DDoSed

Kronos continues to be too popular for its own good.

The influx of Nostalrius refugees and curious newcomers who had only found out about private Vanilla servers because of the Nostalrius shutdown caused such massive queues that the server owners eventually decided to open a second server to funnel off at least a portion of the seemingly unending flow of people. Whether by choice or because of technical restrictions, Kronos isn't set up to hold 15,000 players at once or whatever crazy number it was that Nost boasted.

But then came the DDoS attacks. Initially the devs stood defiant, keeping the servers up no matter what, but in practice nobody could connect to them. Even if you did manage to do so, you'd be booted off again within a matter of minutes. I spent more time reading amusing conspiracy theories on Kronos' Facebook page than actually playing.

1# - Blizzard is doing it! Somehow their legal team is incapable of sending threatening letters to anyone situated in the Czech Republic, but they must get Kronos shut down so they are spending all their time DDoSing the servers. It's not as if they got anything else to do, right?

#2 - It's the Chinese Gold Farmer Cartel! Because obviously, if you're trying to make a living off selling virtual goods in a video game, nothing is as good for business as nobody actually being able to play said game!

#3 - It's the revenge of a select few Nostalrius players! Instead of rolling up new characters on Kronos or moving on, these characters decided that if they couldn't continue playing their particular version of Vanilla WoW, nobody else would be allowed to do so either! (Actually... that one sounds at least a little more plausible than the previous two theories, but only in a crazy Saturday morning cartoon villain way.)

#4 - It's all a big lie! Nobody in this day and age could possibly be bothered by a DDoS attack. What are you hiding, Kronos team?! Huh?! Huh?!?!

Sadly, the Kronos team eventually had to admit temporary defeat and decided to take the servers down for a few days while they continue to work on a solution. It's a bit of a shame... but not the end of the world. As one Facebook commenter put it: "Will sound a bit selfish, but I am happy that they closed for 14 days...I have got finals in university now and Kronos distracted me a lot :D"

More time for other MMOs for a while, and at least my new hunter will be fully rested when the servers come back up!