WoW Classic players face long queues on release day
World of Warcraft Classic players will face hours of waiting time to enter realms on the first day the game goes live. Blizzard warned a week and a half ago that it looked like realms could become overcrowded.
World of Warcraft Classic went live in Europe in the night from Monday to Tuesday and on the first day the game is already so popular that the waiting times to enter realms can be up to several hours. Players playing the game may experience disconnects due to the crowds. On Reddit and the WoW Classic forum, among others, players complain about the waiting times. Also, not everyone managed to take out a subscription to play the game.
Blizzard warned ten days ago that based on the number of reservations, it looked like the Herod realm, in particular, would face overpopulation. The developer expressed the expectation that that realm would get login rows of more than ten thousand players and referred players to the recently opened Stalagg realm. On Monday, Blizzard opened another five new realms to relieve existing crowded realms.
Realms in World of Warcraft Classic can hold more players than the 2006 original could. According to Blizzard, a realm where the estimated population is marked as “medium” can now contain more players than the busiest realm in 2006. The developer labels realms Low, Medium, High and Full based on the crowds.
Partly because of this, it is also busy within the game. It is even so busy that players in the game neatly form rows to, for example, obtain certain items or make kills. With WoW Classic, Blizzard aims to combine the game’s authentic gameplay as it was in 2006 with modern server infrastructure, social functionality and support for new hardware.