03-16-2005, 01:55 PM
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...p=1#post1907702
Carne
This info was given to me by a former employee of a very large internet backbone server group. which shall remain nameless, but I'm sure the people who know who I mean allready are aware of this problem, but don't want to discuss it.
I don't know how long this will stay up before being deleted or locked, but here it goes.
The biggest reason why certain relms and servers keep crashing, and certain changes effect servers almost randomly, is not entirely blizzards fault. They use major backbone companies to host the servers used for this game- not their own proprietary servers they used for battle.net, though they did outsource allot of the b.net servers too, later in b.nets evolution. But I digress.
Blizzard as a company does not have the nationwide and worldwide infrastructure to completely control the internet access and server networks needed to make this game work. They contract other telco companies to handle alot of it for them. ALL mmorpgs do the same, do varying degrees.
The problem with blizzard is that they are in a contract with certain companies they cannot break, which includes hardware and bandwidth limitaions.
From what I was told, they optioned for growth at a certain rate and at a certain cost. They have been renegotiating for more mandwidth and control, but it's costing them dearly. They CANNOT discuss this openly in any way as it could be construed by the parties in question as being slanderous or libleous in certain contexts. Rather than take the chance of someone slipping up and saying a little too much at one time, they addopted a 100% non-disclosure policy on these issues.
Once any side gets lawyers involved, any and everything can and will be used against you. They also don't want to risk 10.000 angry gamers floding the internet companies with hate mail or spam about the issue. Blizzards contracts call for them to be the responsible party for customer contact in this situation.
On a related note, I was also told that the day to day costs or running the servers is immense- to the tune of several million dollars a month. As technology improves, they can expand the servers and increase the numbers of active servers and decrease the lag and technicle issues involved while keeping the costs about the same as allready contacted for, or even less.
One big factor in the cost I was surprised to hear was what my friend refered to as the "defense budget"- the cost of protecting the servers themselves from direct attack via the net. They are assaulted constantly by hackers who attempt to crash or hack in to the servers, either maliciously or to track the info flowing both ways on the networks. Its not a smal feet to protect them, and still allow the game to flow at all, let alone smoothly. The figures discussed put the wow servers at about the same target level as the pentagon, if not more so, in the attempts to hack in to, moslty my rank amatuers, but some serious damage has been done by pros as well.
"
I dont think blizzard, or any other mmorpg company really wants to dicuss the 2nd point, it being the dirty little secreat hiding out in plain sight no one wants to talk about. Again, loose lips sink ships, and if they did give out anything close to detailed info on how or when the servers were being attacked, it would invite other to try the same.
Well, hope everyone takes this for what it is worth.
And before anyone asks, blizzard certainly knows who I am, but under no circumstances will I divulge the source of my info, to them or to anyone else so dont ask."
having played lots of MMORPs I find it really surprising that a successful on like is running so poorly this far it. Normally success lets "throw money at the problem" and gennerally that works. WoW performing like it does at this point leads me to susppect this analysis is largely true. Especillly the part about scalability.
Carne
This info was given to me by a former employee of a very large internet backbone server group. which shall remain nameless, but I'm sure the people who know who I mean allready are aware of this problem, but don't want to discuss it.
I don't know how long this will stay up before being deleted or locked, but here it goes.
The biggest reason why certain relms and servers keep crashing, and certain changes effect servers almost randomly, is not entirely blizzards fault. They use major backbone companies to host the servers used for this game- not their own proprietary servers they used for battle.net, though they did outsource allot of the b.net servers too, later in b.nets evolution. But I digress.
Blizzard as a company does not have the nationwide and worldwide infrastructure to completely control the internet access and server networks needed to make this game work. They contract other telco companies to handle alot of it for them. ALL mmorpgs do the same, do varying degrees.
The problem with blizzard is that they are in a contract with certain companies they cannot break, which includes hardware and bandwidth limitaions.
From what I was told, they optioned for growth at a certain rate and at a certain cost. They have been renegotiating for more mandwidth and control, but it's costing them dearly. They CANNOT discuss this openly in any way as it could be construed by the parties in question as being slanderous or libleous in certain contexts. Rather than take the chance of someone slipping up and saying a little too much at one time, they addopted a 100% non-disclosure policy on these issues.
Once any side gets lawyers involved, any and everything can and will be used against you. They also don't want to risk 10.000 angry gamers floding the internet companies with hate mail or spam about the issue. Blizzards contracts call for them to be the responsible party for customer contact in this situation.
On a related note, I was also told that the day to day costs or running the servers is immense- to the tune of several million dollars a month. As technology improves, they can expand the servers and increase the numbers of active servers and decrease the lag and technicle issues involved while keeping the costs about the same as allready contacted for, or even less.
One big factor in the cost I was surprised to hear was what my friend refered to as the "defense budget"- the cost of protecting the servers themselves from direct attack via the net. They are assaulted constantly by hackers who attempt to crash or hack in to the servers, either maliciously or to track the info flowing both ways on the networks. Its not a smal feet to protect them, and still allow the game to flow at all, let alone smoothly. The figures discussed put the wow servers at about the same target level as the pentagon, if not more so, in the attempts to hack in to, moslty my rank amatuers, but some serious damage has been done by pros as well.
"
I dont think blizzard, or any other mmorpg company really wants to dicuss the 2nd point, it being the dirty little secreat hiding out in plain sight no one wants to talk about. Again, loose lips sink ships, and if they did give out anything close to detailed info on how or when the servers were being attacked, it would invite other to try the same.
Well, hope everyone takes this for what it is worth.
And before anyone asks, blizzard certainly knows who I am, but under no circumstances will I divulge the source of my info, to them or to anyone else so dont ask."
having played lots of MMORPs I find it really surprising that a successful on like is running so poorly this far it. Normally success lets "throw money at the problem" and gennerally that works. WoW performing like it does at this point leads me to susppect this analysis is largely true. Especillly the part about scalability.