DailyTech - Blizzard To Run New Servers on Opterons

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Software Blizzard To Run New Servers on Opterons
Sven Olsen (Blog) - February 1, 2006 3:19 PM

27 comment(s) - last by Rock Hydra.. on Feb 7 at 1:47 PM

AMD may have racked up another high profile client

Occasional DailyTech writer and President of VoodooPC, Rahul Sood, has some fairly exciting news from Geneva this week. Sood claims Blizzard just purchased 1500 Opteron servers specifically for World of Warcraft world and instance servers.

I am guessing Blizzard will combine the power of these servers to improve the gaming experience for World of Warcraft users worldwide – as well Blizzard may also be preparing for their next major online game. Perhaps they are preparing for the next generation Diablo or something of the like.

Blizzard anticipates releasing an expansion pack to the wildly popular MMORPG within the next few months. The company has come under continuous scrutiny after its servers have crashed due to end game content and increasing populations. It's still unclear as to whether or not Blizzard will adopt these servers to replace the existing fleet of several thousand machines world wide, or if the new servers will just host new content and worlds.

You can view the rest of Sood's analysis here.

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Diablo

By adam92682 on 2/1/2006 3:36:27 PM , Rating: 2

World of Diablo maybe?

RE: Diablo

By Brainonska511 on 2/1/2006 3:43:06 PM , Rating: 4

I'd rather see a Diablo 3, continuation of the storyline where it left off. No need for it to be some kind of massive multiplayer game.

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RE: Diablo

By Jackyl on 2/1/2006 4:08:51 PM , Rating: 4

I do not buy games that have monthly charges. They had better keep the Diablo series free to play online, and keep single player mode and TCP/IP for home networks.

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RE: Diablo

By Brainonska511 on 2/1/2006 4:10:34 PM , Rating: 2

I feel the same way with the online fees. I'd rather pay once for the game and play online for free. They really just need to continue with the Diablo story line (and StarCraft one too since they left that one so open ended).

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RE: Diablo

By TwistyKat on 2/1/2006 5:06:24 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I do not buy games that have monthly charges.

Me neither. I tried Everquest on a free trial basis once and after one hour I knew I'd better drop it...FAST.

Images of me living in cardboard homes and soup kitchens flashed before me.

I knew this was dangerous stuff. :-)

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RE: Everquest

By johnsonx on 2/2/2006 12:59:59 PM , Rating: 2

Why do you think they call it EverCrack?

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Less Lag

By littlebitstrouds on 2/1/2006 5:05:45 PM , Rating: 2

I'd like to know when these are new servers are going up. Dear god the lag has been horrible in WoW. Any idea what they were running before compared to what they'll be running now... like server comparisons?

RE: Less Lag

By LuxFestinus on 2/1/2006 5:24:12 PM , Rating: 2

You could have the fastest computers in the world, but if you do not have a connection (AT&T) to match you would probably suck wind (lag).

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RE: Less Lag

By Griswold on 2/1/2006 5:32:41 PM , Rating: 2

Thats humbug. None of the current MMORPG comes even close to saturating a common home user broadband (DSL/Cable) connection. Of course you dont want to play these games on dial-up... but many of these games suffer from the same problem: overloaded server clusters that cant cope with the number of players - which doesnt necessarily mean its just weak hardware, but unefficient code running on it.

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RE: Less Lag

By Alexvrb on 2/1/2006 6:36:21 PM , Rating: 2

True. Although in WoW's case, their software is pretty damn efficient on both ends. Rendering is fast, and servers *usually* handle a decent load before they start to buckle. Their main problem is the sheer number of players. In EQII, it didn't take nearly that many people before it started to choke, and the framerate was surprisingly poor considering the lower number of players on the screen. Whereas I only had framerate dips in WoW when there was a huge zerg in Hillsbrad.

Blizzard's main problem is that they always, ALWAYS seem to underestimate server population. Every time. Maybe this time they've learned (a little bit) and are getting ready?

As a side note, I also yearn for a Starcraft sequel, and agree that if it is anything like Warcraft III, we'll have to march on Blizzard.

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RE: Less Lag

By TheWarden on 2/1/2006 9:49:53 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Thats humbug. None of the current MMORPG comes even close to saturating a common home user broadband (DSL/Cable) connection.

This is true, but the connection doesn't have to be saturated to cause lag. Depending on your ISP and what peering agreements they happen to have, it's possible for your ping to still suck even over broadband. This happened to me back in my UO-playing days. They decided to move the UO servers half way across the country and get a different company to provide the bandwidth. I still had my same 3 Mbit cable connection, but my pings went from 60 to 250. Of course, in UO ping was *everything.* A guy with a 60 ping could run literally twice as fast as a 250 ping guy, even if the latter had no packet loss. In WoW you probably wouldn't even notice a 250 ping.

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RE: Less Lag

By mxzrider2 on 2/1/2006 9:49:33 PM , Rating: 2

i have found that even on slow dsl(256k) the game doenst lag. you need a fast computer. i found thuis out on my cusins comp we all thought it was server lag as both of our bars where green. then we built him a new comp and now he can walk into inforge on the same server and it dont hiccup. and jusat to try we tried on dail up and it was not that bad amasingly.

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Left out of the headline, quote

By Questar on 2/1/2006 4:13:09 PM , Rating: 2

Nice job there Sven, how about posting that it's a rumor, not a fact?

FTFA:

quote:
There was an interesting rumor I heard that Blizzard finally bit the bullet and purchased a whack of new servers to upgrade their Battlenet system.

RE: Left out of the headline, quote

By Cygni on 2/1/2006 4:24:07 PM , Rating: 2

How bout readin' a bit more carefully:

quote:
may have

quote:
claims

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RE: Left out of the headline, quote

By Questar on 2/1/2006 4:35:25 PM , Rating: 2

I just read the headline and story again. I still don't see where it says Blizzard "may have" purchased servers.

I also don't see where Bizzard "claims" anything.

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RE: Left out of the headline, quote

By TheWarden on 2/1/2006 9:39:14 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
AMD may have racked up another high profile client

Occasional DailyTech writer and President of VoodooPC, Rahul Sood, has some fairly exciting news from Geneva this week. Sood claims Blizzard just purchased 1500 Opteron servers specifically for World of Warcraft world and instance servers.

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What kind of quality journalism is this?

By Howard on 2/1/06, Rating: 0

RE: What kind of quality journalism is this?

By The Cheeba on 2/1/2006 10:53:43 PM , Rating: 2

Hmm.. you would think that if you're going to quote someone you would quote the whole thing:

"Blizzard to use Opteron servers"
"Blizzard may use Opteron servers for world of warcraft "

The guy in the blog already reported Bliz bought them, it's just a question of wtf are they for.

This place is like slashdot with an even shorter attention span.

Cheeb.

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RE: What kind of quality journalism is this?

By Howard on 2/4/2006 12:51:47 AM , Rating: 2

You mean, he claims that Blizzard bought them.

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RE: What kind of quality journalism is this?

By Rock Hydra on 2/7/2006 1:47:05 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, it's a claim. He doesn't know what they're using it for, let alone for sure that they're getting them. Alhough probability plays a large part in what may happen, but it's not ***OFFICIAL & CONFIRMED***

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WOW needs the luv

By kattanna on 2/1/2006 3:52:27 PM , Rating: 2

i hope they are adding those servers to the existing WOW clusters..they have entire worlds locked from making new characters due to being too full...and playing your existing characters on those servers...

less then fun when the slide show gaming hits you

RE: WOW needs the luv

By sirvent67 on 2/2/2006 12:06:12 PM , Rating: 2

They have them locked from new players joining those servers. If you have characters on those servers , you can continue playing on them, as well as create new characters. Read a little more carefully.

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star craft

By ksherman on 2/1/2006 4:31:13 PM , Rating: 2

I want StarCraft!!!!! well, that is if it is not like Warcraft 3... I didnt not like that game at all... Is it just me, or does the whole RTS genre seem tainted and, well, bad?

RE: star craft

By FrozenCanadian on 2/1/2006 4:53:49 PM , Rating: 2

Ya the whole RTS genre has gone to crap.

I also want a new Starcraft as long as it isn't like War3(what were they smoking when they made that crapfest).

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