***World of Warcraft : Warlords of Draenor***

Its fine now. They were being ddos'd last night which didn't help. MoP wasn't so great either, took hours to do quests.
 
Finally managed to get some time to play last night so hammered out 1.5 levels, only had one lag issue with the quest to cut down trees, though some people on general chat were moaning about a lot more.

From what people have said this appears to be the least smooth expansion launch to date but it was always to be expected. Connected realms should have been temporarily split prior to the expansion, it was a counter measure to falling subs and realm population but with the surge of returning players it has had the very predictable effect of placing record loads on servers, the bottlenecks like garrisons are not helping.
 
They should have reduced the player cap in game so that as soon as you logged in, it was stable, instead of having to queue for an unstable experience (yes the queues would be even longer, but I would have preferred that - and I already waited close to 2 hours in a queue of close to 4000!!!).

I have done all the quests in SMV that don't require the garrison as it was bugged last night... Hopping to get home early from work and blast through the garrison bit before everyone comes online later - The problem is, at the moment, you need to get ahead of the curve. As soon as you do that, the experience will be much better for all involved - its the clumping of players at single sections that is cueing the lag fest!


Edit - I also thought with phasing, this wouldn't happen as high population load was spread across servers? Although saying that, looking at the server list last night, there were only a few "medium" and "full" realms with the majority being "locked". Wonder how many people might have returned?
 
Played a bit more last night once I got out of the 2k queue into Dunemaul. Garrisons, once they were working for me, are a fantastic idea. Adds a nice new dimension to the game with sending followers on jobs and whatnot, and having backup at your beck and call is nice.

Top tip for actually getting into your garrison is to keep on moving towards it, even if you keep getting ported back to the 'border'. It does move you closer in chunks, and eventually you'll end up inside your instance with all NPCs etc. Bit of a pain in the rear, but it seems to be the easiest method to get it to work!
 
I think it is easy to criticise but without knowing the details as to why it has happened I have just chalked it to another expansion release, everyone expecting stuff to be perfect and perhaps more people returning that expected. I am not a blizzard fanboi but I do give them some leeway as they do not tend to screw people over like other big devs, Their only major failing with this has been a lack of communication as to what is going on and why.

I wasn't there at the launch of MoP but at Vanilla, BC, WotLK and Cata I was, The issues do seem to be getting slightly worse with each expansion but then the technology used and implemented with each expansion is getting more complex so I would expect teething issues and always plan my gaming accordingly.
 
Woogie said:
I think it is easy to criticise but without knowing the details as to why it has happened I have just chalked it to another expansion release, everyone expecting stuff to be perfect and perhaps more people returning that expected. I am not a blizzard fanboi but I do give them some leeway as they do not tend to screw people over like other big devs, Their only major failing with this has been a lack of communication as to what is going on and why.

I wasn't there at the launch of MoP but at Vanilla, BC, WotLK and Cata I was, The issues do seem to be getting slightly worse with each expansion but then the technology used and implemented with each expansion is getting more complex so I would expect teething issues and always plan my gaming accordingly.
Click to expand...
I disagree.

Lag related problems will happen unless you structure the release to take them into account.

The easiest to implement solution is a scaled release, with first pre-orders starting a number of days before, with each month a person pre-ordered closer to the date they begin a day earlier. Bingo - almost all the lag problems solved for everybody without being difficult to implement or to actually change the content (with the added bonus of any problems coming to light gradually, as opposed to instantly).

The problem is a lack of forethought clearly, as this isn't exactly rocket science - all they would need to do is flag accounts for a 'mail' which has an item which starts the new area. The mechanics of this are already linked to the stores for cosmetic purchases & rewards for purchasing other games on battle-net (so it's most certainly an option).
 
Last edited:
There's no saying that with a staggered release that there would also be no issues. You cannot state when people have time to play. I cannot imagine it would be easy to implement and it would all annoy a vast majority of the community.
 
Its not just the lag and garrisons problems though its the bat **** crazy quests design around only one person being able to click an interactive object (tree/lumber quest, initial garrison flag planting, stupid ass shamanstone quest in Frostfire Ridge). In this day and age they make no sense at all, they already have taggable mobs to alievate the problem but didnt think to expand on that???

What is ironic is that in the recent memories documentary they released they commented on how funneling the server population into one zone was stupid (AQ release) and yet here we are, making the same mistakes 8/9 years on.
 
I don't think they're prepared to put the work/money into such a thing. It's just easier from a perspective of their effort required to accept these issues at launch. People will still pay to play regardless. What's a few days of customer 'issues' to Blizzard, they've still got our money and we'll still play their game as their infrastructure allows it. Maybe I am just cynical.
 
It's a fairly integral part of WoW that guilds compete amongst themselves, so even gating the access to raids wouldn't prevent early starters from gerting a gear advantage in heroics, pvp gear etc. So while the idea of trickling people into the expansion has its merits, I don't think it would work with the way the game is now.
 
Kiyoshi said:
Maybe I am just cynical.
Click to expand...

I don't think you are. At some point a business decision will be made regarding the amount of money to be spent. Part of this decision will be deciding on the maximum level of disruption before the company's reputation takes a permanent dent and spending just enough to ensure no permanent harm.

That's not to say anyone at Blizzard wanted anything other than a perfect launch, but within the constraints of money spent they will have been aware that some problems were inevitable.
 
While saying they got DDoS'd is an easy excuse, it doesn't excuse the glaring problem that outside and away from the garrison network response and gameplay is fine on my server, but as soon as you go there there's about 200 people stacked and stuck in one location.

They've had and sorted out ddos issues quicker than this before, so I'm not sure if anyone can really validate if it happened or not and no, a picture from blizzard showing some nice animations isn't proof coming from the source :P It's broken.
 
Last edited:
I managed a bit of time on WoD last night. Yes there were some lag issues but it seemed to get better later in the evening. Quite impressed by the storyline and progression so far. I am trying to enjoy that aspect rather than rush through the levels to 100 only to stand about outside the SW bank with nothing to do! got plenty time to do that! Played my Priest and Warlock so far and tuning of encounters seems ok. Not oneshotting mobs but also not getting ganked. I think the game was better when it was a bit tougher and you needed to plan encounters with multiple mobs, use cc abilities etc. It still seems that you can pull 3/4 mobs with small risk of dying but that might just be the starting areas.
 
I tried logging in last night, queue of over 2300 on Silvermoon and estimated 108 minute wait. Yeah, good times! Blizzard should have worked on some sort of priority queue system for players that were playing before the expansion released to be honest. That way players that have been playing for the last few months can log in a bit quicker and can carry on.
 
Can't get into the garrison, keeps saying instance not found and transporting me out. I'm on CoA server. Might have to go and play CoD now, wonder if we'll be given any free time?

Couldn't even log out or exit game so just shut it down. Time to do some housework and earn some brownie points, I can cash them in when I'm playing the game late at night :)
 
Last edited:
Seems like I had it ok last night, I had 5 minute waits to get in and sometimes out of my garrison.

Instance not found just means you're stuck in a queue, you'll end up outside with loads of other people. When they all disappear it will let you in.

MW
 
Wonder if there's any way they can divert more of their infrastructure resources to the busiest servers like Draenor & Silvermoon?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom