An unusual incident occurred in The Elder Scrolls Online on December 12, 2024, preventing anyone from North America or Europe from exploring virtual Tamriel for hours.
Update from December 14, 2024: In the meantime, the developers have managed to get the servers back on track for all platforms. There was reportedly no impact on character progression.
What happened? Last night, the servers of The Elder Scrolls Online suddenly became unavailable. Community Manager Gina Bruno shortly explained in the official forum (via elderscrollsonline.com):
“We are currently experiencing an issue where all NA and EU megaservers of ESO and the ESO account page are offline due to a power outage at the data center. We are working as quickly as possible to restore power and will inform you as soon as we have an estimate.”
A power outage? That should be easy to fix, right? Well, as of December 13, 2024, just before 8 AM, the servers are still offline. MeinMMO will keep you updated.
When you can play again, try out the new battlegrounds of ESO!
When can I play ESO again?
What is the current status? Throughout the night, there have been numerous updates from the community manager. In the last post, the Zenimax employee explained (via elderscrollsonline.com):
This time it’s a more extensive update! We are making solid progress, even though there is still a lot of work ahead of us. We expect to continue working through the night to test and bring all live realms back online.
Therefore, we are currently planning to open the NA and EU servers for PC on Friday, December 13, around 10 AM EST/3 PM GMT [Note from the editor: 4 PM our time] and will update the status of the console realms shortly thereafter. The PTS will remain offline over the weekend and is expected to be back online early next week.
We will inform you tomorrow morning about the latest status. We greatly appreciate everyone’s ongoing patience.
In previous statements, Gina Bruno explained that a serious emergency power outage occurred at the data center, during which the standard backup failsafes for several affected customers did not trigger.
This type of outage is designed so that in the event of a fire or flood, the entire power supply is interrupted. The outage now requires a complete hardware restart. The incremental rebuilding is a methodical and lengthy process that involves additional checks and tests.
How is the community reacting to the incident? In the ESO subreddit, the unavailable servers and the updates from Zenimax are naturally a big topic.
- FLIPSIDERNICK jokes on Reddit: “This is how the dinosaurs escaped in Jurassic Park, just saying.”
- ShingetsuMoon has a positive outlook (via Reddit): “Oof. Yes, it will take a while for them to get back on their feet. Time to catch up on some other games.”
- GreatMoloko knows situations like this (via Reddit): “As an IT Director who has been through this before, I feel for these people. It’s going to be a long weekend.”
- Technical-Cow-2494 is concerned about their data (via Reddit): “Let’s hope we don’t lose our accounts, take your time, developers.”
A loss of account data or character progression would naturally be a worst-case scenario for players and developers. As soon as there’s an update on this matter, we will keep you informed. In the meantime, you can distract yourself with the most exciting trailers from the Game Awards 2024.
