WoW vs. Customer Complaints

Blizzard has seen nothing short of success with its worldwide phenomenon, World of Warcraft, but lately a growing number of complaints have been filed regarding the server network. According to the complaints, since the last patch in March, the server network has been giving many players an increasing number of connectivity issues including sudden drops from the game and frequent crashes. Complaints have also surfaced concerning lag spikes and queue lines that force people to wait a while before they can play. "Being a system administrator myself, I have some understanding of what goes on in a corporate data center," said Evgeny Krevets, a regular WoW player. "I don't know Blizzard's system setup. What I do know is that if I kept performing 'urgent maintenance' and taking the service down without warning for eight-hour periods, I would be out of a job." Blizzard contends that it has been doing everything in its power to give players peace of mind and an enjoyable gaming experience and argues that problems inevitably will happen from time to time. "Due to the complex nature of massively multiplayer games like 'World of Warcraft,' technical issues such as the ones some of our players have experienced recently may occur on occasion," Blizzard spokeswoman Lisa Jensen, said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Our commitment to our players is to provide effective solutions as quickly and carefully as possible whenever any such situation occurs." This, of course, is not surprising, given that there are over six million active subscribers, but what has become a major concern for a lot of people is the lack of communication. For many, it has gotten bad enough that the common response phrase used by tech support, "working as intended," has become a common inside joke for the community. Still, the situation with World of Warcraft is unique in that it is the first to ever reach such a high number of subscribers, so it only makes sense that they are one of the only MMO's out with such a large and unique set of problems. Even so, the consesus so far with the community is that it's the lack of serious treatment by Blizzard on the issue, which has been bothering the community. "The thing is, there is no other real alternative" to WoW, Ito said. "So they sort of have a natural monopoly, and that's why people are so mad, I think. They can't vote with their feet. They just have to wait. And 'Blizz' has to realize that they have millions of hours of people's time hostage and should feel that responsibility."