Realm 3
Right on launch, unable to play. Unable to accept quests, find a mob to tag, anything.
Came back 8 hours later to find zones with 40ish players in them. Leveled to 10 in 2 hours, which I consider appropriate. Played a bit more on the second day, with roughly 20 players in the zone. Felt slightly bare, but was still able to group for the elite quest and move on.
I felt like I would have had an enjoyable launch experience with these settings, as I would be able to level quickly and still be able to find help for the elite quests.
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I second this!
I think the amount of players (on server 12 for me, I believe) was the most it should reach. While yes, it took some time to tag mobs it was still doable. I would much rather play with “more” people than none at all!
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I’d like to start by saying thank you to everyone involved with this project within your company. I appreciate all the hard work and dedication you all have put in! So let’s get into it.
I logged in to the stress test about 6:30-7pm est, on June 19th. I made a gnome character on realm 3 and played until about 11 pm est.
First off, the good:
-game felt really well polished, mechanically speaking
-the new graphics aren’t over the top, and add a much needed update
-all the old character models look accurate
-the music and sounds (probably the least of anyone’s worries, match up and work well)
And, secondly, the bad:
-it felt empty, due to the lack of competition for mob tags (I’ve heard since that realm 3 was likely the one you were running live tests on regarding the layer densities)
-phasing presented a few problems; most notably not being able to locate my friends without first being in their group.
-some of the respawn timers for quest items seemed to have been off, in comparison to other items involved in the same part of the quest chain (specific example: hyacinth mushrooms in teldrassil spawning a lot slower than the moonpetal lillies for the quest iverron’s antidote)
In conclusion, I enjoyed it. It could use some improvement still, specifically in the area of layering and the possibility to exploit layer hopping as shown by monkeynews, venruki, and asmongold.
I would like to reiterate a huge thank you to the team. It means a lot to the community that you have been so receptive to feedback, and we can’t wait to come home August 27th!
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I started on Classic 1 but switched after the dc. I went to Classic 3 and it seemed overcrowded(possibly due to lack of servers). At about 3:25PST, I noticed lag on everything but movement. It got steadily worse until 4:15 PST when it was gone. It only took me about 5 mins to log back in after the system dc._Much better than last time.
I was on Realm 15, started June 19th at about 8 PM Pacific. Was pretty crowded, had to group to get mob tags. Honestly was perfectly fine for launch day experience. Launch day is more about social and just having fun, the gameplay suffers but overall that is fine. Would be very crowded if that maintained long term and into zones outside the starting ones.
Played again at about 10 AM on June 20, much less crowded, was about perfect. Realm disappeared for me at about 2 PM on June 20.
Noticed a few “bugs?” rare mobs were respawning before their corpses disappeared. not sure if this is “dynamic” respawns for named NPC that everyone wants to kill or what, but was a bit strange seeing like 4 corpses for Rageclaw in the Ban Ethil Barrow Dens. Also happened with the named furbolg north of the area where you get the dreamcatcher.
(Edited because I forgot to post what realm I was on) Realm 3. My second day experience began around 10 AM Pacific time and ended at 2 PM
I’ve been waiting for years to play WoW in a state that I enjoy it. I haven’t truly enjoyed playing since Wrath ended. The stress test was…interesting. At first there were people everywhere and it was quite a frustrating mess. Whoever was in charge started to shard players when the server got laggy and things were not bad. I saw people all over the place and had no problems partying up with people when it was necessary.
My second day was not a good experience. I logged in and nobody was around me. I was sharded into exile. I thought that maybe a trip to Org would let me find some more players, but I encountered 5 other people in the entire city as I made my way around it. Trade chat was popping off, but players were nowhere to be seen and after several hours of play my exile in shardsvile remained.
Sharding itself wasn’t exactly a problem. It was beneficial on the first day. But on my second day I was in a desolate wasteland with no hopes of interaction in sight. Community is what makes this game. Bumping into strangers and maybe making a friend. Maybe you see that person a few months down the line and remember them and group up with them again, maybe that gets you talking and you join their guild. Maybe a lot of things happen. Maybe they don’t. What I can say in certainty is that without those interactions none of the previously mentioned outcomes will occur, and that’s what will determine if Classic is a success or a flop.
Sharding should be a last ditch effort only implemented when server performance is being effected and and it should be undone as soon as possible. I hope that Blizzard can realize this and find a way to implement sharding in this way.
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Started at 5pm - 9pm EST on Realm3 6/19.
- Starting area was had to judge. At times I was the only on there, and other times it was really crowded. Maybe not too crowded for launch, but, crowded. Vendors and Quest givers could take 90 seconds or more to complete transactions.
- As I play in the second zone, this was a lot better. Could have seen a few more people though. But, very playable.
Started at 4ish pm EST on Realm2 6/20.
- Starting zone much more playable and looking good. Had no issues with vendors or quest givers.
- Second zone, I had no issues with. Much like on the 19th.
I’m real happy with what I see so far.
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Logged into Realm 3 again this afternoon. Little more populated but the layering on 3 is for sure way too high. I had little to no mob competition in Fargodeep mine. One of the biggest choke points from the last stress tests.
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My quests are not auto tracking when accepted
I was on Server 2 when it was listed as Low pop. The Tauren starting area felt pretty populated, but the respawn rates were keeping up quite well with the volume of people still working on the 1-5 quests. Things were all moving smoothly.
I started right when stress test opened up, on realm 15.
The starting area was pretty cramped, I didn’t even attempt to try and quest, just moved to areas where no one was and grinded mobs. Moving to Goldshire was some what the same, only until I got out to the level 12-15 quests in Westfall I wasn’t scavenging for any xp I could. It was a lot less crowded in the mornings before work, but I hope that was expected.
Realm 2. At level 6 too zepp from UC to Orgrimmar about 1:30 PM PST today. No one on Zepp. Few people I could see in Org it seemed pretty unpopulated. The chat channel was active and people were talking. no delays or issues taking the zepp.
Realm: 15
Time: June 20 @ 5:30-6:00pm (ET)
Crowdedness: I went back to Valley of Trials today to do Sting of the Scorpid test and I liked the level of crowdedness. Yesterday the first hours after launch were really killing me.
Moving to second zone: I went to Sen’Jin Village afterwards. The crowdedness was lower than Valley of Trials. I wished the crowdedness was a little higher.
Realm: 15
Time: June 19 @ 5:00-10:00 PM Eastern
I played a Night Elf on launch from around 5 pm eastern to 10 pm eastern on Realm 15. Shadowglen was full of people and mobs were tough but not unbearably tough to tag, especially if you grouped up. The quests that require drops took pretty long to complete since being in a group does not scale as well as it does for the kill quests. One of the benefits of having so many people in the zone is that the difficulty of completing the quests encourages people to join the conversation and group up with others which is one of the best parts of World of Warcraft. People also have the option to group up, leave the starter zone, and find new creative ways to level with others. The random conversations you have with people are oftentimes more enjoyable than whatever specific objective the game sets for you. How many times would you enjoy doing similar kill or fetch quests solo? I hope the release version of Classic WoW has even more players in the same layer that what was included in Realm 15 at launch yesterday. Whatever the maximum amount of players per layer that does not compromise server security is would be my preference for launch. More people interacting leads to interesting stories and the “problem” of too many people in the starting zone to complete the quests leads to people finding creative solutions. The more the merrier!
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Here’s what I noticed in my experience so far for this stress test:
Initial login when the servers were up at 4pm CT was not very populated (I started on Realm 5. Shortly after the realms were reduced to 2, and it was very populated with long respawn timers for mobs. I was on Realm 3 once the realm crunch happened. Most people seemed to be spending exceptionally long times in the first zone. I believe this was in part because many of the players didn’t understand the different looting mechanics at first, and that classic was dependent upon grouping together. Once people seemed to stop playing it obviously was easier to complete the first zone, but still took me hours in the beginning zone, even with grouping up for part of the time.
As far as technical issues, when the server was populated, probably around 5pm-7pm CT there were extreme lag issues when trying to loot, or sell items. I also experienced–and am still experiencing–a glitch with the loot. The sparkles appear, and the loot window opens, but it shows nothing but an empty loot window. It gives nothing, and then the sparkles disappear and I’ve received nothing. Nothing is sent to mail, and no loot shows received in the chat window record either.
The night hours, into early morning this morning were drastically reduced population-wise, and respawn rates were fine for the minimal population.
Yes it was too crowded in the first zone even for launch day. I played in the Night elf starting zone from 4 - 6 PM PST and every part of that zone was camped with multiple people waiting for re spawn of mobs. The second zone was just right.
Started playing at about 1710 on the 19th to about 0030 on the 20th and again at 1630 to now. Troll shaman on realm 3. No issues logging in or making chracter. Took about 45 minutes to do all quests in Valley of Trials. Hardest parts were boars, scorpids, and Sarkoth. But starting area was packed and everything was killed as soon as it spawned. Tons of lag here. Continued on to Echo Isles and did troll quests. Tigers and trolls were sparse but not extinct with an acceptable amount of time to do the quests. No lag. Went from here to Razor Hill to kill humans and razorbacks. Little bit more congestion in keep and had to wait for mobs for the majority of the quest. Still no lag. Began questing in western Durotar killing crocs and scorpids. Virtually no other people besides me and my buddy and no lag. Logged off at this point after hitting level 11. Logged in again today and trade chat in Org is busy, but have only seen 2 or 3 people. Still no lag. All in all, with the exception of Valley of Trials, everything has been running smoothly and is a pleasant experience, but it seems that there are a ton of people in chat, but I’m not seeing them.
Followup:
At approximately 1 PM EDT, I re-rolled another toon on realm 2. This time, I zoned into the Valley of Trials again to see dozens of players, but this time they were running around playing the game rather than standing idle like they were last night. As I adjusted my settings, a steady stream of new characters flowed in.
The world looked and felt very well-populated. The game ran smoothly. There was a bit of competition for mobs, but people were friendly to each other and were grouping as needed.
After I moved to Sen’jin, there were fewer players, but it still didn’t feel empty. There were plenty of people there. Razor Hill was nearly as populated as Valley of Trials, but again, this felt good.
Great launch loved it. Funny people complaining about overcrowding lol. It’s a launch you should be happy to see so many people playing the game with you. Won’t happen again for a long time.
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Also if the starting zone is truly over populated get 5 people together and go kill higher levels
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