Depending on what server you play on, you may have had some rough going in World of Warcraft last night. As you may already know, 20 of the game's 88 servers have been subject to major technical issues as a result of a recent hardware overhaul. Players on those servers have experienced login queues more lengthy than any since the game's launch, as well as server-related performance issues -- including lag, crashes, and disconnects -- after they've logged on. Blizzard's President Mike Morhaime apparently realizes the severity of these issues.

All these problems culminated last night in what must have been the worst manifestation of the recent problems yet. Due to a bug with travel route between two popular zones, the infamous 20 out of 88 began crashing intermittently, causing Blizzard to abruptly take the servers down for emergency maintainance.

In a post on the game's official message board, Morhaime apologetically addressed the game's community, stating "...we will do everything possible to ensure that unexpected downtime like this does not occur in the future and that if it is necessary, we will do everything possible to give you better warning and keep you informed."

Morhaime also notified the community that players on the affected servers will receive an four days of game time (in addition to the three already offered) credited to their accounts.

We'll continue to follow this story as it develops, and keep you updated as to the state of World of Warcraft's servers. .