Server Bugs Cause World Of Warcraft Expansion

Foged Daley

Sep 30, 2022 • 4 min read

World of Warcraft expansion hit by server bugs By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

17 November 2014

World of Warcraft subscribers are suffering crashes and long waits to play following the release of its latest expansion pack. was announced as the latest video game to experience computer server faults.

Developer Blizzard has published a series of blogs since Thursday , describing efforts to correct the problems.

These included the servers in Europe unavailable for nearly five hours on Saturday in order to upgrade the hardware.

One company observer said it was quite surprising considering the Blizzard experience.

The fifth expansion of WoW's fantasy role-playing game Warlords Of Draenor, went on sale Thursday. It gives access to Draenor the orc-controlled planet.

"While the majority of our players are able to play, we're very sorry that many are stuck in queues before they're able to gain entry due to a mix of demand and the mitigating measures we've taken," a spokesman for Blizzard informed the BBC.

"We've been working round the clock to upgrade hardware as well as to implement new software solutions to reduce the time it takes to enter and we've already noticed an improvement in the process."

Other titles that are currently having server issues include Microsoft's sci-fi shooter, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which also was released last week.

343 Industries, the developer of the system, has admitted that there are "frustrating bugs" with the Matchmaking system. It allows players across the internet to participate in multiplayer battles. The company has delayed the start of an associated e-sports league as a result.

"We're working round the clock together with the Xbox Live team, to improve the situation," a Microsoft spokesman told the BBC.

"This is our top priority. We will keep everyone informed regularly via Halo Waypoint."

Sony's multiplayer racing game Driveclub continues to have connectivity issues more than one month after its release. Evolution is the studio that developed the title, announced on Friday that it would be giving away content as compensation.

James Batchelor, editor at Develop, stated that "if you launch an item for sale you can expect it to work - that's the an essential retail manners."

"I don't think [server problemscan affect day-one sales, but it does harm a publisher's image.

"EA continues to carry this kind of stigma following Sim City, which was just over a year ago due to the fact that it took it for so long to get the game working."

Crashes and slowdowns

Issues with the update to WoW were made worse by the distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attack, which flooded Blizzard's computers with internet traffic during the week.

The US-based company admits that it has experienced an unexpectedly high volume of people trying to log on however, it's not shocked.

As a consequence the most frequent complaints are "realms" being unavailable, or there being large queues to join one.

Realms are copies of WoW's fantasy world each with different characters , but the same content. Each one is hosted by a different group of computer servers.

Nine of the 266 realms of the game were not functioning at the time of writing. 24 were "full" at the time.

Blizzard announced that it had reduced the number of players who could be active in every realm simultaneously to increase stability, which caused log-in delays.

Other issues are:

"Player not found" error messages, which prevent players connecting to the game

Blocked access to dungeons

Characters are stuck while making use of Garrison zones, a new feature that gives users a a fortress where they can manage their operations

In-game lag is a problem in heavily dense areas, certain actions are delayed, and certain enemies attack early

Blizzard stated that a variety of software and hardware fixes meant that it was in a position to increase the maximum number of players in each realm.
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However, it also stated that it needed "additional oversight and testing" to ensure other planned fixes, like the addition of more servers, did not introduce new problems.

Balancing act

Despite several video game launches being affected by similar issues, one expert was shocked see World of Warcraft struggle.

Piers Harding-Rolls (head of games at IHS) stated that "you would think that Blizzard have a vast amount of experience in managing the demands of the many servers it hosts."

"It has faced in the past larger numbers of users."

He suggested that if the main problem was higher demand than expected the company could have successful if the company can fix the issue quickly enough.

Blizzard announced that WoW had 7.4 million subscribers in October - a drop from a peak of 12 million in 2010, however, it was a significant improvement over August's figure of 6.8 million.

Mr Harding-Rolls stated that the company had to carry out a "balancing act" in deciding on the amount of server infrastructure it needed.

"When the new product is introduced to the market, you need to anticipate demand and the length of time users will utilize it.

"It's not a scientifically exact process. If you don't have the assumptions right you don't get the best results.

"And you must do it in a business way. Avoid investing too heavily in infrastructure, and then not being able to recoup the investment you made."

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