weekly-maintenance
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Weekly maintenance extended to 3pm PST
Realm maintenance for all Warcraft realms as well as Diablo III and StarCraft II has now been extended to 3pm PST, according to the official BlizzardCS Twitter feed. Maintenance was originally extended to 1pm PST, but apparently some unforeseen issues have come up which require some additional work. What exactly this maintenance is addressing is unknown at this time, but hopefully realms will be up and playable soon. Blizzard does have a thread that is being updated as more information comes in, so if you're waiting for realms to come back up, you may want to keep an eye on the official thread. Alternatively, if you have a Twitter account, following @BlizzardCS is an excellent way to keep tabs on maintenance issues as well. If there are any further extensions, we'll update this post as needed. Edit: All servers are now back online and available for play!
Breakfast Topic: What really happens during maintenance?
Last week, there was a thread on the European forums about what really happened during the weekly downtime. Sure, some people said the boring answers of various things having to do with software and hardware. Others were more of the fanciful variety involving the hamsters that run the servers being fed. However, I like the more RP approach to the situation. Goblins and gnomes are using refitted shredders to sweep the streets and repaint the buildings. Mankrik's wife has stopped playing dead for a little while and is grabbing a bite to eat with her husband. The stormforged dwarves are hard at work forging more drops for the raids that have reset. The streets of Orgrimmar are empty with tumbleweeds blowing down the streets and an old orc in a rocking chair is playing the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on an old harmonica (the music was in the tumbleweed's contract). What do you think the World of Warcraft does while we're temporarily forced offline?
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.
Scheduled maintenance for Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
Topping tonight's list of things over which to get your knickers in a twist, Blizzard announced its weekly scheduled Tuesday maintenance window for US realms tonight. Some realms, under the cut, will have an extended maintenance period, ostensibly to complete the new server hardware additions that alleviate or resolve instance-launching errors. Good news for everyone -- even us, because maybe now we'll stop getting tips about it! Maintenance will begin for most realms from Tuesday, September 1 at 3 AM PDT/6 AM EDT and conclude at 11 AM PDT/2 PM EDT. For realms under the cut, extended maintenance will run from 12:01am PDT/3 AM EDT and end at approximately 11:59am PDT/2:59 PM EDT. In the meantime, you can check out our Cataclysm coverage, read up on Goblins or Worgen, emote beleaguered sighs to @WoWInsider on Twitter, or read the list of realms below, which may take you just as long.
Weekly Maintenance - August 11th, 2009
This week's routine server maintenance window for US realms has been announced in-game and on the forums. You know the drill! This happens every Tuesday, nothing to see here, certainly nothing to complain about. Downtime is scheduled to start at 5:00AM PDT/8:00AM EDT and end at approximately 11:00AM PDT/2:00PM EST. This is, of course, assuming no extra maintenance time is tacked on due to issues. Disclaimer: Patch 3.3 is not coming out today. But, you can certainly read up on the new additions to the game with Patch 3.2 in our Guide to Patch 3.2 if you need to kill some time whilst you wait for your server(s) to come back up.
Update: European weekly maintenance: 3rd June 2009
It's Wednesday once more in Europe and Blizzard has been busy. After the implementation of multilingual battle groups last week, they seemed to like it so much that they're merging some more, this time on a bigger scale. Hopefully all this should be happening between 3:00am and 11:00am CEST, but judging by some of the problems experienced by Americans yesterday, this could easily changed. Just keep calm and carry on.So during the maintenance tomorrow, we will not only be getting patch 3.1.3, various battle groups will be shoved together and renamed. Bloodlust (hey that's me) and Cataclysme will become Cataclysm/Cataclysme Cyclone and Todbringer will become Cyclone/Wirbeisturm Conviction and Raserei will become Frenzy/Raserei Rampage and Ferocite will become Rampage/Saccage Reckoning and Verderbnis will become Reckoning/Abrechnung Ruin and Glutsturm will become Emberstorm/Glutsturm Vengeance and Schattenbrand will become Vengeance/Rache, and finally Sturmangroff and Represailles will become Sturmangriff/Charge So while you're waiting for all this to happen, there's plenty to do. We've got patch notes for 3.1.3, there are the new Tauren kitty forms to drool over and you could even download the Battle.net authenticator app from EU iTunes stores. As usual one of my American colleagues - this week Alex Z. - has compiled a fun post to read that rounds up all the interesting tidbits which have been happening for your amusement to tide you over until the servers pop back up.UpdatE: Maintenance has now been extended to 1pm CEST.
European extended and weekly maintenance: 27th May 2009
Good morning Europe. May is almost over and summer seems to be officially here -- at least in the UK. This week we have something different. For most of us, it's the usual bout of maintenance but some lucky souls are getting extended downtime for a very special reason.Basically the Big Giant Heads at Blizzard have decided to merge a couple of Battlegroups. What's so special about that, I hear you cry? Well, it's special because the groups concerned are all in different languages. Yes, this will be the first time French, German, Spanish and English will come together to make multilingual Battlegroups. Lovely EU Blue Wryxian has created a quick FAQ to explain what the heck is going on, though I confess to still being a little confused.This means most of us will have normal maintenance between 5:00am and 7:00am CEST while folks in Nightfall, Crueldad, Nemesis and Hinterhalt (realm-wise, that's Aionsus, Anachronos, Bronze Dragonflight, Burning Steppes, Darkmoon Faire, Darkspear, Kor'gall and Lightbringer) will have extended maintenance between 3:00am and 11:00am CEST.Anyway, my usual motto of 'keep calm and carry on' applies. In the meantime, Daniel Whitcomb has once again provided a feature packed post to keep you entertained. If you finish reading that with time to spare and just happen to be a druid, well you might just want to stare at those lovely updated forms some more. I know I will be.
European weekly maintenance: 20th May 2009
Good morning Europe! How are we all this week? Enjoying Azeroth? As usual, it's maintenance time once more and today there is a little extra excitement in the form of patch 3.1.2.So with this in mind, all the European realms will be down between 3am and 11am CEST. Taking into account past weeks, this can change. The realms could be up by 8am or still down at noon. I will of course have my one eye fixed on the breaking news box and will update if and when one is needed.So to keep you occupied, Daniel has once again come up with a witty morning of the patch post offering things to keep you occupied. Personally I'm rather excited, there's so much in this patch, from the equipment manager (note to self: go dual spec as soon as the realms return), Innervate (Druids FTW!) and those shiny new textures for the Argent Tournament mounts. Lovely. I just wish I could be so happy about the nerfing of the Wintergrasp dailies but c'est la vie.
Updated: European weekly maintenance: 13th May 2009
Greetings folks, it's once again Wednesday and you know what that means? Yes, it's maintenance day once again. Where did the week go? I must be getting older because time is flying by way too fast.Things finally seem to be settling down as we're back to the normal maintenance routine of downtime between 5am and 7am CEST. Of course, our poor American brethren were once again in guinea pig mode. They experienced a rather lengthy period of extended maintenance yesterday afternoon so, as usual, don't hold your breath. As if anticipating the whiff of downtime, Daniel W. compiled a rather extensive list of things do to during the (hopefully short) downtime. See y'all when the servers come back up!Update: All the servers seem to be back up a bit earlier than anticipated. However Blizzard have posted a note concerning 'technical difficulties' relating to the login/authentication servers and promise they're looking into it. Hopefully the problem will be fixed pretty quickly but if you find yourself unable to get into Azeroth, that's why. All you can do is keep calm and carry on, folks.
Realtime Worlds grows its operations team, working on reducing MMO downtimes
Anyone who's played an MMO for a month or so will be familiar with weekly maintenance -- that wonderful time of the week when we have to do something else other than that play our favorite game. According to gamesindustry.biz, Realtime Worlds (developer of All Points Bulletin) has recently made some operations additions by way of Patrick Bays as manager of game operations and Will Leverett as director of customer service. Both men have worked at Origin Systems and NCsoft in the past, although also had a stint with Turbine as well.This is important because Bays is looking to completely remove the weekly maintenance every other MMO suffers from. "As a gamer myself, I don't find six or eight hours downtime every week acceptable, so our system will allow our players to enjoy our games round the clock." said Bays. Of course, both Bays and Leverett have plenty of experience in the MMO industry -- so hopefully this isn't just talk.Hopefully we'll find out soon, even though All Points Bulletin has yet to announce a publisher or any kind of launch window. Although if we have to, we'll make a few sacrifices in order to see this game become a reality.
The Tuesday Morning Post: Wrath Beta is live edition
Good Tuesday morning, everyone. It's a light maintenance week tonight, with nothing but rolling restarts this morning. US Servers will see the restarts at 5 AM PDT, while Oceanic servers will see them at 5 AM AEST. As usual, each server should be down for no more than an hour, and the whole process should be about an hour. While you're sitting around waiting for your server to come back up, I think this a perfect time to remind you to check out (and maybe bookmark) our Wrath of the Lich King directory page, which is being updated daily with the all our articles, sneak peeks, guides, and analysis from the Beta, which was announced this week. Beyond that, why not take a peek at some of the other stuff we've been working on this week? Welcome to the Tuesday morning roundup! Need Wrath of the Lich King news? We got it, of course, especially with the Alpha ending, the Beta beginning, and the information floodgates opening. Here's some of our articles from the last week:
Rolling restarts for most US realms this morning
It's Tuesday, and you know what that means: weekly maintenance! This week most realms are getting rolling restarts instead of a full maintenance -- which means the vast majority of US players won't notice a thing. (Sorry, Australian players, as the restarts still fall dead in your prime evening hours.) For rolling restarts, Blizzard brings down all of the realm servers for a quick reboot (no longer than 15 minutes of downtime) one by one. (The restarts no doubt follow some kind of pattern which we are not privy to.) The restarts will begin at 5:00 AM PST, and though your realm may not be restarted exactly at five, the whole thing should be over by six or so. A handful of US realms will have a brief maintenance: an hour of downtime between 5:00 AM PST and 6:00 AM PST. Sounds like a good time for an powernap for players on: Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Exodar, Ghostlands, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh.
Extended downtime this week for selected realms
Sure enough, the words that many WoW players dread to hear have been issued by Senior Game Master Khrogul. While this week should have been a quick rolling restart week, it would appear that it is not to be the case for several realms including the <It Came from the Blog> server, Zangarmarsh. Of course, you need have no worry! We will be with you through the downtime -- assuming you don't nip off and instead decide to get involved in a hardcore Chore Wars game in the meantime. For those wanting to check out the complete list of servers and the estimated length of downtime, I've copied the official Blue post after the jump for you. It's just another service we offer -- sparing folks from having to battle the slow forum servers on downtime day!
Live maintenance for EU realms, too!
We recently got word that US realms would be having live maintenance, and now we have word that EU realms will be getting the same treatment. (Just on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays.) The schedule should bring realms down for full maintenance every other week with live maintenance (read: rolling restarts) on the between weeks. So, EU players, it's time to celebrate -- rolling restarts are a lot quicker and easier to deal with than full maintenance, and this means we have more opportunities to play when we want to play. Huzzah!
EU Maintenance Extended
Proving that the US isn't the only one with extended weekly maintenance periods, CM Thundgot tells us that EU realms will be down until 16:00 CEST today. Here's to hoping Blizzard figured out something from the many problems with the US patch roll-out and the deployment over the European realms will go more smoothly.
Extended Maintenance for Select US Realms
38 US realms will be offline for an extended period during regular Tuesday maintenance. This additional time accounts for additional hardware and ISP maintenance. The affected realms will be taken offline two hours earlier, and thus will be down between 2:00 AM PDT and 11:00 AM PDT. The rest of the realms will be offline during the usual 5:00 AM PDT to 11:00 AM PDT maintenance window. The realms with extended maintenance will include the following: Aggramar, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Elune, Eonar, Eredar, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Hyjal, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightbringer, Lightnings Blade, Llane, Lothar, Magtheridon, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Shadow Moon, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Stormrage, The Forgotten Coast, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Uther, Warsong, and Zuljin.
Extended Weekly Maintenance for US Realms
This week's maintenance has been extended - and will be starting at 3:00 AM PDT and lasting until 11:00 AM PDT. Yes, that means additional downtime for all US realms. There's no news as to why maintenance needed to be extended, but if you're thinking this may be a sign of patch deployment, that's highly unlikely. The test realms have always been taken offline before the patch has been deployed on the live realms, and they're currently still up and running. But as to what's actually happening, no one really knows.
Servers Coming Back Online
After a few hours' extended maintenance, most realms are starting to come back online. Not coming back up yet are the realms involved in the migration. At 11:10 AM PDT there was an update saying that we should expect the migrating realms (Cenarius, Cenarion Circle, Hyjal, Lightbringer, and Uther) to be down for 10 more hours. Several realms from the migration site (Blackrock, Frostmourne, Frostwolf, Khaz'goroth, Kil'Jaeden, Kilrogg, Ner'zhul, Proudmoore, Sen'Jin, Silver Hand, Tichondrius, and Vek'nilash) will be down for another 4 hours. All other realms should be online by 12:10 PTD, so within the next ten minutes or so.
US Realm Migrations Tomorrow
During tomorrow's maintenance, the servers Cenarius, Cenarion Circle, Hyjal, Lightbringer, and Uther will be migrated to the new World of Warcraft site. What does this mean to us? Well it means that these five servers will be down for about 18 hours (starting at 3AM PDT). However, it also means that servers at the same site those five are migrating from will be down for 12 hours (also starting at 3AM PDT). So if you play on any of the following servers, I hope you have alternate morning plans: Blackrock, Bonechewer, Dragonmaw, Eldre'Thalas, Firetree, Frostmane, Frostmourne, Frostwolf, Gurubashi, Khaz'goroth, Kil'Jaeden, Kilrogg, Nathrezim, Ner'zhul, Proudmoore, Scarlet Crusade, Sen'Jin, Shadow Council, Shadowsong, Silver Hand, Silvermoon, Smolderthorn, Spirestone, Skywall, Terenas, Tichondrius, Vek'nilash, and Windrunner.
Test Realms Up, Live Realms Down
We know that Blizzard is upgrading their authentication hardware today (which seems to be running a bit late, though there's no official word on status), but I am a little confused as to how the test realms are up and all the live realms not. Login to the live realms is painless, but there's not a single realm showing as available to play on. The test realms all appear to be up (as of the time of this writing), but with a bit of a queue and massive crowding in the Eastern Plaguelands as everyone heads in for a glimpse of Naxxramas. However, the fact that login is possible seems to suggest that the delay we're experiencing isn't caused by authentication problems...
