Preparations for World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King Classic release are well underway, with pre-patched servers now up and running for nearly a week. In theory, this allows players to join and equip a new character in preparation for our adventure in the Frozen North, but the huge queue times across multiple servers make it difficult for some players to start their adventures in earnest.
This issue affects two types of servers that exist in Classic WoW. The first is long-term servers that have maintained large populations since Classic first launched in 2019, such as Grobbulus in the EU region. However, newly created Fresh servers were also affected. These new servers allow everyone to start playing with others completely empty-handed without an inflated economy or pre-existing wealth cluttering things up.
The frustration and tons of jokes surrounding the topic can be found in the piles. Take a look at the Classic WoW Reddit, there are a lot of players posting their pessimistic outlooks on the situation, listing the extraordinarily long queue times for their server of choice, and a few jumping in just to level up their upgrade journey Less popular server. gear.
But why doesn’t everyone do it? If Blizzard offers free streaming to less popular servers, why brave the queue? There are of course several reasons, including the presence of popular influencers on some servers and the desire to make a home in a bustling community without fear of it dying, but the main one has to do with an ongoing problem that has been using Classic for a while It’s time. Factional imbalance.
Take a look at Ironforge Pro, a site that tracks Horde/Alliance faction splits on different servers, and you’ll see a ton of servers that were once very good, but with unbalanced factions, such as Gehenas and Benediction for EU players.
As a game that emphasizes group content, you need players in your faction to complete raids, conduct world PvP, and more. Otherwise, the fun of the game is greatly reduced, causing a large number of characters to migrate to greener pastures. The reason servers like Grobbulus and New Server have this huge queue is because they are relatively balanced in terms of factions.
So how do players get around these queues? I hopped into World of Warcraft Classic (a luxury many don’t have when going to work in the morning) to see how people got in. As you can probably guess, it’s all about logging in early and staying for long hours and work before people leave school.
“Currently unemployed, so I just join in the early morning and never leave the game,” said Klizmarqt, a level 70 death knight who managed to reach the top level by jumping into the game when most others couldn’t manage. They recommend launching the game and moving your character every now and then if you can to avoid launching from the game due to inactivity.
This is especially true on weekends, as Klizmarqt goes on to explain: “Yesterday and the day before 14k queues start at 11am…so you get up at 12pm and get into the game at 8-9pm…”
Another player, Crupisha, works from home. They make sure to start the game a few hours before peak work hours, log in without queuing, and then stay online until the end of the shift. As for how runaway players do this, they’ve heard that some players use remote access to log into their PCs from their phones to beat new workers.
As of this writing, at 11am on Monday morning, a queue appeared on Thekal Fresh servers with all the aforementioned players and myself playing. There are currently only about 500 players, suggesting that even those able to log in early face barriers to entry that are likely a byproduct of this early entry.
For now, the battle with the queue is a must for every player, regardless of level. It remains to be seen if Activision Blizzard has a solution to this problem, or if this will continue throughout Lich King’s release. If you’re reading this right now, you should probably log in…
