With a hotfix to WoW Classic a few moments ago, we’ve changed how the realm population labels work in order to display realm populations in a more meaningful way.
How it worked before this hotfix
As we explained here, the system previously calculated the population labels by comparing all realms to the most-populated realm. This could result in a very crowded realm (with a lengthy queue) showing up as “Medium”, since it was being compared to the realm that had the highest population and a potentially massive queue.
How population labels work now
This system now measures each realm against a realm’s absolute capacity. Medium indicates a healthy total population on a realm – well in excess of what we considered Full in a 2006 – with room for more players to log-in. You’ll now see a High label if the realm is close to having a queue, and a Full label if the realm currently has a queue.
We will continue to monitor this system closely and take further steps if necessary.
Now… How about them few extra servers more. The two extra PvP servers you put up today won’t be enough.
Tomorrow when everybody comes back to try again, we will have the same issue as we did today.
Why not play it safe and make sure there’s room for everybody
I’m just trying to understand why this change was made, it makes it completely impossible for people choosing realms to make an informed decision without doing research on their own.
edit Missread. I like this change. Keeping this for reference smh.
New people who want to choose a server has now an exact estimation of which server is overpopulated and which are not. In other words, which servers will put you in queue and which not.
It’s better than any research on your own since it comes directly from Blizzard?
All servers have the same population cap or some have more? For example shazzrah can take like 10k online without queue while Mograine 7k?
Please a blue answer on this.
People are angry and annoyed with not being able to play the game, and you think it’s a priority to kick everyone out just to update a freaking label? Jeez
What about being disconnecting without a grace period and then sitting in 20k+ queues for 5 hours? What about only being able to play 3-5 hours of classic in a full day of trying to play when you’ve had to sit in hours of queues in the morning and during the day when you inevitably get disconnected. What about the layers crashing? This isn’t going to help any of that.
This isn’t why the servers just had a shutdown. They’re actually trying to fix the disconnection grace period bug right now as we speak. I believe the post is pinned.
Excellent update. Many thanks, Blizzard! This well help provide clarity going forwards and dispel some of those “dead server” worries folks are casting about.