fail-murloc
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Server issues abounds this evening
Servers seem to be having all sorts of problems actually staying up tonight. A fair portion of the population is experiencing chronic server crashes, including my home server. A few of my guildmates canceled their 10-man raids as a result of players' inability to stay online. Even when the server isn't down, it's a real pain staying connected.We don't really have any information as far as clear upcoming fixes or how long the issue will last, but we here at WoW Insider most definitely know how you feel. Consider this a show of solidarity. It's lame, and hopefully it will go away soon. If you're just sitting down now to dig into your playtime for the night, expect some interruptions.What we do have is a little bit of information about possible upcoming realm transfers that will be opening up in the near future. Free transfers, of course. You can find Zarhym's list behind the cut below.
BlizzCon ticket lottery opt-in now available
If you're interested in trying for one of the 3,000 BlizzCon tickets being sold by lottery, and you had a Blizzard Account before the evening of August 12th, head over to the Blizzard Store now, as Opt-ins are open. You should able to put yourself in to the drawing on the Account Management page. The opt-in period will last until the evening of Sunday, August 24th, and you will have an equal chance of getting a ticket no matter when you sign up. After the Opt-in period is over, 1,500 accounts will be chosen at random for a chance to buy up to 2 tickets. Be sure your contact information is up to date so they can contact if you win. Good Luck, and we'll see you at BlizzCon! [Thanks for the forward, Jeff!]
Blizzard says sorry, offers 3000 more BlizzCon tickets
A personal apology given by Mike Morhaime should spark a light of hope in those who missed out on getting any BlizzCon tickets due to large amounts of technical difficulties. In addition to the promise of this whole thing never happening again, there are now going to be an additional 3,000 tickets available for purchase. The news comes in light of the convention hall planning being rearranged to accommodate more attendees. Anyone thinking about picking up one of these tickets should know that the offer is only open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12th, which is when the "Sold Out" notice was originally posted.As WoW Insider notes, while 3,000 more tickets are nice, it's probably not going to cover the breadth of everybody who was left out in the cold by technical issues. Can we really ask for any more than this, though? It's not like Blizzard is in a position where they really had to make this choice. They do run the biggest subscription-based MMO on the face of the planet. However you may feel about this whole thing, we can be certain to agree on hoping that it's truly the last time we see such a big technical slip-up from Blizzard. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Mike Morhaime apologizes, offers 3000 more BlizzCon tickets
If you haven't heard by now, there were some problems with Blizzcon tickets. A lot of problems. However, it looks like even Blizzard now realizes that they could have done a lot better during those 2 days of Fail Murloc agony. Blizzard President Mike Morhaime has just posted a personal apology for all the trouble with tickets on the official BlizzCon site. In addition, he's announced that they've rearranged their convention hall space and will be able to offer 3,000 additional tickets. In order to avoid the problems of the last batch, they will be sold by a lottery system, and only sold to those with an active Blizzard account as of August 12th, 9 PM PDT, the time when the last batch of tickets was officially sold out. Further details on the lottery will be posted when they finalize their plans. Of course, There's probably far more than 3,000 customers who were put out by the problems, but this is probably as much of an olive branch as we can expect, given that they can't overpack the convention halls and it's likely too late to find or create a new, larger venue. Hopefully though, Blizzard is serious when they say that they will do what it takes to prevent this from happening in the future. We'll look forward to buying our tickets for BlizzCon 2009 without the presence of the Fail Murloc.
BlizzCon 2008 panel list revealed
Now that the scramble for tickets is over, it remains for the wounded and battered veterans of the battle against the Fail Murloc to gird themselves and march forward, looking for succor where they can get it. Luckily, a list of panels for BlizzCon 2008 has been released, giving us something awesome to look forward to as we count down the days. For those of you who can't make it, be sure to check WoW Insider. We'll have liveblogs and notes from each WoW panel so you'll know exactly what was said and how it will affect your gameplaying experience. For the Diablo III and Starcraft II stuff, you'll be able to get the same treatment from our sister site, Joystiq. Check after the break for a complete list of panel titles.
BlizzCon tickets listed as sold out [UPDATED]
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/BlizzCon_tickets_reported_sold_out'; Most of those who wanted to buy a BlizzCon ticket have just been through two horribly rocky days marked by constant refreshing, stylesheet errors, and the dreaded Fail Murloc. For better or worse, it looks like that wait is at an end, as the multiple sources are reporting that BlizzCon Tickets are sold out. This is probably something Blizzard's going to see some backlash on one way or another. Whether it was poor planning, poor servers, an expected deluge of customers, or a combination of all 3 and more, the experience of trying to buy a BlizzCon ticket for most has been anywhere from 12-36 hours of pure agony marked by small 5-20 minutes windows where handfuls of lucky customers made off with the precious tickets. Of course, all hope may not be lost for those who failed to capture a ticket, as this may simply be yet another CSS error. In addition, Blizzard did sell the Worldwide Invitational tickets in waves as well. They may need to do the same for Blizzcon here, if only to give a fair shake to everyone who could never get past the CSS errors and the cold unforgiving face of the Murloc. EDIT: A commenter on the official BlizzCon forums says that a Blizzard phone rep told him they are not sold out. EDIT 2: The ticket page appears to be working again and not showing the tickets as Sold Out. The Fail Murlocs and XML errors continue apace, however. Edit 3: The saga continues. as of 4:40 PST EDT, some sources are reporting the dreaded sold out notice again -- or are having the ticket mysteriously disappear from their cart once they make it to checkout. Edit 4: Nethaera has just posted to say that most BlizzCon tickets are now sold out. However, they will be selling a small reserve starting tonight at 8 PM PDT.
The Tuesday Morning Post: I survived the Fail Murloc edition
Good Tuesday Morning, everyone! By now, I'm sure you're all aware of the amazing and frustrating odyssey that has been the attempt to secure BlizzCon tickets, as documented here by Mike. This writer finally managed to buy his ticket only at 9 PM PDT yesterday, despite having been poised at the virtual ticket counter since approximately 7 AM yesterday. The sight of the Fail Murloc and his cousin the Fail SCV (shown at right) have almost been burned into my very retinas. As of this writing, some of my colleagues still haven't managed to get through to buy a ticket. As a reminder, the store will reopen sometime this morning, and Blizzard has said that there are a lot of tickets remaining. Despite the hubbub, all this trouble hasn't (completely) dampened our enthusiasm for the wonders of BlizzCon. We've spent the refreshing time tossing around speculations about what we'll see on October 10th. See if our predictions match up with yours. In other news, it's an extended maintenance this morning, which means downtime goes from 3 AM PDT to at least 11 AM PDT, which means you should have plenty of time to read WoW Insider. There's plenty of news to catch up on, of course, especially with a new build hitting the Wrath Beta servers. Let's take a look at some of it:
What we're expecting from BlizzCon
As we announced earlier, BlizzCon tickets are on sale. Sort of. Kind of. If you can fight past the store servers. I know I've been getting nothing but the fail murloc pretty much all day. Still, I and the rest of WoW Insider's crack live team will be there come hell or high water, and we'll bring you the news you need to know. In the meantime, we're stuck here refreshing the Blizzard Store. To pass the time, we did a bit of speculation about what we might see in Anaheim on October 10th and 11th. Here's what we decided: What we're sure to see The Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic: Though we still have no solid announcement, Blizzard's already stated that they want to get Wrath out before 2008 is up. Considering that, they must have the opening cinematic pretty close to done. I would be surprised if we don't see it open the opening ceremony, to be completely honest. I'm expecting Arthas and/or a "rebel" Human Death Knight to feature prominently, as well as our first cinematic Gnome shot.
[Updated] Blizzcon tickets now on sale, maybe
We've been keeping a watchful eye on the Blizzcon site this morning, as we knew that tickets for the event were set to go on sale today. Even with the hefty $100 pricetag, these golden tickets of Blizzard fun are expected to sell out extremely quickly. However, if you're in the market for a Blizzcon ticket, we have some mixed news for you. While it does appear that the tickets are showing up on the Blizzcon site, and they are allowing you to add up to 5 per cart -- we've not heard of a single purchase that has gone through as yet. It would appear that while Blizzard has done a great job of balancing the load on many of the World of Warcraft servers, the Blizzard store is not handling the zerg rush of thousands of Blizzard fans hitting it all at once very well. So if you're hoping to land Blizzcon tickets, we suggest you grab a drink and settle in for some quality time with the fail murloc and your F5 key. We'll be right there with you.[Update 11:13 AM EST] - Aredek on the WoW forums says that their Webfolk are looking into the problems with ordering. In the meantime, we've learned that the fail murloc enjoys mrglrgrrrlgl, long walks by the mggrgrlllrgrm, and enjoys playing gllllrmgrl when not hanging out in our web browsers.[Update 6:03 PM EST] - While registration was open briefly this afternoon, most people have been unable to purchase tickets due to the heavy traffic on the Blizzcon site. Server fall down go boom. As of now, the site appears to be back in a maintenance phase. From what we have heard, the tickets are not sold out currently.[Update 7:40 PM EST] The Blizzcon site is back online, however with it returns Failoc, the dreaded murloc of fail. Of course, that's when we're not seeing errors due to the server being overloaded.[Update 12:10 AM EST] Finally managed to get an order through and confirmed. Looks like some of the WoW Insider crew have also been able to get tickets, but others are still getting Failoc'd. Good luck, everyone![Update 12:45 AM EST] According to Eyonix on the Blizzard forums, they are pulling down ticket ordering for the night:We are continuing our work on bringing the website back up, however, we have decided that we do not want to make everyone wait until the early hours of the morning, hoping at a chance to purchase tickets. Thus, we will not bring up the website until after the beginning of business day tomorrow, Tuesday, August 12. We want to assure everyone that a great majority of tickets are still available for purchase. If you've been waiting up to purchase a ticket, looks like it's time to head for bedfordshire and try again in the morning.
