Surprise surprise! Blizzard’s “maintenance” today has led to many realms being unavailable and tens of thousands of people being unable to play. First up we have Tseric’s initial post acknowledging the problems..
We are aware that players have been experiencing issues related to connectivity. These may vary from extended log in periods to an inability to log in to specific characters or realms . We have been working with our network provider to get this resolved as quickly as possible. Tentatively, we expect to have these matters resolved by 5:00 PM PST, but may we may spend additional time to work on this should the need arise.
We will provide an update to the situation when it becomes available. For related discussion, you may view this thread in the Tech Support forums:
(his link)
UPDATE – 5:30 PM PST We are continuing to work on this issue in coordination with our network provider. Unfortunately, we do not have a clear ETA as to when this issue may be resolved.
As per the norm with Blizzard there is absolutely no useful information anywhere, leaving everyone in the dark, again.
Later this evening, in a lame attempt to appease the masses, Caydiem informs us we’re being credited 50 cents.
As many realms were inaccessible throughout the day due to network and authentication issues, we will be applying a 24-hour credit to all active accounts. The credit should be processed within one week, and we’ll notify you ahead of time if we foresee any delay with that. We regret any trouble you may have experienced during and after maintenance today; our server team is currently working on resolving the last of the maintenance-related issues at this time. Thank you for your patience as we worked through these issues.
Woopty fucking doo, how about you credit all of us for the multitude of hours we’ve all wasted in queues.
Thankfully Caydiem also decided to come to the rescue with a full explanation of what went wrong today (reply# 19) …
It’s not fully in the past tense, if you read the entire thing. It mentions, in present tense, that our server team is currently working on resolving the remaining issues.
If you’re looking for specifics on what happened and why, I can’t give them right now; a lot of that is internal information, but I’ll do my best to encourage a more specific post at some point tomorrow. Needless to say, something went awry, and we were working with our network provider throughout the day to fix the issues as they occurred. My hands are tied regarding anything more specific than that.
As for why some are affected while others are not… the realms aren’t all located in one place. There are multiple sites.. what affects one cluster of realms may not affect others.
Or not.
The unusual thing is this problem is extremely selective. Normally if there are login server issues nobody would be able to get online however some do manage to get online just fine. Others can get in after a few hours and the least lucky of the bunch can’t even get past handshaking on the login screen. They admit they’ve outsourced their network, perhaps just a bit too far, in the wrong hands.
In the end we’ll never know because apparently Blizzard feels no obligation to tell us the truth.
(Archive of forum threads: Tseric’s post and Caydiem’s post)