useless.

  6. #6
    The Patient Higgit's Avatar
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    I got home from work at 5.30pm...

    Joined a 4000 strong queue, fell asleep around 11pm with around 800 left.

    Woke with the Disconnected window an hour ago, queued for 50 mins got in, at which point the game went down for another 6 hour maintenance.

    Thanks for the update though, I hope they can fix their problems this time.

    Also thanks for the addon advice, I downloaded both of them!

  7. #7
    Stood in the Fire m2geek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by medvedev View Post
    You don't need to petition. They have generally heaped generous amounts of game time on players after this sort of disruption happened in the past. Also, internet petitions are pretty useless.

    This is far worse than anything I've experienced in the past, and i've been playing/subbed since the start of BC - and I can't recall these kinds of lockouts/queues to get on ever...


    I've been waiting for almost 6 hours to log in on my Oceanic realm.

    Utterly unacceptable.



  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by mikkis2k View Post
    Really.. ANOTHER Maintance? geezes.. you are a failure. Atleast you are "upgrading hardware" this time, but come on. I feel stupid for even paying for the game each month lol xD 2 maintances within 2days gg. You are not prepared!
    i would rather have 4 hours maintenance every day then 4 hours stuck in garrison not be able to turn in quest thats part of main storyline...

  9. #9
    It's sad. I came home yesterday to a queue of 5000. The wait was about 6 hours or more. So I went to bed in time thinking Ill wake up at 5 to play early before my daughter wakes up. Now, I woke up 5:30 to find out there is maintenance. I'm not angry at all because I understand it, I just feel so sad I haven't really been able to play with my limited time in the evening that I have. Tomorrow another day I guess (or well, today technically)!

  10. #10
    I don't want to complain even more when they are trying to solve the problem, but damn I feel cheated when came online at 4am just to play one hour. And that's 12 hours in queue due to a disconnect while waiting, even though my internet had 100% uptime.
    In my opinion there shouldn't be a problem in the first place when they've had a monthly fee for 10 years. Fifth expansion in the making and it is this hard to predict a total haywire like this? Even though it's only the second day I'm still losing motivation when a handful of people can advance and gain advantages over the others who are locked out. Where's the compensation?
    Last edited by Scathed; 2014-11-15 at 04:53 AM. Reason: Grammar

  11. #11
    Yeah honestly ummm still 1400 in queue, on Frostmourne, 7 hours and counting. 7 HOURS!

    Why would they try and blame DDOS attacks? Then they inform customers there blizzcon items are now available at the blizzard store while everyone just wants to play WoD.

    Honestly, I have lost a little respect for Blizzard after this launch. How can expansion launches go backwards after so many expansion releases?

    Blizzard: "Ok all what we have learnt, today we are putting all that in the corner and we are going to shit on it and not worry about it".

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Scathed View Post
    I don't want to complain even more when they are trying to solve the problem, but damn I feel cheated when came online at 4am just to play one hour. And that's 12 hours in queue due to a disconnect while waiting, even though my internet had 100% uptime.
    In my opinion there shouldn't be a problem in the first place when they've had a monthly fee for 10 years. Fifth expansion in the making and it is this hard to predict a total haywire like this? Even though it's only the second day I'm still losing motivation when a handful of people can advance and gain advantages over the others who are locked out. Where's the compensation?
    Yeah. Seems like the AFK system also needs to be fixed too. People just jump here and there, that's it, they stay online. The game should track decent gameplay. If not peeps get booted.

  12. #12
    Yeah great, start the maintenance during the hours the servers are actually playable.
    Better do it from 17-23; it´s not playable those hours anyway in this state.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Evilution View Post
    Yeah great, start the maintenance during the hours the servers are actually playable.
    Better do it from 17-23; it´s not playable those hours anyway in this state.
    Playing the devils advocate here; Keep in mind, what you define as 'playable' in your post is how able YOU are to play. Alot of other players have experienced acceptable to good performance during peakhour gameplay and I'm PRETTY sure that was weighed into the decision. Generally people only complain when things are not working for them (Which makes sense) but my game has been working relatively fine overall except the "World Server Down" and "Instance Not Found" issues once in a while.

    They opted for a time when less people were playing (Although I would have been aswell, so I understand your frustrations!) to deploy the upgrade and it seems smarter to me when you look at the big picture.

    You were one of those who could not play during regular hours AND has lost the playing time you set aside for tonight and that's sad, I feel for you. But night time is very, very likely the right time to make the updates regardless. Even if it was your smart way to dodging the issues.

  14. #14
    Well I don't feel bad for not having bought the expansion yet now and really glad I didn't put my game time card in yet. Though I can see them refunding some days after all this.

  15. #15
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Evilution View Post
    Yeah great, start the maintenance during the hours the servers are actually playable.
    Better do it from 17-23; it´s not playable those hours anyway in this state.
    I sort of agree here but come on, we both know that shutting them down at prime time on a weekend would cause much more drama.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by mikkis2k View Post
    Really.. ANOTHER Maintance? geezes.. you are a failure. Atleast you are "upgrading hardware" this time, but come on. I feel stupid for even paying for the game each month lol xD 2 maintances within 2days gg. You are not prepared!
    You obviously didn't play vanilla, or TBC, or WotLK. Vanilla was, more or less, unplayable for the first 6 months, and even after that there were still major issues that went on through to TBC. TBC launch was also horrible for the first month, but Blizzard was more prepared this time. WotLK was also a bit better, but with it's own issues, and Cata was even better. The only reason MoP was reasonably smooth was because Blizzard lost a lot of people in Cata, and even more in MoP, so they still had the architecture and expectations of WotLK; therefore, it turned into a good launch because they were prepared for 13M players, but instead only 9M turned up. This expansion is no different. Blizzard has been getting better and better, and it's all thanks to a mix of better tech, better hardware, and fewer players.

    It's not a Blizzard launch without crashes and disconnects every 10 minutes. This launch has been smoother than any other I've experienced from Blizzard.
    Last edited by Drihan; 2014-11-15 at 05:48 AM.
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  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Drihan View Post
    You obviously didn't play vanilla, or TBC, or WotLK.

    It's not a Blizzard launch without crashes and disconnects every 10 minutes. This launch has been smoother than any other.
    If you think this is the smoothest launch...you have serious issues. Cata and MoP, hell even WotLK was smoother than this one.
    Quote Originally Posted by Teriz View Post
    Except it would only be "textbook" confirmation bias if I fully believed that a third spec was actually coming.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Kasperio View Post
    Playing the devils advocate here; Keep in mind, what you define as 'playable' in your post is how able YOU are to play. Alot of other players have experienced acceptable to good performance during peakhour gameplay and I'm PRETTY sure that was weighed into the decision. Generally people only complain when things are not working for them (Which makes sense) but my game has been working relatively fine overall except the "World Server Down" and "Instance Not Found" issues once in a while.

    They opted for a time when less people were playing (Although I would have been aswell, so I understand your frustrations!) to deploy the upgrade and it seems smarter to me when you look at the big picture.

    You were one of those who could not play during regular hours AND has lost the playing time you set aside for tonight and that's sad, I feel for you. But night time is very, very likely the right time to make the updates regardless. Even if it was your smart way to dodging the issues.
    I fully get your point, i play on a very high pop realm so its impossible to do anything after people start coming home from work/school.
    Working nights this week so i got home around 5-6 AM hoping to get something done while most are still sleeping. Bam - Server Shut Down, 2 days in a row.
    Joined party with a pal who plays on another server (a "migrate free here-server") and that made it playable for a bit, but still, around an hour later
    that server was crawling to a halt. So FCM is not that appealing if the target servers are struggling almost as bad...

  19. #19
    warlords of draenor, more like maintenance of servers

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Hope they can get it fixed now...

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