World of Warcraft Battles Server Problems

News.com has published a story entitled “World of Warcraft Battles Server Problems”, in which they detail some of the server-side technical issues Blizzard Entertainment has been facing trying to keep the game up and running. Considering that players are investing $15/month to play, these nuisances are beginning to hover toward “unacceptable.” A snippet:

Blizzard blames some of the problems–such as the disconnection, for several hours on Friday, of players linked to several servers–on AT&T, its network provider. (AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.)

It also argues that online games like WoW that have to manage hundreds of thousands, or millions, of accounts, are simply prone to network issues.

“Due to the complex nature of massively multiplayer games like ‘World of Warcraft,’ technical issues such as the ones some of our players have experienced recently may occur on occasion,” Blizzard spokeswoman Lisa Jensen, said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. “Our commitment to our players is to provide effective solutions as quickly and carefully as possible whenever any such situation occurs.”