Despite years of players calling for it, Blizzard still doesn't understand just how many people want to play classic World of Warcraft. Now that we're on the eve of the first classic servers going online and Blizzard has announced that players need to temper their expectations, because the servers are already overcrowded and oversubscribed, which may lead to multiple-hour queues to get into the old version of Azeroth.
This came out as part of a recent AMA with the classic server developers on Reddit. They were asked about contingencies for long-wait times and Blizzard did admit that there was the option of bringing additional realms online if needed, but it wanted to wait and see how it played out. While that might seem like a recipe for disaster, it's understandable in that Blizzard wants to make sure the classic servers have large, healthy populations and players don't end up on their own in a realm without their friends purely because of load problems.
With that in mind, wait times are likely to be heavy.
"Based on the name reservations we’ve seen, the queue time on some realms will be extremely long", executive producer AltriusWoW said, via WCCFTech. "We’ve opened up additional realms and we’re encouraging people to set up their characters on lower population realms for a better experience. This is a good time to coordinate with your friends/guilds to switch if they’ve reserved names on a full realm. We are considering integrating character transfer services later on, when players have higher level characters."
While transfers won't be easy once the servers start, Blizzard is offering free and easy transfers now. You can look up your realm and see how busy it is and if it's packed, you and your friends or guild can move to another with ease.
You don't have long to do so though, as Classic servers will officially go online on August 26.
