Blizzard and its WOW servers/support problems

[tuteja1986]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28910
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t appears that at least Blizzard Europe has a real problem on its shoulders, since most people who contacted me claimed "they never respond to real issues" and "often have server issues". A common complaint is that players rarely get offered compensatory days of play for the numerous occasions a realm becomes unavailable for a day and so on.

It seems the revenue of around 150 million Euros a quarter from its millions of subscribers is just not enough for the company to start resolving technical issues that are growing as the number of gamers continues to rise.
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now a company should be able to handle most of its major problem if they are getting arround that much. i know they bilzzard has alot of cost of keeping wow up and running ... but what good is server if keeps on crashing !

 

[skace]

Maybe it isn't a money issue, maybe it is an issue of manpower or architectural limitations.

 

[jdport]

When I was playing WoW, they OFTEN gave us extra days for free when the servers were down for any extended time. I was actually surprised by how much "free" time they added on to everybody's accounts when servers had unplanned downtime.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: jdport
When I was playing WoW, they OFTEN gave us extra days for free when the servers were down for any extended time. I was actually surprised by how much "free" time they added on to everybody's accounts when servers had unplanned downtime.

They have not been doing that as much as they used to. I remember the early months, I got a lot of free days. Now that I resubscribed, I get some, but not nearly as much. Lately, the server lag (definately not my end) has been horrible for about 2 weeks now. This last week has resulted in almost unplayable instances for some folks. last two patches resulted in a bunch of down time as well. So ya, it's gotten bad...

As for folks saying how Blizzard makes a fortune on this game, well, once you add up the costs involved, I doubt they really make that much profit. Maybe that's why they haven't improved their architecture much. Or maybe it's bad management. Nobody knows for sure.

 

[fishbits]

As for folks saying how Blizzard makes a fortune on this game, well, once you add up the costs involved, I doubt they really make that much profit.

I have trouble believing that the business model has been "If we ever somehow manage to get to the point we're raking in $50 million per month, we'll still just barely be breaking even." And I'm one of those guys who normally sticks ups for the developers/ publishers when folks whine about the price of games/ subscriptions.

The most expensive WoW customer to serve was the very first one. After that, you're mostly paying to scale by adding servers, bandwidth, support staff, content, etc. There's more profit with a larger amount of subscribers. Put it this way: Give ME $50 million per month to work with, with an already-existing product and massive amount of subscribers and I'll happily wager that better uptime/performance can be provided. There are smaller MMOs with far less resources who already know how to do this. No it'll never be perfect and certainly there are headaches involved with running something so huge. But again, with all those resources coming in there's got to be a way to do it better. WoW's performance sucked when the number of customers was smaller and yet the players kept paying. WoW is massive now and the players keep paying. Guess there's just not a lot of incentive at the moment to make this a priority.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: fishbits
There are smaller MMOs with far less resources who already know how to do this. No it'll never be perfect and certainly there are headaches involved with running something so huge. But again, with all those resources coming in there's got to be a way to do it better. WoW's performance sucked when the number of customers was smaller and yet the players kept paying. WoW is massive now and the players keep paying. Guess there's just not a lot of incentive at the moment to make this a priority.

Well, you have to remember that things are constantly improving, they just aren't improving fast enough. For instance, I was on Sargeras, and it was awesome for several months but then started to get bogged down by an influx of new players. Just when it started getting really bad, we got an offer to split and 2 of our largest server guilds took the offer and moved to Detheroc, case closed, problem solved. Blizzard hasn't stopped bringing out new servers, they just put out something like 6 new ones, but it takes time to properly get people off the old servers as well as continually put up new servers.

Could they be doing it faster? Possibly, but to say they aren't doing anything ignores any progress they've made.

Oh and WoW's performance was awesome at release, one of the smoothest launches ever. I'd say they deffinitely learned from the MMORPGs that came before them, they just didn't have enough information or research on what happens when the game gets this huge.

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: fishbits
There are smaller MMOs with far less resources who already know how to do this. No it'll never be perfect and certainly there are headaches involved with running something so huge. But again, with all those resources coming in there's got to be a way to do it better. WoW's performance sucked when the number of customers was smaller and yet the players kept paying. WoW is massive now and the players keep paying. Guess there's just not a lot of incentive at the moment to make this a priority.

Well, you have to remember that things are constantly improving, they just aren't improving fast enough. For instance, I was on Sargeras, and it was awesome for several months but then started to get bogged down by an influx of new players. Just when it started getting really bad, we got an offer to split and 2 of our largest server guilds took the offer and moved to Detheroc, case closed, problem solved. Blizzard hasn't stopped bringing out new servers, they just put out something like 6 new ones, but it takes time to properly get people off the old servers as well as continually put up new servers.

I'm lovin no queue/no lag detheroc.

 

[jbritt1234]

Their problem, as well as most peoples imho, is lack of communication. They could have specific actions planned as well as steps taken in the past that we know nothing about therefore think they are doing "nothing".

Maybe they are slacking, maybe they are working hard. But if we were told something or given a idea of what to expect that would appease a lot of people.

 

[Litchfield285]

1.9 messed a ton of stuff up. Since the patch there has been horrible amounts of lag, more than normal, tons of disconnects, and a lot more random server crashes. I understand a good bit were due to the stuff required for the AQ opening, but this should've been worked out before the patch hit. Overall things had evened out and stuff was working well for the most part, 1.9 really killed the good momentum though.

They released 1.9.1 yesterday, and now there are widespread problems with people seeing other players skipping all over the world. I could barely play last night because it looked like everyone was blinking around. Awful. And the lag was unbearable last night. I love this game, but they need to get their act together. They had months to test 1.9, all of these problems shouldn't be the result of 1 patch.

 

[Hersh]

I assume the cost of static operation of WOW is very minimal and would only be a fraction of the revenue generated by wow membership, especially since I keep hearing there are millions of subscribers. Now, the cost of operating WOW smoothly (smoothly being a keyword here- keeping it up, making it responsive, tech support, upgrades, adding more servers PER cluster, adding some more pipes, etc) should be a majority of revenue that they generate. They should be investing the majority of their revenue back into making WOW smooth but it looks like Blizzard is failing to do this as tech support seems to be non-existant and large numbers of customers are starting to complain. Smart thing to do at this point is to freeze new sales temporarily and freeze new developments (while bug fixing continues) and straighten out their customer care.

Companies that get large too fast get greedy with the number of sales that they generate and forget that their #1 priority should be to their CURRENT customers and not to POTENTIAL customers. It looks like Blizzard is in a candy store and is trying to grab a hold of everything (which is good) but dropping some in the process. I definitely would like to see Blizzard turn this train around to avoid a WOW derailment.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: fishbits

As for folks saying how Blizzard makes a fortune on this game, well, once you add up the costs involved, I doubt they really make that much profit.

I have trouble believing that the business model has been "If we ever somehow manage to get to the point we're raking in $50 million per month, we'll still just barely be breaking even." And I'm one of those guys who normally sticks ups for the developers/ publishers when folks whine about the price of games/ subscriptions.

fishbits, I thought you might like to read this doc. 3rd quarter earnings for Vivendi Universal, parent company of Blizzard. Do a text search in it for "World of Warcraft". couple good sections there.

http://finance.vivendiuniversal.com/fin...ownload/pdf/PR_Q305Earnings_171105.pdf

It looks like Vivendi took a loss of 200 million euros in 2004. Read the paragraph under "First Nine Months of 2005".

Another bit of info in the "Third Quarter of 2005" paragraph.

Based on that text, it seems that Vivendi is making quite a profit, but are digging out of a hole. Probably why we aren't seeing any big improvements yet to the game and infrastructure.

 

[fishbits]

Based on that text, it seems that Vivendi is making quite a profit, but are digging out of a hole.

That's super, but I never claimed that WoW is raking in enough money to cure all of Vivendi's ills all by itself. I claimed that WoW is raking in enough money that it could provide a lot better service to its paying and loyal customers than it has.

Yes, parent and child companies should expect some give and take to each other's mutual benefit. But beyond a certain point, WoW customers shouldn't have to put up with craptastic service for the product they subscribe to so that it balances the books over at the ineptly run ball bearings and ramen division or whatever. Push this too far and you kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Bottom line is that if a person thinks it's impossible for Blizzard to do better regarding service and performance without breaking the bank, we probably won't agree. I firmly believe they can do better and still remain massively profitable. If so, shouldn't they?

Smart thing to do at this point is to freeze new sales temporarily and freeze new developments (while bug fixing continues) and straighten out their customer care.

In theory this is good, but don't know if it works in reality. For example, what good does it do to tell the artwork guys working on new content for the future to sit on their hands because there's a problem with the network code?

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: fishbits

Based on that text, it seems that Vivendi is making quite a profit, but are digging out of a hole.

That's super, but I never claimed that WoW is raking in enough money to cure all of Vivendi's ills all by itself. I claimed that WoW is raking in enough money that it could provide a lot better service to its paying and loyal customers than it has.

Yes, parent and child companies should expect some give and take to each other's mutual benefit. But beyond a certain point, WoW customers shouldn't have to put up with craptastic service for the product they subscribe to so that it balances the books over at the ineptly run ball bearings and ramen division or whatever. Push this too far and you kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Bottom line is that if a person thinks it's impossible for Blizzard to do better regarding service and performance without breaking the bank, we probably won't agree. I firmly believe they can do better and still remain massively profitable. If so, shouldn't they?

I think I mis-read some of your argument. Overall though, I think we both agree on the same thing. Blizzard makes enough that it should be able to invest in it's infrastructure to improve it. I'm just adding the bit about Vivendi, and because they are the owner, they may be taking all the profits out for other things, including their past debt. Who knows for sure how all that works internally. I've been unable to find any fininancial docs from Blizzard. I'm sure it's all internal, nothing public.

 

[CKent]

If you read the official forums you'll see why they do this - it's cheaper to let the stupid fanboys create a culture of putting up with anything and portraying those who don't as bad guys than to actually provide adequate service. Too much profit is never enough for modern business, whose greed knows no bounds. Sad to see Blizzard fall into the trap Sony/SOE did (though we all already knew Sony was scum, lol).

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: RBachman
If you read the official forums you'll see why they do this - it's cheaper to let the stupid fanboys create a culture of putting up with anything and flaming those who don't, than to actually provide adequate service. Too much profit is never enough for modern business, whose greed knows no bounds. Sad to see Blizzard fall into the trap Sony/SOE did (though we all already knew Sony was scum, lol).

HAHA! Ya, there are a lot of people over on the o-boards who do exactly what you desribe. Anyone who has a legitimate complaint is either ignored, flamed, or has their thread deleted. But, it's the company forums, and the company can do whatever they want with it.

 

[hooflung]

I haven't had a bad experience with their support. Quite the opposite, infact. I have two accounts and have played across 6 servers. Its eons better support I ever got from Sony and its beginning to be eons better than I get at Cryptic and NCSoft. However, after CCPs initial year, nothing has been able to beat their service and support. Small, publisher-less developers 4tw.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Cheetah8799

As for folks saying how Blizzard makes a fortune on this game, well, once you add up the costs involved, I doubt they really make that much profit. Maybe that's why they haven't improved their architecture much. Or maybe it's bad management. Nobody knows for sure.

Then your dumb. They're raking in huge amount of money. True, servers, bandwidth, CS, and other overhead costs money, but it's a fraction of what the subscription costs. Why do you think MMOs are becoming so popular? The original Everquest cost $8 million to make, and earned them over $250 million in PROFITS. WoW cost like $75 million to make, and i'm sure it's making them hundreds of millions in profit per year.

 

[Fingolfin269]

The weird thing is that I have never had a single problem with this game that was due to the game itself and neither do any of my rl friends or guildmates. I wonder how many of these problems are due to specific servers? Extremely high population servers perhaps? Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to excuse Blizzard for their lack of support because I do understand that people have problems and Blizz really sucks at answering. I'm just pointing out that the little information I have leads me to believe that it is server based. (Excluding issues such as 1.9.1)

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: hooflung
I haven't had a bad experience with their support. Quite the opposite, infact. I have two accounts and have played across 6 servers. Its eons better support I ever got from Sony and its beginning to be eons better than I get at Cryptic and NCSoft. However, after CCPs initial year, nothing has been able to beat their service and support. Small, publisher-less developers 4tw.

They could send hitmen to your house to kill you and still be treating you better than Sony.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: RBachman

Originally posted by: hooflung
I haven't had a bad experience with their support. Quite the opposite, infact. I have two accounts and have played across 6 servers. Its eons better support I ever got from Sony and its beginning to be eons better than I get at Cryptic and NCSoft. However, after CCPs initial year, nothing has been able to beat their service and support. Small, publisher-less developers 4tw.

They could send hitmen to your house to kill you and still be treating you better than Sony.

Rofl agreed.

 

[Schfifty Five]

There is NO WAY Blizzard is just "breaking even". They are in fact raking in tens of millions of PROFIT each month.

Yes, bandwidth, staffing, server maintenence, hardware upgrades, software developing all cost money, but it is no where near how much they are making from paying subscribers. It's really strange why WoW is fscking up so much. I'm glad I left a few months ago.