Disgruntled Community Bring Down WoW's Servers

Written by: QuintLyn Bowers (@QuintLyn) | September 17, 2012 3:18 pm

66 Comments

World of Warcraft players have been less than happy today as they’ve found themselves unable to play due to the actions of members of a private forum. The forum allows members to post hack and bot information. One member who admits to being “angry” with Blizzard over the past few weeks posted a tool that allows players to effectively crash WoW’s servers.

Players effectively began noticing issues some time yesterday evening and have reported it, but there has been no official statement from Blizzard as of yet.

While it is assumed by most that Blizzard is on it, players are still pretty disgruntled as they simply want to play the game.

The original poster of the crash tool did not give any specifics at to why he’s angry at Blizzard, but I’d guess that at least one reason was the watermark recently discovered in player screenshots.

Disgruntled Community Bring Down WoW's Servers

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3 Release Date Confirmed

Patch 5.3 Release Date Is Confirmed By Blizzard on TwitterRead more »

68 comments
4:06

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Purely Pandaria Profession Leveling!

The latest Patch 5.3 PTR build is up, and has brought some fairly major changes to the leveling process of Mining and Herbalism. Read more »

25 comments
9:55

World of Warcraft

Preparing for Patch 5.3

Patch 5.3 is coming and Blizzard have created a guide to the changes!Read more »

8 comments

http://profile.yahoo.com/WZ324KCWGCMJENR2ZFFTCK3QP4 Blaze

Hmm i bet some of it has to do with the fail expansion that’s about to come out.
- http://www.facebook.com/CumCake Oystein Jenssen
  
  Please, explain what is fail about it. In my opinion it is the best expansion so far.
  - riezel casinto
    
    kung fu panda is great? I doubt.
    - http://www.facebook.com/Butterednuts Zak Whinnie
      
      I love ad hominem arguments.
    - Veniel
      
      Well, explain how a race being around before the film automatically makes the game a film xD But hey, there’s so much more content than just a race, a class and a new type of game play
      - Kodachikuno
        
        Yup the race was around before, but come on man.. If you don’t see the connection in that pandas mannerisms and Po’s well…
      - Veniel
        
        Yeah I know, but regardless, Pandaren was created before, in my opinion, I think Kung Fu Panda just expanded on that, nothing more.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        No you are reaching, while they are both based on Pandas, surprise. Chen Stormstout is not presented as a bumbling, buffoon as voiced by Jack Black.
    - Veniel
      
      Well, explain how a race being around before the film automatically makes the game a film xD But hey, there’s so much more content than just a race, a class and a new type of game play
    - Kodachikuno
      
      I wonder if Blizz had to give Dreamworks kickbacks for that trailer.. Or heck, for the entire expansion.. The idea of Chinese monk pandas is fine, but did they need to copy the art style too?
      - http://www.facebook.com/lee.joel1 Lee Joel
        
        how can they copy something they did first many years before ya fucking idiot. Ive just realised. project Titans actually a time machine.
      - Kodachikuno
        
        Thank you for the constructive comment.. I was referring to the similarity in the action sequence for the trailer to Po’s dream at the beginning of Kung Fu Panda. Watch it again and check it. They have some of the same mannerisms. “F’n Idiot” does nothing for the conversation.
http://www.facebook.com/Nightwolfy Maris Jirgens

This whole farce is created by a bunch of mindeless script kiddies enforcing their own opinion and trying to push “consumer rights” on blizzard. Those script kiddies probably are disgruntled about MoP, the new talent system, changes to wow etc, etc. Imo MoP is semi-great, better than cata even. I like how they gave some love to redesigning classes, and they are even updating the char models to match up with goblins/worgens/pandaren. MoP brings mostly positive change to the scene of WoW, bringing in new blood and such. But, alas, the people who are attempting to DDOs the servers, apperently blissfully unaware of the consequences (including a permanent ban and full revoking of Blizzard’s services to said person), are the ones who only see the negative stuff. “Ugh, pokemon and farmville! This game sucks now!” Noone’s making you do any of that stuff. If you want to, go stagnate in your AV party or grind your face off on Rag every week. Noone cares. You’re just one person against millions. Your opinion doesn’t matter. And don’t start with the argument “but I pay for this game”. The millinons that are against you do so too.

Well, that’s my fairly lenghty rant on this riddiculous situation at hand. IMHO the people that are DDOs-ing as well as the creater of the tool should get a revocation of service, effectivelly stopping them from playing WoW, SC2 or Diablo III as their accounts would be permanently closed, meaning they would have to re-buy all of the stuff they had. But, that’s just my personal opinion.
http://www.facebook.com/Nightwolfy Maris Jirgens

You do realise Pandaren existed well before Kung Fu Panda was even an idea, right? WC3, for example. A game made in 2000s ( i think it was 2002, not quite sure) had a pandaren hero. After that there have been hints of the pandaren in every blizzard game released afterwards.
- Kodachikuno
  
  Yup.. 2002..The pandaren started as a creation of Samwise Didier and an April Fool’s joke, but they got a massive response from Warcraft fans. In the first BlizzCast episode
  launched on Jan. 10, 2008, Samwise recalled the process to the creation
  of the Pandaren April Fool’s page: “But so we put that up in there and
  everyone was like “Oh my God! A PANDA RACE? That’s kind of cool!” And
  I’m like “Are you kidding me, really? You want to see pandas in Warcraft III or whatever?””
  Even the originators thought it was silly. but new Blizzard doesn’t mind.. They just see dollar signs.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Before that, there’s a reference to the Pandarians in Warcraft III. I heard they were supposed to be part of The Burning Crusade, but got replaced the the Draenei.
    
    There is also a old, hard to find quest in the Barrens that references Chen Stormstout.
    - Kagitaar
      
      Which is still semi-obtainable but unfinishable due to the mobs that drop the quest items being gone.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        Yep, a very obscure references.
andrew intong

If there is anything at all to be mad about, its the new agent.exe hog…
http://www.facebook.com/craig.gafoor Craig Gafoor

sound is a bit out on this video so you know, your mic sounds tinny and its a bit fuzzy on audio, im a producer for a living so am listening to this on pro reference monitors …as for blizzard whateverrrr GW2 rocks! long live the new king of mmos and down wit da pandas lols
- http://quintlyn.com/ QuintLyn Bowers
  
  Hmm… My mic or Gary’s?
M H

Worse community for a game I have ever seen and its poison just seems to spread and fester. I hate to be that way but it just seems like it is just a steady stream of poop that covers its fan site forums, official forums, and now it seems it is being taken to a new level. Congratulations.

Sucks things like this happen though. Wish people would just stop playing rather then being dicks.
- http://www.facebook.com/kirzansix Mike Coulombe
  
  You blame an entire community for the actions of one whacko? Where have you been the past… century! People don’t use medias to spread the good word, or good news. People use medias to spread the BAD, the REACTION! You don’t get posts in your vlog by congratulating Johnny boy for his level 12 Warrior. You get talked about by posting the thought provoking stuff!
  
  Get real dude. And for the love of whomever, read OTHER forums. They are just as bad! Because most people think devs will read what they say, and post crap.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    He post is just part of the latest and greatest craze in degrading someone elses game. You talk about how awful other game communities are, implying your gaming community is wonderful.
- jayremy
  
  MOBAs have taken that medal for the worst community, League of Legends is like a child’s playground for insults.
- M H
  
  Jayremy:
  MOBA’s may take the cake, but I haven’t seen it since I don’t play them. You make a case but doesn’t fit into my “I have ever seen”. But I will take your word for it because I have heard horrid things.
  
  Mike Coulombe:
  Give me a list of creditable forums then. I have a list of about 20 that are loaded with people giving us nothing but steaming piles of poop. I await to see this paradise you frolic though because I would love to have a site filled with reasonable people that I do consider you to be. You have some truth in what you say for sure.
  
  Dularr:
  I play WoW. I play no other MMO in general. I guess you have it all figured out if being wrong is being right. Two cents doesn’t buy you much in the store and it gives you zero credit here. Thanks for not knowing and trying though because it pretty much backs up my claims since “WoW defenders” are usually the worse of the bunch.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Now you don’t make any sense. You say you do not play other MMOs, but then complain about the worse community for a game you have every seen. If you don’t try other MMO’s how can you say that.
    
    All I talk about are my personal experiences. All communities are different, but for you to now say “I play no other MMO in general” and ”Worse community for a game I have ever seen” makes your argument specious, considering sample size for MMOs is only WoW.
    
    From my personal experiences, with new MMO, every MMO eventually starts talking about WoW and the closer you get to the social hub the more WoW talks starts. The lastest and great is GW2, they have a good game there and eventually someone will want to talk about WoW.
    
    Does the WoW community have “dicks,” of course it does. Any MMO that has a high degree of competition will have that. BGs trash talking actually gets to the humorous side seeing the silliness of some of the insults.
ssjjr21

Another reason why i’m so glad I stopped playing this game a long time ago. Looks like I’m not missing much with this new expansion as well.
- jayremy
  
  I’m just mad I paid for Cataclysm, I only got a real month out of it of play before I said this who expansion is a BS design direction, which I have rarely played the last 4 months of WotLK.
  
  The main, I mean really big problem with blizzard is at least 90% of their content and gameplay designers are stuck in the early 2000 days of EQ MMORPG gaming mentality. Whoever designs the social/ui features has been carrying the game’s success along with a great cinematic development.
  
  WoW lore and story-telling was slowly butchered to death every moment they left the Warcraft RTS style.
http://profile.yahoo.com/SMGRLFM4UASOO7QO26HTHBLIOI Shawn

WoW still has servers up? They are dead, how can they be up and running! lol
- http://www.facebook.com/tyrannical.bagger Tyrannical T Bagger
  
  Ho is WoW dead? They still have over 10 million subscribers!
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754168227 Len Hobbel
    
    actually less keep up with the times
  - Josh Rosenvelt
    
    Wow is probably under 9million by now.
    - MiZTiiX
      
      its all going to go up when MoP hits
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1074039741 Janne Sanis Prokkola
    
    yea really alive… look at all those guys afking in OG/SW and look at all those posts about dead servers…
- MiZTiiX
  
  wait another decade
http://twitter.com/GrantElicious Grant Butler

You audio always hurts my ears, it’s so harsh and often stops me from being able to listen. If you watch a program on TV like some BBC documentary or something, their audio levels are always constant, never go higher or lower. Also their voices are smooth and never do the same thing, So I can turn the audio to any level and enjoy listening. However your audio seems to rise and fall, meaning sometimes you’re so quiet and I have to turn it up but then you’re over loud and I have to turn it down. Not only that but there’s this harshness that just hurts my ears, it needs to be smooth.
- RockerDC3
  
  That’s called audio compression/limiting. I know GB uses those tools and techniques. I can hear it. There’s probably an issue on your end, not theirs.
  
  Gary is more than a bit too “bright”, though. They may be hitting the compressor too hard, causing digital clipping on his sibilance.
http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

1 time my computer broke and the only way to fix it was to go to ddos and reinstall windows. wonder if they tried it yet?
- Josh Osmer
  
  I believe you mean MS-DOS, which is the Disk Operating System…this is a completely different acronym. DDoS, in this case, stands for Distributed Denial of Service. A type of attack that pretty much anyone can do with a rudimentary knowledge of how the internet works. There are many “tools” out there that help people to do this…the hacker group Anonymous uses this attack a lot. What it does is send empty packet requests to the server continuously…the server becomes overloaded with requests and starts to “ping out” and begins dropping connections.
  - jayremy
    
    that was a lol moment…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754168227 Len Hobbel

I use to hack web sites in the early 2000s back when one could make money at it…and I did. DDosing is surprising it still works these days or SQL injections still work in 2012 but bringing down a gaming site isnt to hard they had better not piss off anonymous lol
- Kagitaar
  
  You do realize it’s generally a bad idea to admit to illegal activity in a public place, right?
http://twitter.com/Professor_Tjc Travis Christensen

DDOSing is illegal and you will be put in jail for 5+years. The thing is DDOSing takes little to no skills to do. There are programs out there that allow you to put an ip in it and press a button that messed with the IP overloading it. It’s just some little kids who get mad at everything because they don’t get their way.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gerrettie-Jr/1287578323 Bill Gerrettie Jr

Just to let you know, this is coming from someone who is very angry at Blizzard for many different reasons (Diablo III fiascos, bliznet problems, etc), and I’m not a WoW fan at all, but I hope everybody who takes a part in the dos attacks are caught and sued/prosecuted.

Those people are NOT hurting Blizzard, they are hurting the millions of players paying $15 a month who can’t log in and enjoy the game they’re paying for. I’m sick of these so-called champions of the internet hurting the people they claim to be helping. Grow up!
Morturion

It’s not a good to do stuff like crashing servers, but at times Blizzard does seem to make it easy for you to hate them …
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Must have attacked some of the larger realms. I’ve been on my realm most of the afternoon running through the new Scenarios with my guild and haven’t seen any problems.
http://twitter.com/squared002 Squared002

Best way to get back at Blizzard, stop supporting them. Don’t give them another dime of your money. Don’t punish other people who still support them. The end.
David Knapp

This is more of a “ping of death” attack.. malformed packets made the servers cut all connections. And has been fixed for a while. Thing is if they weren’t going through the right proxies it will be easy to track.
- Kagitaar
  
  Indeed. I’ll be sitting here giggling when they find the little idiots and send them to prison.
http://www.facebook.com/Carrotatheart Timothy Cathcart

If you don’t like the game, don’t play it. Why do this?
- http://www.facebook.com/Iakushka Robert Fiske
  
  He could love the game, but be mad at the company for something they did…aka the screenshot watermarks.
  - MiZTiiX
    
    The screenshot info was worthless anyway
Alex Wallace

Don’t support blizzard and don’t stand up for the people who are supporting blizzard…
- http://twitter.com/SouthJaxBeach SouthJaxBeach
  
  That reminds me. I need to preorder MOP. Tx <3
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Just purchased the Monk pet.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1074039741 Janne Sanis Prokkola

sure they might hurt those guys who dont get online, but they will get angry @ blizzard because of that and thats what these guys want
- David Knapp
  
  Problem is that it’s common knowledge that it was a ping of death/DDoS type attack that was fixed in one day.. on a weekend (at least quick fixed). Most people will not blame blizz for that, but those idiot script kiddies that love trolling.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alvino/1094406295 John Alvino

If only they could bring them down forever!
- MiZTiiX
  
  then there wouldn’t be any good MMO’s
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Sardella/1422784105 John Sardella
    
    An opinion. There are people who couldn’t stand to play WoW for a whole week.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Which is fine, you don’t have to play. It’s when you take action or wish ill to players of another game, you have a sickness.
http://www.facebook.com/tony.barber.14 Tony Barber

the little snot nose brat who did this is gonna get ass raped by blizzard.
http://www.facebook.com/stu.trips Stu Trips

Durr my Screenshot have Watermarks Now! FFFFFUuUUUU BLIZZARD!!!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/thomas.kinter.1 Thomas Kinter

Apparently on the forums he linked directly to his dropbox account for the file. Which was also reposted on the Official forums (although quickly redacted) Have fun in federal ‘pound me in the ass’ prison.
http://profile.yahoo.com/SO5Y3D4SH4CNJKWMZ3ZLWT5NRU John

Prison time for performing legal functions on a server far more times than generally normal? If that ever happens, we know the legal system has fucked us during the advent and progression of technology.

Patch 5.3 Release Date Confirmed

Patch 5.3: Purely Pandaria Profession Leveling!

Preparing for Patch 5.3

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sign in to your account