sigh
This is like the 5th time today… They promised it would be gone within the first few weeks. References to phase 1 were because people asked if it would affect world bosses which are added in Phase 2.
It does not detract from the inherent qualities of the game, because for any given player, they are in a 3k limited world within the realm. All the congestion of Vanilla will be there, and more than enough random strangers to make friendships with, while avoiding the need for long queues and ensuring that there are enough long term players packed into each server that the realm population doesn’t die after the tourists leave.
Come up with a better solution that doesn’t involve long queues or adding more realms at launch (resulting in dead realms later), and you might have a job at Blizzard.