server-outages
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Bungie not concerned about Destiny's always-on connection requirement
In a new Mail Sack blog post, developer Bungie has responded to concerns about its always-on requirement for Destiny, the studio's upcoming multi-platform shooter. The developer says it's not worried about a SimCity-style server outage for Destiny when "the massive onslaught of players" arrive on launch day because it's dealt with high-demand in the past. "This isn't our first rodeo," the post reads. "Bungie is no stranger to anxious mobs of players who rush home after a midnight launch and put our best-laid plans to the test." Bungie says it plans to "focus on some less frightening but equally important challenges" for now, worrying about release day problems at a later time.Elsewhere in the Sack, there's also a question about whether or not the alien races will be playable in the game, and Bungie mysteriously teases that it's "barely scratched the surface on the character and customization options." When graphic designer John Stvan is asked to tell a tale about playing the game, he says he once "loaded a build, shot a gun, killed a dude." Sounds riveting!
NCsoft offers Aion double XP olive branch over server outages
The thunderous roar you just heard was the sound of thousands of Daevas clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and beating the air with their wings in unison. You may have even heard a few huzzahs and hell-yeahs tossed in for good measure. Why all the fuss? Double XP is returning to Aion. In fact, it's already here, as NCsoft turned on the firehose this morning at server restart. The bonus runs through next Wednesday, and instance timer lockouts have also been reset (i.e., if you ran Taloc's Hollow last night, feel free to run it again today rather than 46 hours hence). The sudden rash of goodwill stems from the server outages this past Wednesday, many of which occurred during prime time and forced Daevas to seek their entertainment elsewhere. You can read the official announcement on the Aion website.
More server outages for Whirlwind and Emberstorm [Updated]
There are more server outages hitting this afternoon, unfortunately impacting the same realms that were down for around ten hours last night. The Seattle datacenter was hit with a nasty power outage yesterday, but we currently don't know the reasons for the current downtime. There are no blue responses yet, but my gut says there's some lingering damage that will need to be dealt with this afternoon. Then again, we might be lucky and they'll be back in ten minutes. Who knows with these things? Keep an eye on WoW.com and we'll keep you posted should we hear anything. If you're not sure if you're part of one of these battlegroups, the full list is behind the cut. Update #1: Blizzard is aware of the issue. Not much else at the moment. Update #2: Looks like most servers are coming up. Our poor friends on Quel'Dorei are still down for the count. Update #3: Maintenance on these realms not necessarily 'done' says Malkorix. Update 11:57pm: Both battlegroups went down 12 minutes ago. More as we know it. Update 12:18am: Blizzard says they are working on it and that any compensation will come after the problems have been resolved. Update 3:37am: The servers are up temporarily, but will be intermittently taken down while they continue to resolve the underlying problem.
Stargate Worlds site returns, but funding still tight
Over the weekend the Stargate Worlds site had planned a bit of maintenance which took their site offline on the 9th. From what we know now, the plan was that they would be migrating servers since they've been experiencing problems with their hosting. Many expected the site to be back up within a day or so - a normal time-frame for a DNS change and many cases of forum maintenance. When the entire site hadn't come back up by the 12th - and their Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites remained eerily silent - we decided to reach out to them and see how things were going.While we're glad to see that the Stargate Worlds web site is now back on line, the note that we received back from Timothy N. Jenson, President and CEO of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment was a bit disheartening. While the team remains optimistic, it indicates that they are continuing to have funding issues despite the news that they'd picked up new investors in the tail-end of August. For those interested in reading the full statement we received, we've included it behind the break.
Server maintenance for September 29th
While we were given ample notice regarding last week's server maintenance, this week we weren't so lucky. We were only informed earlier today of tomorrow's maintenance, which will start at 5:00 am PDT and last until 11:00 am PDT. If you're not sure what time that is in your particular time zone, that's what the World Clock is for, you ninnies.As usual, WoW.com will be here all morning and afternoon to keep you busy while you slack off at work during your WoW-less lunch break. Or, if Valve is a benevolent sort and lets us get our grubby, pallid hands on it early, you could just play Left 4 Dead's new map while the servers are down. That's what I'll be doing the whole time.
Rampage battlegroup experiencing outages this afternoon
We're starting to get reports aplenty of the (North American) Rampage battlegroup having server outages at the moment, but the exact nature is... fuzzy, to say the least! The login server doesn't seem to be the usual culprit, since the problem is exclusive to Rampage thus far. Looking at the Tech Support forum, it doesn't look like Blizzard has given any updates on the situation beyond asking players to run a traceroute if they have the knowhow. If you're the sort that knows how to do something like that, please direct yourself to the official forums.Hopefully this outage doesn't last too long, because we're going to be quickly approaching Saturday primetime. That's definitely not a good time for server outages! If anything major comes of this, we'll be sure to let you guys know. If you all want to help us on that front, just keep us updated in the comments below if you're one of the unfortunate Rampage players. If you're not sure what battlegroup you're a part of and seem to be having server problems, the server list is behind the cut below.Update: The customer service forum has a far more useful thread. An investigation into the issues is ongoing. Thanks, siech0.
Authentication problems for non-Battle.net users tonight
We've started getting a few emails regarding the authentication servers. Apparently there are issues again tonight! None of us on staff were actually running into any trouble, so we assumed it was just an anomaly until we saw this thread. From reading through it, it appears that the reason none of us on staff had problems was because we had all converted to Battle.net accounts, and this time around only those that haven't converted are running into problems. Fancy that!Blizzard is aware of the problem, and seem to be actively investigating it. Keep an eye on the linked thread for updates, and if you want a quick fix to get on and play the game tonight... just convert to Battle.net and you'll be on in no time.And for the record, when you write in about server outages? If we haven't posted about something yet, it doesn't help you to accuse us of being paid off by Blizzard. We can dream of a bright future where Blizzard showers us with money, but no, that hasn't happened yet. It's much more likely that we just don't know.
WoW Insider Show live today on Ustream at 3:30pm Eastern
Gonna be a good one (but is it ever not?) on our podcast today -- Contributing Editors Lesley Smith and Alex Ziebart will both be in the virtual broadcast booth with Turpster and I, and we'll be talking about the biggest stories in World of Warcraft over the past week, including patch 3.1.1 and all of the fixes that have been dropping lately, server outages and how bad they've been, what things are like in Ulduar so far, what the new 5-man might be, and the crack-in-a-twinkie that is Peggle in WoW. That's actually a lot of stuff -- we better talk fast.The show starts up at April 25, 2009 3:30 PM EST var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, or you can just click below to find the embedded Ustream feed in the second half of this post. And of course if you can't make it to listen live today, don't worry, because the show will be recorded and available in its entirety (well, minus the preshow and aftershow that we usually do for the live listeners) on Monday as usual.Oh, and we owe you readers a big thank-you: our Twitter page did in fact hit 9000 followers this week (actually, over 9000), so it looks like Turpster and I will have to gussy up and turn on the cameras for a video show. Stay tuned to the show today for more information on that, and keep an eye on the site here for when we'll be doing it. It'll definitely be something to see. Get it? "See"? Video?
