After 20 years of World of Warcraft launches, I honestly find it surprising that we are still seeing login queues like this.
This is only the WoW: Forever beta, with a premium product access with a much smaller group of players compared to what it will be on the main launch, and still I am currently sitting at 22,329 in queue with an estimated 48-minute wait.
I completely understand that launches create heavy traffic and that a beta is also meant to stress-test systems, but surely Blizzard has enough experience by now to anticipate this kind of demand.
My main concern is what this will look like when Forever launches properly and the entire playerbase gains access.
Hopefully this beta gives Blizzard the data needed to significantly improve login capacity before full release.
The Beta always had limited hardware or intent to specifically test restricted things. In only that, there’s no difference from previous Beta tests.
There will be probably hours of queues at the live servers. After awhile, maybe or maybe not Blizzard will put in additional realms. Then after another while the hype maybe dies out and Blizzard is forced to merge realms closing down quite a few and then you have people who call for “fresh realms” every new month.
I did read about the new Realmless system they want to roll out though so I’m interested in the how’s and what and have high expectations.
I will never understand the entitlement of some people. It’s a beta, this is literally all part of the testing, Blizzard seeing how their servers hold up, especially since they’re now experimenting with a new technology.
Why are people so overexcited to get in an place a slightly altered version of a game we already know, where progress will be wiped at the end of the beta anyway. It’s obviously not some desire to get in an find bugs to report.
Vastly different architecture and design, which cannot be compared.
I get your and Saneko´s point, and of course Blizzard will collect server-load data from the beta. What I’m not convinced by is the assumption that the current queues are intentional because the beta is deliberately running on limited hardware.
I haven’t seen Blizzard say that this Forever beta is specifically a stress test, or that capacity has been reduced for that purpose.
In 2019, Blizzard explicitly separated the WoW Classic closed beta from separately scheduled stress tests. They announced those stress tests as such and published specific dates for them.
So unless Blizzard has confirmed something similar for Forever, I think the “limited hardware because this is a stress test” explanation is still speculation.
If there is an official Blizzard source saying otherwise, I’d genuinely like to see it.
It isn’t a stress test, or rather that is not the primary purpose of this beta. But the data is still valuable for Blizzard. And because it is a beta, like you mentioned yourself Blizzard is deliberately running it on limited hardware, as well as in a very limited capacity compared to what they run their live game on.
Also the fact that is has just released, so you currently have people from all across the world trying to access it all at once. Give it a few days till people have spread out and gone back to their daily schedules, and it’ll be much more manageable, it’s available till October, so there’s really no rush
Even if you managed to get in now, it would likely be very unstable, high chance of disconnect, laggy, hundreds of players making it impossible to find or tag a mob. Overall not an enjoyable experience
Edit: Maybe Blizzard should consider making an Offline Character Creator. As I honestly think that most people just want to get to the character screen to actually see the Skyborne Customizations
Blizzard decided for players to have this experience, not sure what’s the reason, if it’s cost savings or what. I work with distributed systems in my day job, and auto-scaling compute to deal with increased server load is a basic exercise. Blizzard has enough data to have forecasted server loads and prepare for it, and have mechanisms in place that can adjust if there are spikes in traffic, they just choose not to do that for some reason. I think it’s worth complaining about this until they fix this. Last thing we want is for people to have this same experience on launch day. Especially new comers that have never played this game before.
That is actually exactly where my criticism is centred.
Blizzard knew there would be a huge rush the moment the beta opened. They knew thousands of people would try to log in simultaneously, they advertised the beta in advance, and guaranteed access is part of a package people have paid extra for.
So yes, you can call it entitlement if you want, but this is a service Blizzard is selling. If we pay extra for access, I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect Blizzard to have prepared enough capacity for the completely predictable launch-day demand. After so many years with previously bad experiences with login issues.
Of course the queue will disappear once demand drops. The question is why the solution to predictable demand should be the customers giving up and coming back later and try their luck, rather than Blizzard having sufficient login capacity when the service opens.
It’s a bit like paying for a reservation at a restaurant, arriving at the agreed time, and being told "we knew everyone would arrive for dinner at the same time, so the kitchen can’t cope. Come back in a few days when it’s quieter.”
I fully expect bugs, lag, crashes and unfinished content in a beta. But being unable to access the beta at all because the login infrastructure cannot handle a demand Blizzard knew was coming is my criticism to Blizzard after 20 years of experience. Login infrastructure.
Why simp for a multi billion dollar company that has TAKEN OUR money, there was NEVER a comment about it being a stress test.
They have the Azure backbone it takes literal minutes to increase network and server capacity on Cloud so please stop simping.
This isnt a free game, its a paid for access , if they said ‘here is a key we might have issues’ then yes we have no cause.
But a game ceases to be a ‘early access’ once cash has changed hands.
If Blizzard deliberately chose to sell guaranteed beta access to a large number of people, then the size of the potential launch-day population was not some unexpected surprise — they know how many accounts purchase access, and have numbers and data from every previous launch they´ve had.
I’m not expecting a perfectly smooth beta. Bugs, crashes, lag and overcrowded quest areas are completely understandable. But there’s a difference between an unstable beta after you get in and tens of thousands of paying customers being unable to access it at all.
If you decide to sell mass beta access instead of restricting invitations to a small testing group, then you also take on the responsibility of preparing the infrastructure for the mass access you sold.
What I genuinely struggle to understand is how it´s possible that I get to <1 minute six times. And get disconnected every time. The full login servers is one thing, but how can it fail every single time when finally reaching the end of the line?! While every streamer seems to get in. And yes it´s a beta but waiting for more than 4 hours to (still not) get in still SUCKS. They happily took payment for beta access.
50 euro or pounds to not be able to access a game is utter craziness. and i wouldnt mind but its the same every single expansion. so far my 51 pounds beta test has let me kill 2 mobs.
Try again tomorrow and it will likely be fine. You’ll get more than enough time to play and try out the beta in the coming weeks. It’s not like the first hours are insanely important.
Yes we can try again tomorrow, and yes we have all the time in the world to try later. But that is beside the point of the criticism towards Blizzard in this topic.
TLDR: We have paid to get right into the action as that is what they´ve offered us. Not a free beta key test. And Blizzard should do a reasonable effort to make sure their premium product runs as smoothly as possible.
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Blizzard knowingly sold guaranteed beta access to a large number of players, so they should have anticipated the launch-day demand.
If access had been free and Blizzard had warned that capacity would be limited, the criticism would be much weaker. But this was sold as part of a premium product, which creates a commercial responsibility to make reasonable preparations.
I also understand that Azure is not a magic “add more servers” button. WoW depends on authentication, databases, character state, world simulation, matchmaking, session management and the new realmless architecture, all of which can create bottlenecks.
But that is exactly why preparation matters. Blizzard knew how many beta packages had been sold, knew a huge number of people would try to log in immediately after the Q&A, and has decades of experience with launches like this.
A professional company selling access from a specific date should make a reasonable effort to provision enough capacity for predictable demand based on pre-purchases and previous launches.
