Tuesday (20 Oct) - Terribad and Redunkulus It Is

Tuesday (20 Oct) - Terribad and Redunkulus It Is

Servers across WoW land have been disintegrating into lag pits to the point of unplayability for the past week. Everyone hoped that the Tuesday maintenance cycle would clean up the problem, but instead, it was worse than ever. There were no guild raids scheduled from either guild on Tuesday, which was just as well as I'm not sure it would have been playable. Speculation is that the cause derives from the Halloween events, which encourage players to log in and out constantly to collect candy and other things and to get the achievements for the events done. There is also the Headless Horseman event in Scarlet Monastery that I believe has turned that dungeon and surrounding area into lagfest as well. "Terribad" and "redunkulus" are two of my favorite terms being used to describe the server problems.

JB logged in around 7pm, taking more than five minutes at the "blue bar" before actually getting in. JB waded through the lag in Dalaran to the flight master and hopefully a more playable area at the Argent Tournament grounds. Once there, it did seem to get a bit better. JB picked up the jousting dailies and then headed out into the Icecrown wilderness to get them done. The first quest is done on a jousting mount, killing various mobs. Three mounted mobs also have to be defeated. They aren't that hard to kill, but depending on how many players are out there doing the quest, it can get dicey as there are a LOT of mobs.

The area was nearly deserted of players when JB arrived. She grabbed her lance and mounted up, and headed to one of three areas where the mounted mobs were with their squads of foot soldiers. JB picked out the mounted mob she wanted to attack first, always choosing ones that had not had time to get their shields up as they were easier kills. The mobs around the mounted mob could be trampled to death, assuming there weren't too many of them.

JB Charged her target, trampling a half dozen of the ground troops in the process. Her Charge carried her past the target and as she wheeled around for the second strike she aggroed another mounted mob and his small army of foot soldiers. JB trampled as many as she could while trying to out maneuver the two mounted mobs that were now after her. But she failed and her mount died under her. On foot, there's no contest. JB was overwhelmed and killed.

Well, that wasn't the first time, and likely not the last. JB released, arrived at the graveyard, and then flew back as a ghost to her corpse to rez. But her corpse wasn't there. JB knew she had the right spot, but just to sure I circled the entire area. No body.

I put in a trouble ticket with a Game Master (GM) and of course got the standard initial reply "We are currently experiencing a large number of tickets." After 15 minutes I flew JB's ghost back to the graveyard and considered using the Spirit Rez there, but doing that forces a 25% durability hit on all her gear and darned if JB was going to pay to have that gear repaired! She flew back to the quest area and there was her corpse! But the expected message allowing her to rez did not appear. She was still stuck. After 45 minutes JB logged out in disgust, having gotten nothing done.

Wednesday morning update - JB logged in early Wednesday morning. She was still in Icecrown at the quest area; she was still dead. Her corpse was still there, but now she received the option of being resurrected. The ticket to the GM was still open and had never been responded to. JB abandoned the ticket, rezzed, and returned to the quest area camp. No sense crying over spilt blood. JB got her lance, hopped on a mount, and went to finish her Argent tournament daily, a day later than expected.

JB now has 21 of the 25 Valiant seals that she needs. After tomorrow's dailies she will have enough for a Challenge match to raise her standing in the tournament. JB is still a miserable jouster; but maybe she'll get lucky.

In other news the server problems have been particularly hard on the mail system and the Auction House. Happy had his worst day in months when his Wednesday morning AH sales came to 42 gold, and most of his stock for sale came back expired. Most of the reason for that was lag so bad on the AH that it took several minutes for a bid or a buy to take effect, and many folks quickly gave up trying. Blizzard ran rolling server restarts Wednesday morning in addition to the regular Tuesday maintenance. However, server lag could already be felt in Dalaran and Orgrimmar at 10am server time when JB was working with Wild on some enchants.

Wild plans to travel to Ulduar long before the raid start time in hopes of avoiding the worst of the lag, but that doesn't mean there will be a raid. The former Lady Hunter group and now MM raid seems to have settled on Wednesday for their raid, the same day as Wild's guild, and at the same time (6pm start). Well, two choices for Wednesday, assuming the servers let enough raiders in. If the raids happen, Wild is hoping the two raids will tackle different instances - such as one going to Ulduar and the other to ToC - so that Wild won't be totally locked out of one of them if there is a second raid day.