Many of us, both in and outside of the United States, have been having serious connection issues with the game recently. Not only can we not connect to the game, but we can't even get on the main World of Warcraft website. This can be particularly infuriating because we can't go and find help. When I got dropped in the middle of Kael'Thas (the real fight, not the weeksauce one in Magisters' Terrace), I wanted to take my computer out to a field and yell obscenities at it about PC load letter.WoW Insider feels your pain! After all, imagine having to write about WoW only to find out you can't get into WoW.
I wanted to answer a lot of the comments about what people can do. First and foremost, we're not Blizzard. So we can't really say for sure what's going on. We can make educated guesses through. Continue reading after the break for what you can do and where you can go to solve this problem.
My educated guess is that something is amiss with the Domain Name System (DNS). This is the software that lets your computer translate worldofwarcraft.com into numbers like 123.456.789.012, which the computer can understand and use. A lot of people suggest using OpenDNS. However, I agree fully when Blizzard CM Adams (no relation) when he says that to do this is at your own risk. Using other DNS servers allows for very easy spoofing of internet sites. People can steal your login information from this, your financial information, and your social security number. If you still want to try this, feel free to do so and check out https://www.opendns.com/start.
Another common solution has been to remove the fully qualified domain names from WoW's data files and put in the IP address instead. This is a safer way to do things, and is recommended in a pinch. However, if Blizzard were to ever change the IP addresses of their servers, which is most definitely their prerogative, you wouldn't be able to connect until you update your files. This might prove challenging. And as with all fixes, this could make your game unplayable if you do it wrong, so you do so at your own risk. To make the change, follow these steps:
- Go into your WoW folder, and open the file "realmlist.wtf". Use a text editor. Save a backup copy of the file before you do anything to it.
- Find the line "set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com" and change it to "set realmlist 12.129.232.112"
- Find the line "set patchlist us.version.worldofwarcraft.com" and change it to "set patchlist 66.45.252.236"
- Save the file and enjoy.
Hopefully this answers some of your connection related issues. If it doesn't, at least you have a number now that you can get a hold of Blizzard.
Have any other tips for our connection challenged friends? Share and be loved!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-13-2008 @ 12:41PM
Polarina said...
Follow the advice in this article and do not use the IP addresses provided in this article as it opens you the risk of having your account compromised in case they are not genuine!
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2-13-2008 @ 12:47PM
Adam Holisky said...
I can't argue with this. That's why the best solution is to just call Blizzard. :-)
2-13-2008 @ 12:43PM
Wansinoo said...
Can you comment your .wtf file in the same way you would your hosts file?
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2-13-2008 @ 12:47PM
Adam Holisky said...
Hi Wansinoo,
I don't know the answer to that. If you want to try and let all of us know, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it. :)
However, I would recommend no matter what, that you save a backup of your realmlist.wtf files. Infact... I'm going to add that into the article right now.
Best,
Adam.
2-13-2008 @ 12:43PM
Nails said...
lol that is funny
i was just talking to someone about how the nazis had pieces of flair that they made the jews wear, not even 5 minutes ago - and this pic comes up :P
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2-13-2008 @ 12:44PM
biglou said...
I got hacked in november so Im paranoid when I get booted. About a week ago I got booted several times and then I couldnt even get on at all and I thought "crap, getting hacked" since there was nothing on the WOW realm status. I was also afraid to log onto WOW to check my account status incase there was a keylogger/trojan horse so I started an AVG full scan and called Bliz Support, whose rapid response team only took 45 mins to answer the phone. Turns out there had been system issues the entire time which Blizz failed to put on their website. Thanks Blizz. At least the tech dude knew about the system issues.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:56PM
Land said...
"Finally, the best thing to do when you're having issues is to call Blizzard directly. "
And them they will answer to me: "The North American version of World of Warcraft is intended for sale and use within the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Thailand only. While it is possible to acquire a copy outside of this region it is not recommended as we cannot guarantee the game play quality from outside of the intended region."
Ok, wheres the Brazilian version of WoW?
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2-13-2008 @ 12:51PM
Adam Holisky said...
Hi Land,
Forgive my ignorance here. Do you play on the EU or American servers? Or does Brazil have their own set of servers?
- Adam
2-13-2008 @ 12:56PM
Markymark said...
Yea this has happened to me last night around 11:24 EST... WoW wouldn't let me log in and the official website was not loading so i waitied a lil bit and it was working. I'm too scared to do all the stuff in the article cause I don't wanna be hacked.
All and all thanks for the advice.
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2-13-2008 @ 12:56PM
Land said...
We dont have our own server but we play in US servers with lower latencies for us. Theres not even a version of the game that we are "recommended" to play, and Im having problems with my account management (but blizz r having no problems taking my 15 bucks lol)
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2-13-2008 @ 1:02PM
Adam Holisky said...
Looks like Blizzard needs to expand their localization a bit. I wonder if you called up and pretended you were in LA if you would get a different response... ;-)
2-13-2008 @ 1:05PM
Pål said...
Yeah, about the EU servers... replacing the two 'set' lines connects you to the US realms, so if you're playing on the EU realms, those aren't the right IPs. No, the lines aren't the same for European players so the information is technically correct, but with only two letters being different it's easy to make the mistake of thinking that this also helps the EU users.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:18PM
tiker said...
I just had to solve this problem for my parents last night. Their problem was the ISP they connect through did not have DNS entries for worldofwarcraft.com which means server connects and website appeared to be down for them.
Changing their primary DNS information to use a different DNS from a different internet provider solved this issue for them.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:19PM
Dave said...
First thing I do when I can't connect to the game or the website is run a tracert on us.login.worldofwarcraft.com or whatever the address is. 95% of the time the trace dies on an AT&T hub around the 18th jump. Usually it ends up being somewhere in LA or Nevada.
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2-13-2008 @ 1:59PM
mark said...
As a long time player of both FFXI and WoW, I can say its definately on Blizzard's side.
FFXI runs extremely smoothly. Their servers are all in Japan (they use no local servers). Latency varies maybe 20-30 ms maximum through a 8 hour period.
WoW runs erratic. Their servers are in the same time zone as me (about 1500 miles away)'. Latency varies between 400-12000 ms (yes, twelve thousand milliseconds) in an 8 hour period.
Blizzard is like an alchoholic. They really need to admit they have a problem.
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2-13-2008 @ 2:39PM
Sideshow said...
I'm pretty sure this is due to AT&T, which Blizzard uses for a lot of their network. Heard a lot of stories about AT&T having issues here at work (we use them for a lot) the last few weeks.
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2-13-2008 @ 3:21PM
Rihahn said...
You can also use AT&T / Level 3's own DNS servers to alleviate some of these issues... If Blizzard changes a DNS entry, AT&T's DNS servers will pick it up first... In theory.
The DNS servers are 4.2.2.1 through 4.2.2.6. These servers use an "anycast" system which allows many servers in different locations to have the same address, and uses BGP to figure out which is the fastest to your IP address.
And, to prevent any worries about DNS poisoning or other methods that can be used to hack your WoW account, simply perform a google search for (dns "4.2.2.2") and you can see that just about everyone uses this set of servers.
I personally use 4.2.2.2 and 204.60.0.2 (which is the primary name server for SNET) and I've not had a DNS related issue getting to WoW since Beta... And I'm on Comcast at home. :P
Hope this helps.
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2-13-2008 @ 3:57PM
Alex Artigues said...
ipconfig /flushdns
This fixed the problem for me, and it may for you too.
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2-13-2008 @ 5:07PM
rummies said...
Ok..
Now.. no one needs to go in to the whole ..
"But you play wow too much anyway.. whats an hour or two away from it??
But seriously -- I pay to have WOW available 24/7 and while I understand that there are going to be issues I feel that it is Blizz's job to both rectify them in a timely matter (seems like they do this) AND compensate people for the frustration ,aggravation and time away from the game associated with the issues they are having (this part they don't do). If another service I pay for is not working I usually just call them up and have customer service (its a novel idea I know) placate me with freebies (i.e. the cable is out for a night I call them up and get reimbursed for it).
Bottom line (have you heard this one before?) I pay for it. I just kinda feel like I'm being screwed on this deal.
How bout you guys?
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2-13-2008 @ 6:41PM
math said...
What I don't understand is when blizz is having connection problems like this or any problems with there website why not email everyone and let them know whats up? They do it to remind you that you have "4 days to pay or else..." so they can't us the "we can't email 10million people crap". We shouldn't have to go to 3rd party websites to find out what is going on and more importantly, how to fix it...bad bad business practice. However, when you got 10million people mailing in $15 I guess you can do whatever you want..
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