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World of Warcraft |OT6| This wolf still has teeth

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
It's more like GM maintenance. They need some time off after dealing with scrubs 24/6.
 
Im new to this. I got a question. Does every character have a different starting story and quest?

Also, has there ever been a discount in monthly subs?

Second question is easy: No, or at least never that I've been aware of. You get a discount if you pay for larger chunks at a time, though. And they had the Annual Pass where you signed up for a year and then got Diablo III and an exclusive mount for free but that's the closest to having a deal tied to a subscription.

Oh, and if you refer-a-friend and they pay for a month you get a free month of game time. I believe you can do this multiple times. That said, if you signed up in the last 30 days and didn't have someone refer you send me a PM (or someone else here you know) with your e-mail address so we can send you a refer-a-friend referral.

As for characters and starting quests the difference races generally start in different zones though do start roughly in the same spot and have very minor differences to the very beginning of the game. But even with that just about every single quest can be done by the other races so if you start a human and run all the way over to where the dwarves start you can do those quests instead if you really wanted to.

Aside from the small handful of quests where you start I don't think there's anything that's race specific within the same faction. There used to be some class specific quests but those are almost entirely gone. The warlocks have their own questline introduced during MoP to get their fire to turn green when they attack but otherwise quests really are only split by faction and even then quests can be shared when they're in neutral locations. I'm sure the quests that aren't shared have the same objectives (collect 12 boar meat!) but have different story reasons or flavor text to tell you why you're doing it for them.

There's no "story" quest that you work on from the start until end game or anything. Most zones have self-contained stories that tie up when you reach the end and then they'll send you on a quest to the next zone over. And with leveling sped up as it is with old content you'll level beyond the quests in a zone before finishing its story in some cases and then you just drop the remaining quests and move on (or finish the quests anyhow if you want to see that story come to its end),
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
this is horrid
 

mileS

Member
It's the release for the first raid of an expansion. Maintenance is going to extend once or twice and most high pop realms are going to get hammered tonight/raids might be buggy or laggy here and there. If people are expecting anything less..
 

Apt101

Member
Just spitballing but:

Cleaning the servers. They no doubt collect a lot of dust.

Rebooting servers. Not sure what custom OS they are running on, but stability tends to drop the longer a server is operating continuously.

Replacing parts that have broken or doing routine hardware upgrades.

Firmware updates or pushing mini-patches that couldn't be hotfixed.

Or various other things. Basically servers are pieces of hardware that need maintenance. They are running almost 24/7 with varying heavy loads.

Maintenance is a big part of my job. I would think a lot of it is database maintenance, it seems to take our database teams a long time to conduct theirs. Patching will of course be a part of it sometimes. No matter how robust or used dev and test environments are, applying patches to production always seems to have unforseen issues.

I saw the blade servers they use, HP like the ones we do. Unless there is a major issue with their environment cleaning isn't a thing - the blades and enclosures remain really clean even after years of use (I routinely open four- six year old blades, enclosures, and even rack-mounts and they're still spotless with almost no dust). And since they're using blade hardware upgrades should be trivial, even if standing up new enclosures (unless for some reason they don't stand up the next gear and just switch to it during maint).
 

Boogdud

Member
Just spitballing but:

Cleaning the servers. They no doubt collect a lot of dust.

Rebooting servers. Not sure what custom OS they are running on, but stability tends to drop the longer a server is operating continuously.

Replacing parts that have broken or doing routine hardware upgrades.

Firmware updates or pushing mini-patches that couldn't be hotfixed.

Or various other things. Basically servers are pieces of hardware that need maintenance. They are running almost 24/7 with varying heavy loads.

They're likely pruning events and performing db maintenance. They aren't likely doing any power cycling in a data center unless they don't have redundant power suppliers, or the power carrier is requesting it (might happen once a year). You aren't getting dust in a tier 4 data center, I speak from personal experience. Of course I don't know if they're in a T4, it might just be 3 or multiple 2s, but still, you're not worried about dust or other hardware issues there.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
come hte fuck on
 

StMeph

Member
Maintenance is a big part of my job. I would think a lot of it is database maintenance, it seems to take our database teams a long time to conduct theirs. Patching will of course be a part of it sometimes. No matter how robust or used dev and test environments are, applying patches to production always seems to have unforseen issues.

More likely than not, it's because this is the way it's always worked.

These are the procedures and policies in place for the existing hardware, and while some things can and probably has been upgraded over the years, I'm sure some of the underlying infrastructure hasn't, and maybe couldn't be changed since WoW launched, and as a result there are some now-arcane things that have to be done to make sure everything works during patch deployment.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It seems like its pretty easy to get your Seals.

1 for free if you have an Armory
1 for 500 gold (which is basically what you get in quest rewards)
1 for 1000 Apexis (1 daily)
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
COME N ON MBLIZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
So apparently they have changed trinkets again today. Everburning Candle still has overbudget INT (which made it very good even with it's lackluster use) but now returns nearly FOUR times as much mana for a total of 20916 on a 2 min cd. Making it by far BiS even in Mythic Foundry.

Not really sure what the deal is with that, but now I'm just regretting not buying a candle when they were cheap. Now they will be incredibly in demand.
 

StMeph

Member
It seems like its pretty easy to get your Seals.

1 for free if you have an Armory
1 for 500 gold (which is basically what you get in quest rewards)
1 for 1000 Apexis (1 daily)

I expect to get mine from War Mill, follower mission, and either Apexis or Garrison resource. Currently leaning toward Garrison since Stables dailies + Lumber Mill 3 + Scavenging missions + passive daily resource is drowning me in the stuff.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
The whining stops being funny after the second post, dude.

iut was never meant to be funny angry grimace - yir trolling however stops beingf funny after your second post and you've made 32,715 in your lifetime

scheduled maintenance is there for a reason, i understand - but having extended maintenancee is absolute bullshoit because theyr know people have other stuff tro do in real life and they PLAN their ufkvcing lives outside of WoW depending on the times blizzard tells us

do u understand, mr angry grimace?
 

Mothman91

Member
It seems like its pretty easy to get your Seals.

1 for free if you have an Armory
1 for 500 gold (which is basically what you get in quest rewards)
1 for 1000 Apexis (1 daily)

Yeah but if you want your other 2, let's say you go the gold route, the second/third ones(if you don't have a war mill/armory), the gold you need to use goes up a bit. So maybe 1k/1.5k for the 2nd/3rd ones?

That's what I saw watching a video in beta do it.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
what is a dtl
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I will always understand you, Grimace.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Yeah but if you want your other 2, let's say you go the gold route, the second/third ones(if you don't have a war mill/armory), the gold you need to use goes up a bit. So maybe 1k/1.5k for the 2nd/3rd ones?

That's what I saw watching a video in beta do it.

Here is how it works:

Gold: 500, 1000, 2000
Garrison Resources: 300, 600, 1200
Honor: 500, 1000, 2000
Apexis Crystals: 1000, 2000, 4000

If you use the same resource twice, it goes to the next amount.

300 Resources is very easy if you have Scavenger traits in your followers, 500 Honor is meh (I don't PvP so I wouldn't know), 1000 Apexis Crystals is one daily.

Using the same resource is mostly if you just have a ton of them with nothing to use them on, or if you're an Auction House Baron to begin with.

[unintelligible]

Please don't post like this.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Probably Apexis/Garrison route for me.

I like my gold too much to "waste" it on RNG. I'm almost at 100k!
 

cdyhybrid

Member
I'll be using gold and GR to start off with (get a free one from the War Mill) and transitioning to Apexis once I finish upgrading the one piece that I have.
 
This is how I imagine server maintenance now.
TepZAYe.jpg
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Someone forget to set Lantresor of the Blade as a worker.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
So the one thing I don't know yet is: is it the same vendor? Different vendors? All in Ashran? Or located in different places?

Not sure on Horde. It's behind the AH in Ashran-Stormshield on Alliance so I assume it's similar on Horde.
 

Guesong

Member
This is how I imagine server maintenance now.

Hah.

When I upgraded my mines to level 3, I thought I'd never see them again. "I have guards! I'm protected! Says so right there!"

NOPE MOST USELESS GUARDS EVER.

Also I should have kept it level 2. Level 3 takes even longer to mine through.

Oh well. When I level my Death Knight after I'm done with this second toon (Warlock), I hope I can level JC 600-700 with all them ores.
 

StayDead

Member
I have to ask, why on earth do Blizzard America do maintenence during the day? EU has done it overnight for as long as I can remember.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I have to ask, why on earth do Blizzard America do maintenence during the day? EU has done it overnight for as long as I can remember.

Night time is raid time, would be my guess.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
I love you all despite the extended (extended) maintenance

Good night and god bless you all, good luck at the raid
 

Apt101

Member
I came back after years away, and Blizzard is still incapable of hitting outage windows. Hah. Well, I have some chores and grocery shopping to do anyways.....
 

Giggzy

Member
I came back after years away, and Blizzard is still incapable of hitting outage windows. Hah. Well, I have some chores and grocery shopping to do anyways.....

They usually come back much earlier than their anticipated return time. People just remember the bad times.
 

Floridian

Member
I wonder if 636 ilvl is high enough for heroic attempts at highmaul. I cbf'd doing cm dungeons or crafting my gear, or buying 640+ gear so i'm relying on my half heroic warforged pieces along with the rest of my heroic dungeon gear.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Hah, I remember maintenance being extended to 5 PM in the EU at times during vanilla. And they start it at 4 AM, so that's over half a day of maintenance. Now those were the days.
 
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