WoW: Battle Reports

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

Well all of my 7 characters (including a lvl 27, a lvl 18 and a lvl 13) have all dissappeared from Eonar and have been gone for 3 three days. I'm about to cancel my subscription and write a scathing editorial of how Blizzard could botch this up so badly. How they could create such a great game but be so incompetent on the maintenance end. I'm so pissed right now...

You have SEVEN characters? Jesus...

This may seem like a stupid question (although I had a similar problem that I didn't notice for about a day and a half, mostly due to my characters being on 2 different servers, so when one has problems I try the other), but have you actually selected Eonar and moved to the character select screen?

For awhile I thought that Aggramar was down because it wasn't listed at the top with the other servers I have characters on, then I noticed it was still on the list, but it said I had no characters...

But when I double clicked it, they were still there and playable...

On a side note: I can't stand all these people bitching and moaning about every little problem (although characters being gone for 3 days isn't little)...

But maybe that's because I've really only run into a few minor problems (servers down for 2-3 hours maybe on very rare occasions, bursts of bad lag) and so when people bitch about crap, I assume they're running into pretty much the same crap to which I say: Downtime and lag happens...

But like I said... 3 days with characters missing... If you havn't already, maybe you should try contacting Blizzard rather than cancelling your account and writing a big mean editorial about how **** happens and you don't wanna deal with it...

[DarkMaster]

What the hell, nothing has happened to my character on Eonar. I've never heard of character's disappearing from a MMORPG server, that's a huge deal. Unless there's something you're doing wrong, contact Blizzard immediately.

[Jonbo298]

CoH has a very very very rare bug where characters get deleted on a server for no reason. Devs are still trying to track it down but because of its rarity, they are having a hard time tracking it down (rare as in 1 in every 100,000 subscribers or something)

[Canyarion]

So how are things going with the character?

I also have a reason to be disapointed...
I was really hyped about getting a horse instead of a stupid mechanical strider (I'm a Gnome). I was almost exhaulted at Stormwind, was trying hard to level and save up money.

Then I found out that you can't get exhaulted in this patch yet (at least in EU).

So that means no horsie for this Gnome!

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by Canyarion

So how are things going with the character?

I also have a reason to be disapointed...
I was really hyped about getting a horse instead of a stupid mechanical strider (I'm a Gnome). I was almost exhaulted at Stormwind, was trying hard to level and save up money.

Then I found out that you can't get exhaulted in this patch yet (at least in EU).

So that means no horsie for this Gnome!

Wait wait wait... So Mechanical Striders are stupid... But gnomes aren't?

[Canyarion]

Gnomes happen to be the smartest creatures! Always 5% extra intellect!

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by DeathsHand

You have SEVEN characters? Jesus...

This may seem like a stupid question (although I had a similar problem that I didn't notice for about a day and a half, mostly due to my characters being on 2 different servers, so when one has problems I try the other), but have you actually selected Eonar and moved to the character select screen?

For awhile I thought that Aggramar was down because it wasn't listed at the top with the other servers I have characters on, then I noticed it was still on the list, but it said I had no characters...

But when I double clicked it, they were still there and playable...

On a side note: I can't stand all these people bitching and moaning about every little problem (although characters being gone for 3 days isn't little)...

But maybe that's because I've really only run into a few minor problems (servers down for 2-3 hours maybe on very rare occasions, bursts of bad lag) and so when people bitch about crap, I assume they're running into pretty much the same crap to which I say: Downtime and lag happens...

But like I said... 3 days with characters missing... If you havn't already, maybe you should try contacting Blizzard rather than cancelling your account and writing a big mean editorial about how **** happens and you don't wanna deal with it...

I've done everything you mentioned from the get go. Still not there. I;m going to check again today but if they're not there I'm going to contact Blizzrd and bitch.

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

I've done everything you mentioned from the get go. Still not there. I;m going to check again today but if they're not there I'm going to contact Blizzrd and bitch.

Does "done everything you mentioned from the get go" include simply asking blizzard what's up and if they can fix it?

[Canyarion]

Ok the European beta ends today (tomorrow for you). It was fun! Now I just have to say farewell to my cute Gnome.

Anyway, I couldn't hit 40.

I'm hoping for some nice action like when the US beta ended.

[Canyarion]

Ok, my time of free WoW is over. I loved it.

A thing that I wanted to do was check how long I had played. (you do this by typing /played) But I forgot. It must have been.... 5 whole days I'm afraid.

Can someone who's arond level 36 check how long they've played?

Or just anyone.... tell us how long you've played and what level the character is!

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by DeathsHand

Does "done everything you mentioned from the get go" include simply asking blizzard what's up and if they can fix it?

Well smart-ass, I contacted Blizzard a week ago and received an auto-reply saying I would have a real response in 24 hours. I have heard nothing as yet, just as I thought I wouldn't. The servers are constantly down longer than expected on maintenance days, I have been booted repeatedly on non-maintenance days. Thankfully I've never been on a server that has a queue at all, much less for several hours. The inablility to transfer characters from server to server doesn't help this problem either.

Blizzard needs to fix these issues regardless of whatever excuses or rationalizations people want to make for them (God knows the forums are full of them who attack anyone who dares criticize WoW server management). I know I'm not the only one experiencing these problems. All you need to to do to see this is visit their forums. Now having a glitchy start-up is one thing, but this game has been going for a while now and the problems seem to have gotten worse, not better.

The game is excellent. There is no doubting this. But when characters with untold hours invested in them are deleted, people are repeatedly booted and their customer care department does not even attempt to meet the goals they've set for themselves, something needs to be fixed and fixed soon or else EQ2 will become more and more attractive to more and more people, including myself.

Its a shame when the inferior game gets consideration because the superior game can't run itself competently.

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

Well smart-ass, I contacted Blizzard a week ago and received an auto-reply saying I would have a real response in 24 hours. I have heard nothing as yet, just as I thought I wouldn't. The servers are constantly down longer than expected on maintenance days, I have been booted repeatedly on non-maintenance days. Thankfully I've never been on a server that has a queue at all, much less for several hours. The inablility to transfer characters from server to server doesn't help this problem either.

Blizzard needs to fix these issues regardless of whatever excuses or rationalizations people want to make for them (God knows the forums are full of them who attack anyone who dares criticize WoW server management). I know I'm not the only one experiencing these problems. All you need to to do to see this is visit their forums. Now having a glitchy start-up is one thing, but this game has been going for a while now and the problems seem to have gotten worse, not better.

The game is excellent. There is no doubting this. But when characters with untold hours invested in them are deleted, people are repeatedly booted and their customer care department does not even attempt to meet the goals they've set for themselves, something needs to be fixed and fixed soon or else EQ2 will become more and more attractive to more and more people, including myself.

Its a shame when the inferior game gets consideration because the superior game can't run itself competently.

Alls I know is that different people have different tolerence for problems... A problem that one person might just shrug off and wait patiently to be resolved might cause another to go flying off the handle immeadiately, posting a bunch of stuff on the forums (insane stuff like demanding another entire free month of play for a problem that has only lasted 2 days... I saw this happening when the game first launched and they had a few servers down for 2 or 3 days)...

Like I've said, I've had characters on 3 different servers and for a long time played WoW for basically every waking hour when I wasn't eating or at work... And the only problems I've run into were rare bursts of lag, maybe 3 or 4 periods of downtime lasting a matter of a few hours... Not including maintainence which usually happens while I'm not online anyways...

I think these extreme cases like yours are very rare... I think when/if you get your characters back, it'll probably never happen again... And if anybody is having a gaming experience similar to the one I've been having (meaning only a few periods of downtime) and they're still bitching on the forums, well then they need to chill the fudge out...

And one last thing, have you started another character on another server during your downtime on Eonar, or have you been letting your subscription go to complete waste? If you have, how has your experience on the new server been... And if you havn't, why the heck havn't you?

[Professor S]

Oh yeah, I've definitely started another character. As I mentioned earlier, I like having a lot of characters so that I have a lot of play options depending on my mood. In fact I've started three new characters, including a new hunter to replace my higher level one.

I have to disagree with your high tolerance level for gaming problems when the game itself costs $180 a year just for subscription. Add the cost of the game and you paid $230 for one game for a year, which is more than the cost of any of the major consoles right now. Add the inevitable expansions and the costs will keep going. For this much investment I expect the servers to stay up. For this much money I expect my characters to not dissappear. For this much money I expect them to reply to my inquiry within the time that they say they will. Hell, for that much money I expect them to say "how high" when I say "jump".

MMORPGs are not a new thing. They've been around for years and considering the amount of hype they recieved and their loyal fanbase, they should have been prepared for the number of subscriptions they had to handle. Bottom line.

If Sony can do it, why can't Blizzard? Thats the beauty of a free economy. You can choose a company that knows what its doing. If I have any more major problems, just one more, Sony will be rewarded for their ability to maintain the integrity of their MMO.

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

If Sony can do it, why can't Blizzard? Thats the beauty of a free economy. You can choose a company that knows what its doing. If I have any more major problems, just one more, Sony will be rewarded for their ability to maintain the integrity of their MMO.

Like I said: Missing characters must be a very rare occurence...

Server downtime happens, nothing's perfect, I'm sure the EQ servers go down too... You can go ahead and tell blizzard to jump and have them reply "How high", but if a server starts acting up blizzard can't simply yell "Work" at it and expect a response...

Yes blizzard has a big fanbase, but MMO's are not for everyone... It's not a RTS game, it's not diablo, and (as you point out) it's much more expensive than most games, putting it out of some people's price range... Plus it came out around the same time as EQ2... They simply underestimated it's success, I s'pose...

And yes it costs a couple hundred bucks overall for a year's play... But it ends up costing something like 50 cents a day (the max monthly subscription, not counting any discounted 3/6 month plans, but not counting the price of the game itself either)...

My point of view is, I play the game so damn much anyways, if it's down for a few hours every once in awhile and I miss out on a whole, I dunno, 15 cents worth of gameplay, well boo hoo... Sure it can be irritating when I want to play and first find out the server is down, but I just find something else to do and try back later...

Oh yeah and one last thing which I highly doubt applies to you:

You didn't happen to stumble into any strange areas in the game world did you? Places with a bunch of high level monsters that just sit there taking abuse, not fighting back?

[Canyarion]

You haven't been using a bot to speed up leveling (such as an auto-fishing bot)?? Cause then your characters got deleted on purpose.

Deathshand, how long have you played so far?