Category: World of Warcraft

[World of Warcraft] 2nd UPDATE: The servers remained down for about 24 hours. Everyone on the affected realms will get a free day.

The 17 or so problem servers that are oh so prone to crashes and restarts are down again tonight. They went down a little after midnight PST and Blizzard is estimating that they will not be up and running again until 6AM PST. I logged on hoping to get on one of my level 2 RP server alts. Back when downtime was more common, the RP servers (usually stable due to low populations) would see an influx of players killing time while waiting for their realms to go back on. This would of course lead to some hilarious exchanges.

Continue reading Stay Alive! I’m Talking to You WoW Servers

[World of Warcraft] My wife told me a few weeks ago, “I’d like to try that game of yours.” To which I had to ask “What game?” Turns out it was World of Warcraft. Ugh. I really didn’t want to give them any more money, but the chance to introduce my wife to an MMORPG was just too great to pass up.

I intended on just letting her play without my interference. I tried, but it was pretty hard to stay out of it. She ended up creating a Human Warlock female. She wanted Horde, but I talked her out of it, if only because I have been playing Horde characters forever.

Continue reading Is Hell Getting Chilly?

[World of Warcraft] Disclaimer: I did not write this.

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is an elf with an exclamation point above her head here.

>Talk elf

“Alas,” she says. “There is a great darkness upon the land. Fifty years ago the Dwarf Lord Al’ham’bra came upon the Dragon Locket in the Miremuck Caverns. He immediately recognized the …”

> Click Accept

“Hey,” the elf protests. “This is important expository. Azeroth is a rich and storied land, with a tapestry of interwoven …”

> Click Accept

“OK, fine. Bring me six kobold tails.”

Read the rest at WIRED.

[World of Warcraft] I met a friend that I haven’t seen in a while for lunch today. He’s been playing WoW since Beta thanks to a friend at Blizzard that got him in. His guild has been around since then and is now the top guild in his PvP server. The man loves the game and talking to him about it can be frustrating at times since he has developed a bit of an ego about it. His server is currently lagging far behind my humble low population PvE server and I took the chance today to rip him about it a little. He sounded dejected the moment I brought it up and went on to explain how bad things have gotten on his server.

Continue reading Stay Tuned

[World of Warcraft] I figured I’d pop in to WoW for a little chat with my buddies tonight. 700 person queue, FU Blizzard.

So I figured I’d just pop into one of the other servers I have alts on and just do a little adventuring. 566 queue, 742 queue, 581 queue, on and on and on. Not a single server I can get on. FU Blizzard.

I sort the servers by population. All full except for about 20 PvP worlds that say medium. Nice planning, FU Blizzard.

What kind of a bullcrap operation they running over there? FU Blizzard.

I’m done. Where’s that Everquest II box?

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] Happy New Year everybody! Surprisingly, World of Warcraft will feature a special New Year’s Eve event (actually I think they had one last year, but much smaller in scope). That brings up the obvious question of who is going to spend New Year’s Eve in front of the computer…

Anyways, this is gonna be Blizzard’s last special event of the year. They had some minor ones like Easter Egg hunts and Fourth of July fireworks this year. Hallow’s End made its first appearance and was fairly fun, especially the trick or treating at inns. They brought back Winter Veil better than before. The only minor disappointment was the 1 year anniversary of WoW. EQ2 players got special titles and in game items while WoW players got nothing. Well, not exactely nothing. They had special drawings for graphics cards, but there were 30 winners out of their 5 million player base so… I didn’t win.

Here’s hoping the NYE event is a good one =) [Details here! Click me! Happy New Year!]

[World of Warcraft] Blizzard has said hello to many players over the past year, now crossing the 5 million mark. I’m pretty sure nobody believed an MMO would have sold this well.

With that level of popularity comes some negatives as well. Scammers, thiefs, beggars, cheaters, farmers, crooks, and low life scum. Blizzard has occasionally said goodbye to large groups of accounts, the success of such actions are questionable but at least they are trying. The most recent round of bannings shut down over 18,000 accounts. That is around the total number of people playing EVE Online at any given moment, so it’s not a small amount.

I wonder if banning accounts really slows down the activities that caused the ban. I bet it’s a losing battle for Blizzard. Although, it probably is a financial gain for Blizzard anyway, because most of the banned people will just buy a new box and start over.

– Ethic

[World of Warcraft] Nick Yee put up a really, really nice gallery of images from inside World of Warcraft a good while back. Every time I go through this gallery, I resubscribe to WoW. So guess what that means I’ll be doing this weekend?

Check it out, and kudos to Nick for some fantastic shots.

– Ethic