Posts from the Realm Status Category at WOW Insider

Voice chat activated for EU realms

Posted Oct 10th 2007 9:30AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Patches, Realm Status

With the arrival of patch 2.2.3 on the EU realms today, European players should finally be getting voice chat functionality on all realms. Here's to hoping they've taken the time between the US rollout and the EU rollout to work all of the kinks out of the system -- though initial reports aren't promising. At present, voice chat seems to be working on a very limited number of realms, though Blizzard is working on the issue.

However, voice chat is working on at least some European realms -- so now I'm going to ask the European players the same thing I asked US players last week: how's the voice chat feature working for you? How's the rollout going?Tell us all about it in the comments!

Patch 2.2.3 live

Posted Oct 9th 2007 10:12AM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Patches, Realm Status

Well, that one didn't last long on the PTR. Patch 2.2.3 is now live and downloadable; here are the patch notes:

Clients utilizing OpenGL video modes will no longer experience graphical anomalies and missing textures after minimizing/maximizing the window.
Fixed an issue that caused Fel Eye Stalks during the Legion Ring event to not despawn when the event is completed.
Fixed an issue where zoning after mounting and summoning a pet was disconnecting players.
Fixed an issue where the Shift key would get stuck in game.
Using a /equip macro while affected by certain crowd control spells will no longer cause the items in the macro to be stuck in your inventory.
Using very low values for SetScale() will no longer cause Mac users to disconnect from the game.
Default sound channels have been changed from 12 to 32.
Microphone resources will no longer be claimed by World of Warcraft when Voice Chat is disabled.
Sounds will no longer stutter and pause if large amounts of creatures are being hit with AoE attacks from multiple sources.
Sounds caused by spells cast on or by the player will now play more consistently.

So that seems like it should fix some of the sound glitches we have been suffering from. And the missing textures after min/maximizing the window under Open GL (read: Mac) is a small thing, but it's been around for ages and it's nice that they've finally gotten to it.

[via World of Raids, and thanks to Atryd]

More Brewfest brouhaha

Posted Oct 4th 2007 5:00AM by Dan O'Halloran
Filed under: Events, Bugs, Realm Status

While some Brewfest events are hotfixed, others are stubbornly refusing to work without a full server restart. Community Manager Drysc spells it on a late night forum post. The short version, for those whose eyes aren't up to extensive reading after last night's festivities, is this:

Dark Iron attacks are disabled for now. The large number of people using the /wave emote during the twice hourly event was causing many to crash repeatedly.
Blizzard will reinstate the attacks before Brewfest is over as soon if they figure out a work around to the crashing problem..
Ticket rewards for other Brewfest activities have been increased to compensate for the lack of Dark Iron generated tickets. The Barking quest reward increases from 15 to 40 and the Keg Delivery quest increases each keg to 3 tickets (and can be done every 12 hours.)
Until the Dark Iron attacks are brought back, "Complimentary Brewfest Samplers" acquired by /waving are disabled (confirming the /wave emote/crashing problem)
Brewfest Goggles which were implemented with a temporary duration, will be permanent. A duration timer will show until the next patch, but can be ignored.
No /wave or emote is necessary to complete the Barker quest. Just be on the Riding Ram and pass close enough to the flags.
In a separate thread, it was confirmed that the Pink Elekk's quest is NOT a daily quest. Some players were able to do it twice due to a one-time reset.

The servers will be getting a rolling restart this morning at 5:00am PST. We'll have to keep an eye on the forums to see what got fixed and what's still bugged.

Maintenance extended for US realms

Posted Oct 2nd 2007 2:39PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status, Blizzard

Problems with the 2.2.2 holiday mini-patch, perhaps? Or is this just a continuation of a slightly bumpy voice chat launch last night? We don't have any official word on the reasoning for this extended downtime, but the login screen is currently telling us that maintenance has been extended for two hours and not to expect realms back online until 1:00 PM PDT, or 4:00 PM EDT.

Need to pass the time? Well, I always find going through the day's posts on Cute Overload! to be a worthwhile diversion, but if that's too much cute and not enough funny, there's I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER for all of your lolcat requirements.

Voice chat being rolled out to all US realms

Posted Oct 1st 2007 4:50PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Rolling restarts are happening this afternoon on all US realms that do not yet have voice chat enabled in order to enable voice chat. I can only presume that voice chat is working well on the 42 realms it's currently enabled on, because Blizzard is adding the remaining 183 realms to the service en masse. I can't personally comment on the quality of the service, as it has not yet been implemented on any of the realms I play -- but if this round of restarts goes well, we'll all know by tomorrow. Drysc's original thread about voice chat has been updated with the list of realms that will have voice chat enabled today and Nethaera chimes in to clarify that, yes, this is all remaining realms. Restarts are expected to be finished and all realms back online by 2:00 PM PDT (that's 5:00 PM EST for you on the opposite coast). So if all goes well, expect your realm to be back up soon.

Battleground and Arena instability across all realms

Posted Sep 27th 2007 6:38PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Bugs, Realm Status, PvP

Are Battlegrounds and Arenas your favorite things to do in-game? Well, for today at least you may want to reconsider. Both US and EU realms are reporting problems with Battlegrounds and Arenas that are causing players to get stuck inside after the Battleground or Arena has finished. Having not heard of any issues with PvP yesterday, I've got to wonder if this might have something to do with the hotfixes applied early this morning. (Though I don't have any details on what the hotfixes were applied to fix -- it could have been related to voice chat -- rolling restarts to apply them started in the US at 5:00 AM PDT and ended at 7:20 AM PDT -- with the initial post about Battleground and Arena issues coming at 7:25 AM PDT, the timing is suspicious.) Though Blizzard is working on the problem, we don't yet have any information on when the issue may be resolved, but until then, EU CM Aeus says that if you're stuck in a Battleground or Arena, you may safely escape by either exiting and restarting your game client or by entering /afk (which, if done when the Battleground is finished, should kick you out without marking you as a deserter).

Realm-crashing exploit going around

Posted Aug 27th 2007 4:59PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Bugs, Realm Status

Before you ask, no, I'm not going to reveal how to crash a realm in just a few simple steps. It would be chaos. However, there is, in fact, just such a technique making the rounds of the internet. Hopefully it will be fixed very soon -- one commenter I've seen says that his realm went down four times in 20 minutes. I'd say that qualifies as a serious problem. If you've been having realm stability issues lately, perhaps some jerks performing this exploit are to blame. And Blizzard? Please get this fixed ASAP.

How's your realm been?

P.S. If you know the exploit, please don't post it here. Realm crashing is not cool. If you do post it, your comment will be deleted.

Update: Blue says a fix is on the way, without actually saying they're fixing a player exploit.

Breakfast Topic: The perfect server

Posted Aug 18th 2007 8:31AM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Breakfast topics

Spiritus has a good quesiton on WoW Ladies: if you could transfer, right now, to any server, what would you look for in the server you moved to?

What makes the perfect server? I can think of a lot of things that would go into the server decision.

If you had friends there already (this was the reason I rolled on the server I'm on now)
Server population
Server age (you reroll locusts)
AH prices
Guilds and progression
Server type (PvE, PvP, or RP)
And does anyone consider the server name in their choice? Would you rather be on Arthas or Thrall?

So if you could conjure up your perfect server, what would it be like and why? If Blizzard offered transfers tomorrow to any realm, what would server heaven be like for you?

The Great WoW Insider Stormwind Stampede

Posted Aug 15th 2007 6:15PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Events, Fan stuff, Realm Status, WoW Insider Business, Guilds, Contests, Humor, It came from the Blog

This was the scene last night on the Horde side of Zangarmarsh, as WoW Insider's It Came from the Blog made bovine history and ran roughly 500 cows from Mulgore to Stormwind. Amidst shouts of "For the Herd!" and "Moooo," hundreds of level one Taurens appeared in Camp Narache -- blue shirts were premade by our own Krystalle and given out to the guildies that showed up, but first we ran out of shirts, and then we ran out of guild invites as we hit the system limit. Last I heard we had eight raid groups going, we had taken over one Ventrilo server, tons of guilds from both Zangarmarsh and other realms (including those down for maintenance) got involved, and at least a few thousand yells went out across the land. Finally, at 8pm server, Krystalle counted us down and the race began.

We stuck to the road for a good thirty seconds, but eventually got split up in the Barrens-- we'd planned to all go on the Zep, but another group (including me), split off to take the boat from Ratchet. In Stranglethorn, many burgers were made-- I stuck to the center of the group and watched cows get downed by tigers left and right. I didn't die until Westfall, when stupid human guards on the road decided to one-shot me.

Finally, at Stormwind, the scene was chaos-- cows dead everywhere, as stepping inside an Alliance city, even on a PvE server, flags you. People were AoEing on the Stormwind bridge, and even just inside the city, guards were felling cows left and right. A few people made it to the tram (unfortunately, the closest graveyard useable by Horde is all the way at the Eastvale Logging Camp, so it was a long run back), but we heard that the first person to find our Alliance plant, Insiderspy, and blow her a kiss, was Fiverr, our winner. Fiverr gets exactly what everyone else got, though-- a great time. Here's a gallery of what happened (updated as we add more and more photos to it), and we'll put more videos after the break as we find and hear about them. Thanks to everyone who came out! For the Herd!

*edited to add* Another video is available after the jump!

Gallery: WoW Insider's Stormwind Stampede

Continue reading The Great WoW Insider Stormwind Stampede

34 realms down for 48 hours

Posted Aug 10th 2007 11:52PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status

Well, this is going to upset some people. Not me, you understand, because I'm not on one of the affected realms, but...well, let me just give you the news straight from Blizzard's Breaking News box:

Beginning Monday, August 13 at 11:55 PM PDT we will be performing maintenance on the following realms. This maintenance will be conducted as a means to optimize our World of Warcraft infrastructure for teh associated realms, and is expected to last approximately 48 hours. Please note that during this time, some services such as the Armory or Paid Character Transfers may be unavailable. Your patience and understanding are appreciated.

Aggramar, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Elune, Eonar, Eredar, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lihgning's Blade, Llane, Lothar, Madoran, Magtheridon, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Shadowmoon, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Stormrage, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Trollbane, Warsong, Zul'jin

Yikes! That's a lot of realms to bring down for two days. For those of you on the affected servers, you have my condolences. I guess it's time to go out, do some shopping, clean the kitchen, watch TV...or just play an alt on another server. I hope players with characters on those servers will get playtime credits.

[thanks, Elo]

Urgent maintenance for US realms

Posted Aug 1st 2007 11:28PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Realm Status

Blizzard has announced that they need to perform urgent maintenance on select US realms. There's no word on what the maintenance is for -- not that this is a surprise, as it's exceedingly rare that we get any specific reasons for downtime. (Perhaps this is for the best, since detailed info might just wind up being over-our-heads-techspeak.) However it's apparently not critical enough to require immediate downtime, as Blizzard isn't bringing any realms down until early Thursday morning, between 5:00 AM PDT and 7:00 AM PDT. So if you play on any of the following realms, be prepared to have a couple of hours of free time: Antonidas, Anub'arak, Blackwater Raiders, Bladefist, Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Darrowmere, Drenden, Echo Isles, Farstriders, Fenris, Hydraxis, Hyjal, Korialstrasz, Lightbringer, Maiev, Misha, Mok'Nathal, Moon Guard, Nazgrel, Nordrassil, Quel'dorei, Ravenholdt, Rivendare, Shandris, Shu'halo, Sisters of Elune, The Forgotten Coast, Tortheldrin, Uther, or Vashj.

Extended downtime this week for selected realms

Posted Jul 31st 2007 1:13AM by Krystalle Voecks
Filed under: Realm Status, News items

[I can't possibly make this funnier than Penny Arcade did, so I won't try. Go read their comic about Chore Wars.]

Sure enough, the words that many WoW players dread to hear have been issued by Senior Game Master Khrogul. While this week should have been a quick rolling restart week, it would appear that it is not to be the case for several realms including the <It Came from the Blog> server, Zangarmarsh. Of course, you need have no worry! We will be with you through the downtime -- assuming you don't nip off and instead decide to get involved in a hardcore Chore Wars game in the meantime.

For those wanting to check out the complete list of servers and the estimated length of downtime, I've copied the official Blue post after the jump for you. It's just another service we offer -- sparing folks from having to battle the slow forum servers on downtime day!

Continue reading Extended downtime this week for selected realms

Rolling restarts this week for US realms

Posted Jul 17th 2007 4:25AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Realm Status, Blizzard

Happy Tuesday, everyone! This week's regular maintenance cycle for US realms will be performed via rolling restarts of all realms, starting at 5:00 AM PDT today. What this means, of course, is that we shouldn't expect more than 15 minutes of downtime while the realms are restarted -- though we can't say precisely when the restarts will occur for each realm. (Blizzard will be working their way down the realm list, so your realm could come up right at five o'clock or could be left for last.)
In addition to the rolling restarts, Blizzard will also be performing some authentication system maintenance during an unspecified time period today. However, the maintenance shouldn't hinder our ability to log on to the game. So play on, everyone!

[via Breaking News on the login screen]

Should you create on a recommended realm?

Posted Jul 4th 2007 2:16PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Realm Status

When given the option to create a new character, Blizzard offers you a list of realms which are marked with their population -- but a handful of them, instead of showing population, are simply marked as "Recommended." However, these are marked recommended for a reason -- because they're small realms in need of new players. In fact some players on the official forums say that the recommended realms are simply ghost towns: places you can never find a group to do quests or instances, where end-game raids are non-existent, and where the auction house is empty of interesting goods (after all, there's no one to put them there!). But on the other hand, the recommended realms aren't going to have queues or lag issues -- and should hopefully be growing as new and rerolling players pick the clearly marked "recommended" realms.

But what do you think? If you rerolled today, would a recommended realm catch your interest? Or would you pick a higher population realm that had plenty of players and an active economy?

Drat! Extended maintenance!

Posted Jul 3rd 2007 2:32PM by Krystalle Voecks
Filed under: Realm Status, Odds and ends, News items

Sure enough, I go to log in to poke around with macros and numbers for tomorrow's Encrypted Text column, and what am I greeted with on the login screen? The dreaded message indicating that the downtime has been extended further.

Per the login screen:

Extended Maintenance

We will be extending our regularly schedule Tuesday maintenance for an estimated two hours in order to resolve an issue with our authentication system. We anticipate the realms will be available at approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT, and will provide an update to the situation in approximately 1 hour.

Thank you,

Blizzard Entertainment

Yep. I'm an addict. I love Roguing it up, and I'll admit I was really looking forward to getting back on and playing around with macros and different settings -- as well as checking out a different damage meter mod I just snagged. Is there anything you're looking forward to when you can get back in? Gotten a particularly tasty piece of loot lately that you didn't get to really take for a spin before the server shut down? One of your auctions going to make you a lot of money when you log back in? Or is the ability to log in just the symbol of the end of a day of work, and the start of relaxation time for you? (Hey, that's more than enough of a reason right there!)

Next Page >

Sep	OCT	Nov
	26
2006	2007	2008

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Mike Schramm	105	29
2	Elizabeth Harper	79	3
3	Dan O'Halloran	59	1
4	Amanda Rivera	39	7
5	David Bowers	33	4
6	Eliah Hecht	27	25
7	Matthew Rossi	27	36
8	Robin Torres	23	7
9	Eric Vice	11	2
10	Mark Crump	7	0
11	Krystalle Voecks	7	1
12	Arthur Orneck	6	0
13	Lisa Poisso	6	3
14	Elizabeth Wachowski	5	0
15	Scott Andrews	4	0
16	Chris Jahosky	4	8
17	Amanda Miller	4	0
18	Daniel Howell	3	0
19	Barb Dybwad	2	2

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