UPDATE: This was a very difficult weekend. The additional server we added on Friday did not relieve the issues, as we had expected it to. Zones continued to crash, and Karak-Norn lag spikes grew. As Norn players began playing on Badlands, due to the lag spikes on Norn, lag increased on Badlands and zones began crashing faster.
Sunday afternoon (local time), after having combed through code and hardware specs for days, our engineers were able to identify the root of the problem causing the zone crashes; I don’t know all the details, but it had something to do with mismatched priority queues. The lag spikes on Karak-Norn had to do with our European cluster hardware being misrepresented, so their specs were worse than what we were being told they were. With this newfound knowledge, we were able to get a new build, and new configurations, pushed to live servers. Based on all reports, as of this time, servers have returned to a stable state.
I apologize for the servers going down yesterday without any in-game warnings. That was my fault; I had Tim post a notice on the herald, and gave the go-ahead for servers to go down for the deployment, without making arrangements for in-game warnings first.
I’m currently working to get the following compensation package in place for people:
* 10-Days of game time applied to subscribed accounts
* 1 Golden Writ available to subscribed characters
* 100% XP/RP boost for 7 days for all characters
* A stack of 10 Lesser Bone Wards available for all characters
* A special title unlock for anyone who attempted to play between the 18th and the 24th
("available to..." means these items will given to characters upon their first login after the compensation package is released, but only before the compensation period ends. Characters that are logged in after the compensation period ends will not receive these rewards.)
The Compensation Period has not yet been determined, because we're working with the account center and CSRs to make sure we have everything covered correctly. I will make sure to have something posted here in the forums, and on the Herald, letting you know what the Compensation Period date range will be.
If you are unfamiliar with the Golden Writ, Gaarawar created a Guide to Golden Writs back in May 2010 which you might find helpful.
The Lesser Bone Ward acts the same as Bone Ward, except it is consumed when it is used. You can slot the entire stack in one of your pockets, and then drag it to your hotbar to activate. Each activation will consume one of the Lesser Bone Wards, and the cooldown is the same (though not shared) as the regular Bone Ward, i.e., 60 minutes. The Lesser Bone Ward cannot be moved to your bank, and are BoP.
Thank you for your ongoing understanding and patience through this transition process.
Keaven Freeman
http://www.facebook.com/officialwarhammeronlineWAR Design & Implementation Lead
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