World of Warcraft gets less downtime
by Justin Murray 
{ Dec 22nd 2006 at 6:15PM }
World of Warcraft has become synonymous with PC gaming. Having hit 7 million subscribers, few who enjoy MMOs haven't played the game. However, one nagging issue has bothered many hardcore gamers; the Tuesday downtime.
Blizzard has offered us a nice Christmas present in this regard. Starting December 26th, Blizzard will no longer be pulling servers down to perform maintenance. The staff believes they are now in a position to be able to perform their maintenance while servers are live and have rolling downtime only when needed. To add to the benefit, the downtime is expected to only last around 10 minutes, not a few hours as was the tradition over the past two years.
The elimination of the Tuesday downtime should be cause for celebration for many gamers. We're paying Blizzard to give us WoW time, not to pull it off the net. We're still likely to expect the downtime for major patches, though we can't complain when Blizzard gives us large expansions for free. WoW fans, go ahead and enjoy playing Tuesday morning.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dreizehnernuss @ Dec 22nd 2006 6:24PM
"The elimination of the Tuesday downtime should be cause for celebration for many gamers"
It is sad that they were not able to meet the industry standard in the first place.
I really hate SOE for killing SWG and making EQ2 suck but concerning downtimes they were years ahead of Blizzard.
kira @ Dec 22nd 2006 11:22PM
about damn time,
GOD @ Dec 22nd 2006 6:44PM
Great, now I may never see my friends who play WOW.
mr.green @ Dec 22nd 2006 6:41PM
free patches huh? glad to ee that they stoped forcing people to pay for the game after all
-= XGM =- @ Dec 23rd 2006 10:23AM
lol @ GOD (#3), so true... I have a few freinds who are addicted to it, and i only get to talk to them when the servers are down... I still cant see what so fun in WoW, SRO is free to download and play, and is also much better.
Bob @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:11PM
I think they need several DAYS of downtime so people can have a life!
Matt @ Dec 24th 2006 3:19AM
"but concerning downtimes they were years ahead of Blizzard."
Yes, and Blizzard was DECADES ahead of Sony Online Entertainment in regards to lag. ;)
Dave @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:23PM
i dont mind the down times its just that almost everytime it gets extended. thats what pisses me off
dark_inchworm @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:34PM
@ #4: Yeah, WoW hardly ever has a lagging problem for me, but six years later Blizzard still hasn't done anything about D2's ridiculous lag... and (obviously) that game is OLDER and I imagine less bandwidth-intensive than WoW.
WoW's great, but I like my Diablo dose now and then :(
SoL @ Dec 22nd 2006 8:31PM
You post is a little misleading. Blizz doesn't state that there will be no more weekly maintenance, they say that they will be testing the ability to go longer than one week without a regular maintenance. And to test a live maintenance. Though they will still need to bring the servers down on patch days, the regular weekly maintenance that lasts about 6 hours may be bi monthly or even monthly with this new "live maintenance"
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=59665994&sid=1
tack @ Dec 22nd 2006 9:22PM
I played SWG and the servers went down every morning for an hour for maintenance. What is #1 talking about?
Justin @ Dec 22nd 2006 10:21PM
SoL-
Ahem: "The staff believes they are now in a position to be able to perform their maintenance while servers are live and have rolling downtime only when needed."
WhiteTigerShiro @ Dec 22nd 2006 10:35PM
@1: Umm... "industry standard"? Every MMO I've played had downtimes once a week just like WoW (exept WoW wasn't as laggy nearly as often). The only reason it was such an uproar with WoW is because it started to attract the non-hardcore gamer. The average hardcore gamer will look at downtimes and be able to see that they're necissary... the casual gamer is the one who raises a big fuss over it.
Over-all, downtimes never bothered me. In WoW or in other MMOs. Still, it's nice that they'll be able to do the weekly maint without taking down the servers. I just hope that the servers won't be lagged to the point where they might as well be down for those 8 hours when they're working on them.
zeh @ Dec 23rd 2006 12:47AM
"though we can't complain when Blizzard gives us large expansions for free"
Those patches aren't free, they are factored into the monthly charge.
PurpleSfinx @ Dec 23rd 2006 2:45AM
"Starting December 26th, Blizzard will no longer be pulling servers down to perform maintenance."
That's not an exaggeration, that's an outright lie.
They are still doing maintenance. Next Tuesday they are *testing* the ablility to go *longer than a week* between downtime.
Get your facts right please, Joystiq.
PurpleSfinx @ Dec 23rd 2006 2:48AM
Oh one more thing, no part of the game is free, there's monthly\bi monthly fee. I bought it knowing there would be patches, and expecting them at that price. The Burning Crusade is $60 (here at least), and 60 =\= 0.
Dreizehnernuss @ Dec 23rd 2006 6:07AM
"I played SWG and the servers went down every morning for an hour for maintenance. What is #1 talking about?"
There is a difference between 10 minutes every day at 5 am and 12 hours during primetime every week.
SoL @ Dec 23rd 2006 8:35AM
Justin
Yea, but they are just testing that, don't get me wrong, it would be great if they cut down downtime. But there will still be tuesday downtime because they can't patch the game while servers are live. A few weeks ago my realm went two weeks without a maintenance and it seemed to go well. So bi-weekly will still be better than weekly maintenance. :D
PurpleSfinx-
WTS [Maturity] 3s
Loi @ Dec 24th 2006 8:52AM
Dreizehnernuss, 12 hours a week? You even play WoW?
My server goes down from 5am-11am French time. 6 hours. Extended maintenance once every month or so to 8 hours. When upgrading to 2.0 the downtime was 10 hours, though I'd forgive them that for all the changes made.
Matt, what place does a comment trashing SOE have in an article on PC gaming? Or you like to just take that opportunity whenever you can? I wouldn't know about lag, I've never experienced it, however I've only ever played MGS:PO and MGS3:S online, both flawlessly, not bad "for free".
Which brings me to my next point, Justin, "for free" is meaningless, it's just become a commonly used incorrect phrase. It's either "free", or "for nothing".