Thursday (2 Feb) - Frustration Across the Board

Thursday (2 Feb) - Frustration Across the Board

Nothing could stop JB's determined march from the moment she turned level 85. Her totally focused goal - a spot on a guild Dragon Soul raid group - seemed in her grasp. All she needed was a drop or two from the LFR DS, prove her DPS level was sufficient, and she could get her Raider rank in the guild, making JB eligible for guild runs.

Nothing in game could keep JB from that goal - so the game itself derailed her.

On Tuesday night of this week, JB entered her first lfr DS. It was the first half run, Siege of Deathwing. JB helped kill all four bosses, getting her first clear of Siege. On Wednesday, JB was anxious to get the second half of DS completed, the Fall of Deathwing. JB queued up . . . but there was something odd about it. The Looking For Raid feature is so powerful because it taps many realms and servers, not just the local server, Silvermoon. Because there are literally hundreds of thousands of potential raiders, I've never heard of an LFR queue that didn't start with at least a few raiders. Most of the time the raid is already at least half full or more the moment you join the queue. Wild has never had to wait more than a minute or two for the queue to pop and raiders to start filing into DS.

When JB queued for the lfr DS, she noted that she was the ONLY person in the queue. She can tell this because the lfr provides a count of all queued raiders, counting tanks, healers, and DPS. JB's queue count was:
0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS (JB was the lone person)

JB waited a full five minutes, but the numbers stubbornly stayed right where they were. Of course, JB left the queue and tried re-entering several times, but got the same result. She logged out of game, came back in - same result. She asked guildies to check - they had no problem queuing in and got into the raid. I logged Wild in game, thinking maybe it was an account issue. Wild had no problem getting into an lfr raid.

At a loss at what to do now, JB logged a ticket with a Game Master (GM). The average time for a response is 19-24 hrs. JB caught a break, though, and about thirty minutes later a GM whispered JB.

JB and the GM talked for 45 minutes, trying everything he could think of. It was a long list. Nothing worked. The GM even passed the ticket to another GM to see if he'd missed anything. No clue why this was happening. Finally, they gave me the dreaded "I don't know what else to do answer" - You need to wipe your cache, WTF, and Interface and then login to get a clean load. JB knew that this would mean rebuilding her laboriously and lovingly designed user interface - hours and hours of work. The GM assured JB that this would solve the problem, though. JB asked if the ticket would remain open, and the answer was no. It would work, he said.

So I made a backup of the three files and then deleted them. The game came up fine, although the screen looked very sparse and uninviting in the default user interface without a single addon or adjustment.

JB crossed her dual blades for luck, and queued for the lfr DS.

0/2 tanks
0/6 healers
1/17 DPS

Fail.

Sigh. JB logged a second ticket. I restored the backup files and was back where I started.

The response from a GM on the second ticket came in the mail since JB wasn't in game when the GM worked it. The canned response went over the same things that had already been done the first time, which JB had clearly spelled out in the second ticket. The GM suggested it was just a matter of being patient while the queue filled. JB's response to that was pretty pointed: "It is not about waiting for the queue to fill. Whenever I queue I get a queue screen that says 0/2 0/6 1/17 - ALWAYS. And those numbers never change no matter how many times I try. I have done everything that the last two GMs asked of me, including a complete wipe of the cache, wtf and interface. Its still the same problem. I really need some help here."

Last night JB went to bed late without an answer.

On Friday morning JB had a response waiting for her. Here is the sentence that first caught JB's eye: "We have not yet heard of this issue!" Great, JB has uncovered a new bug, never before seen among the 11 million players in WoW. Wish that had been a winning LOTO ticket; the odds are about the same.

So, what's next? The issue has been forwarded to the Blizz Quality Assurance team, who will "attempt to reproduce the issue."  If they discover something, it will be forwarded to the Development Team, who will then "determine a fix and apply it to the game as soon as possible."

JB will soldier on, getting what she can from the Twilight dungeons and the VP/JPs she can get from that.

Update - I tried a test this morning. I logged both JB and Wild in game. Wild invited JB to group with him. As the group leader, Wild then queued into the LFR. It worked. JB got a working queue. It's a work-around, but better than nothing. I have no confidence that Blizz will bother working on a problem that affects just one player, so this may be the best JB can do.