World of Warcraft AQ Gates Open!

Tayman writes "Wow...who didn't see this one coming? The players on the World of Warcraft Medivh server opened the gates to AQ. What happened next? The server crashed repeatedly. Why create content the servers can't handle? The very first time I read about this patch, I knew the servers would crash. The more people who open the gates, the more angry customers Blizzard will have in my opinion. With 5million+ subscribers, you would think Blizzard would have the best servers/connection money can buy. Although, I'm sure it's more complicated than simply plugging in a few ram chips and faster processors though. Most of the people involved in the raid are having a great time though. Could this be the most epic battle ever introduced to the mmorpg market? All signs point to yes. Let's see how long the mobs will respawn. Hopefully, the people of the Medivh server haven't seen anything yet. Either way, I would hate to be a network admin for Blizzard atm. ^_^ Here are some pics of the event. Thanks go out to all of those who took these pics. World of Warcraft AQ Pics Check out MMORPG Veteran to keep up with the events as they unfold." Update: 01/23 13:44 GMT by Z : Additionally, brandor wrote in with a link to some video of the event.

Finally!

[boaworm]

A good excuse to be a lazy farmer :)

A million addicts cry out at once!

[caryw]

As the authentication servers crash...

Seriously though, this game looks like loads of fun but everyone I know that plays it has a total life-consuming addiction with it.

I'll climb onboard once it's free and less addicting than heroin.
--
Washington DC Metro? Fairfax Underground! [fairfaxunderground.com]

sounds cool... I think

[illtron]

Every time one of my friend starts talking about WoW, or whenever I hear news like this, half of me says "wow, this is cool, I should play." And the other half of me says "thank God I that don't."

Why does

[IdleTime]

all these wbesites have to be virtually unreadable? Dark text on black background....What are they hiding?

guh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand one word of this slashdot post. Maybe there's hope for my sex life after all.

Glad I play City of Heroes...

[Robotech_Master]

...and don't have to deal with buggy content, server crashes, mapserver disconnections, developer nerfs, and--stop laughing! Dammit, stop laughing already!

Oh well, at least I have a good time RPing and writing [rpcongress.com] in it...

The AQ is very difficult to get.

[raehl]

You'll need a gown, a towel, a satchel, and a pile of junk mail.

And, of course, an AQ dispenser.

Re:Very nice of you to tell us

[SeekerDarksteel]

Oh right, gay SM then?

No, no, no. AQ is in Silithus. You're thinking of Tristfal Glades. And I don't think the Scarlet Crusaders would take kindly to you insulting their home.

Re:guh?

[Kadin2048]

Seriously -- this is one of the most incoherent summaries that I've read in a while.

"What happened next? The server crashed repeatedly. Why create content the servers can't handle? The very first time I read about this patch, I knew the servers would crash."

The mental image this creates for me is of some brain-damaged ex-geek -- their mind finally snapped from too much Bawlz and sleep deprivation -- safely locked up in a rubber room somewhere, gibbering spastically to themselves. They're having a delightful conversation, too bad they're the only one there.

I don't normally criticize Slashdot articles, because I figure that getting the information out is more important than spelling, grammar, or not sounding like a dyslexic fifth-grader. However this one was just so egregiously bad, I couldn't resist; it goes after some misguided sense of style at the expense of being informative, and that's just not good.

Re:Very nice of you to tell us

[theSpaceCow]

The short version (not to necessarily be trusted, what with me being a lv 49 noob on a sleepy role-playing server): Ahn'Qiraj is a big hole in the ground out in the middle of the desert filled with huge ugly bug monsters. It's necessary to beat it because.... you know... bugs are ugly. So ugly that both opposing factions have teamed up to wage war against it. It takes forty top-level characters to beat, so we're probably talking days of planning and hours upon hours of setup before you can even walk in the door. Oh, and everyone on the server had to collect resources before ANYONE could try any of this.

NPC: "Hey kids! Give us 8 million linen bandages and 476,000 crisp basilisk urethras!"
Player: "Won't that be terribly boring? And completely useless for actually advancing my character?"
NPC: "You don't understand! This is for... the War Effort! You asked Blizzard for more content, right?"
Player: "Soooo.... Content means turning everyone on the server into farmers? For worthless items?"
NPC: "Shut up, kid. This is an epic adventure. This is what you're paying for."
Player: "Okay, okay. Even if it's not very useful, it won't be so bad to have all these resources stored up for when we want to storm this new dungeon.... "
NPC: "Wait, what? You mean you thought you'd ever see any of that again? We're pretty much burying those bandages and urethras out in the desert."
Player: "Sigh. I guess this is what you have to deal with if you want to see the high-end content. Or even if you don't, really."
NPC: "That's the spirit! And look, the dungeon just opened! You can find it past the--"

Disconnected from server.

Re:A million addicts cry out at once!

[JackDW]

My thoughts exactly... this is a really scary game. I can't quite believe it - it's everywhere, everyone seems to play it, and they all play it constantly. I feel like I've woken up in the future and everyone is on heroin now. It's weird and frightening.

Best not to think about it really, and have a nice relaxing smoke of crack.

Re:Why does

[Anonymous Coward]

lack of content?

Re:lame game

[Digital Vomit]

I played a game like that once. I think it was called "real life". Great graphics and play control. It takes a huge time investment to get anywhere, though. And it's tough to even find monsters to kill (so difficult that many don't believe they even exist). I prefer World of Warcraft, thanks.

Re:Why does

[ceeam]

Opera: View->Style->User mode
Mozilla: View->Page style->No style
MSIE: File->Exit

Re:Don't....

[iguana]

Back in college, there was a guy who spent all day in the terminal cluster playing MUDs. We called him "Sleeper" because we would find him asleep in the chair every morning.

He eventually did flunk out. He was a nice guy; just picked a bad direction in life.

BTW, for all you young pups out there, a "terminal cluster" is a room full of dumb text terminals attached to a single computer, like our VAX. We only had Windows/386 AND WE LIKED IT! I'm going to go soak my teeth now...

Speaking of regrets, I could have spent all my time writing Windows 3.0/3.1/95/NT programs, and gotten rich, instead of wasting my time on UNIX. Oh, well.

Re:Don't....

[JavaLord]

These games are the biggest regret of my life. Seriously. I once spent over 1400 hours in one year playing one (back in the text days). That's seventy days, if you are counting. I could have been getting good grades, chasing chicks, and figuring out what the "#$# to do with my life

Had you spent the 1400 hours chasing chicks, what do you think you might have had to show for it? Other than VD or a seriously brused ego?

Re:Don't....

[Surt]

Please get re-addicted, these games are my living! I sell the very coolest of equipment on ebay. I've been averaging just a little over 12k per month for the last 3 years. It only takes about 1500 hours per year, which is a nice margin smaller than the typical 1600-2000 most people work.

Practice Makes Perfect!

[Cranky Weasel]

Had you spent the 1400 hours chasing chicks, what do you think you might have had to show for it? Other than VD or a seriously brused ego?

Spend 1400 hours chasing chicks, and you're bound to get really good at it! Then you can write a book on the subject and make tons of money off of geeks who get tired of playing World of Warcraft, but who can't talk to a girl to save their lives.

Wrong reason!

[lordofthechia]

Silly boy. That's now why the wrold went down. Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the server because people in the game wouldn't shut up about him.

Re:Very nice of you to tell us

[clovis]

So, in other words, it's just like real life:
Girlfriends
School Assignments
Work Projects
War (except that the **poof** part is the desired outcome)

Re:Don't....

[NMerriam]

Had you spent the 1400 hours chasing chicks, what do you think you might have had to show for it?

At the very least, stronger ab muscles, and probably some really nice photos and videos.

Re:Very nice of you to tell us

[decepty]

And we all know that the best way to get away from those confounding acronyms is to read a tech news site, as there are absolutely none of those there, right?

Re:I am not surprised.

[blueskies]

When the systems die at peak trading, it's 10s of millions in revenue lost. An hour.

Am i the only one that read that as 10 silver out of millions lost?