On August 30th, the World of Warcraft Classic pre patch for Wrath of the Lich King Classic went live. Community members have been frustrated by queues that sometimes required hours-long waits . Now, Blizzard has a response that includes disabling new character creation and transfers and asking players to transfer off of packed servers.
Producer Aggrend responded to the player frustration with a thorough response, noting the guesses and misinformation that had been spreading before an official response with plans and solutions came. New character creation and transfers to the US and EU mega-realms have been disabled and will stay that way indefinitely until things improve.
“This was a difficult choice that we feel is very heavy-handed. By doing this, we will cut off opportunities for new and returning players to join their friends on these large realms, possibly for many months. However, the situation on these realms is completely untenable, and even if we can eliminate queues in the short term, this is going to continue to be a problem when new content releases as long as mega-realms exist.”
This indefinite closure is one step, as Blizzard will monitor others to try and prevent similar buildups. Yet, what they really need you to do is to move, while reiterating that they’re aware how much of a hassle it might be to do so, especially if you’re a large guild or might risk being separated from your friends. But they’re clear that there’s no way around this. Some have suggested layers, but those are for area congestion, and don’t affect server capacity.
“At present, the best and only way to resolve this issue for the impacted realms, is for people to leave the realm via free transfers. There’s no technology solution to this. There is no hardware solution to this. This situation will not improve when Wrath of the Lich King Classic launches on September 26th, it will only get worse.”
Some Classic servers were shut down last month in the name of healthy player population, but there are still less-populated ones to move to, which is what the WoW Classic team hopes you’ll do, especially if you’re waiting for Wrath Classic.
Read the official responses from Blizzard here.
