“During normal looting, the player’s character would crouch down, during which the game client would request content of the loot from the game server. After the game client receives a response regarding the loot, it would show a loot window from which the player may loot some or all of the items. During high latency or heavy server load, the game client may not receive a response from the server. In this situation, the player’s character would be stuck in the crouched position and the player will not be able to cancel the looting process by normal means.” - wowWiki.com

You have all experienced it before. You try to loot the body and get stuck in the crouching position. Then you run around the place because you think it looks funny when you are sliding around on your knees. Then you cast spells because it looks cool because your hands stays glowing with the casting animation of the spell your casting. Then you proceed to run around with the glowing hand animation.

Meanwhile, everything else on your screen looks like they have been frozen in time. Except that they are running in place, or stuck in a casting animation. About thirty seconds go by, then all of a sudden, your screen goes into fast forward, and everything on your screen moves around in a quick blur.

You receive an error at the top of the screen. Unable to loot at this time (or something along those lines). The corpse is still glowing. Deep down inside you know you will be stuck again if you try to loot it. There is an internal struggle within you.

“What if you get stuck again?”
“Should I relog?”
“You might die while lagged out”
“ZomG pHat LooTz!?“

You try to loot again. You fail. Three or four more times in fact. And when you finally receive your loot? [Primordial Essence] /wrists

Last night while I was in Black Temple with Utada, we had a problem with loot lag issues, but we didn’t worry about it too much. We kept on moving along, losing 2-3 players each pull due to lag. Kept on going- they’ll be back soon. We managed to make it to the first boss: High Warlord Naj’entus

We all buff up, drink our consumables, oil up, eat our foods. Then we pull…

Healer #1: “I think I’m lagging”
DPS #1: “You’re just running in place on my screen”
Healer #2: “You’re stuck in casting animation on mine”
Raid Leader: “Spine on DPS #3!”
DPS #2: “I got it!”
DPS #3: “Thanks, I’m out”
DPS #2: “Uh oh.. I’m lagged out trying to loot the spine”
Me: “Oh dear…”

Eventually Naj’entus gets bugged and we ran away like little girls and he reset himself. Arggh… this looks like it’s gonna be a long raid night…

For those who don’t know the fight:

Naj’entus will occasionally do Impaling Spine on a random target. That target will be incapacitated with a huge spine sticking out of their body and take massive amounts of damage until another raider clicks on the spine to pull it out of the person. The person who pulls the spine will receive an item, [Naj'entus Spine]. Every minute or so, Naj’entus will cast Tidal Shield on himself which makes him immune to all damage and heals himself 1% every 2 seconds, and the only way to break his bubble is to use a spine on him.

So you can imagine how much harder this fight is with loot lag involved. The server eventually fixed itself and we did a full clear of BT.

Naj’entus didn’t drop my [Slippers of the Seacaller] or [Ring of Captured Storms], but I made off with a couple loots for the night.

I got [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] off trash mobs, [Waistwrap of Infinity] off Supremus, and [Leggings of the Tempest] off the Illidari Council.

5/5 Tier 6 now! Yay!

Related Posts:

• Frost Mage PvE: High Warlord Naj’entus
• A Few Things That Annoy Me
• Frost Mage PvE: Supremus
• New Upgrade: Leggings of Calamity
• w00t! 7/8 Tier 6