I was on sever 3 and the starting area wasn’t too overcrowded. The second area, Darkshore did seem to have less people than the starting zone. Usually played around 10am - 8pm. Also the wolfs in Ashenvale were clipping through the ground and couldn’t attack them.
Got to lvl 15 and 10 on realm 3 horde side, and lvl 15 ally side realm 12. Killing mobs was never an issue during leveling just be fast and know where to go if quest areas are highly trafficked.
If classic bombs it will be because of layering.
Died several times due to layering mid combat into area with all the spawns I killed now up.
The post lvl 10 zones were absolutely dead due to layering.
Layering by continent is going to be highly exploitable at max level as there will several winterspring layers though maybe only 10 people there because they are layered to the zerg this will break resources in the game and make the realms feel “dead”
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While playing the stress test i had no issue other then a delay when killing a mob and trying to loot. There was a delay after a mob would die where i could actually loot it, then a delay with the box showing up, and then a delay clicking on the item. I had 70 ms and nothing else was lagging. I asked in world chat and a few people where experiencing the same thing but not everyone.
Same stuff happened to me while I was leveling in the Barrens. There was almost know one, and a couple times when I was about to kill something it would switch me to a new layer.
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I leveled on a Tauren, Troll and Undead. All of the starting zones were very full at first, and it took awhile to finish the early quests. The Undead zone was especially packed. After I got out of the starting zones, it wasn’t so bad. I did feel like there was competition for mobs, etc, but it wasn’t overbearing. Before the test ended today I was doing quest in the Barrens (like get those razormain quests) and there were several groups doing them still. Some of the other quests felt a little like there weren’t enough people around, but there was always somebody.
Anyway, I had a blast. I quested in groups for the first time for as long as I can remember, and the world felt epic in a way it hasn’t at least since MoP. Other than a little lag at the very first, everything ran very smoothly for me.
The start zone for Troll was very crowded, but that is exactly what I would expect from launch, with patience and team work I moved on to next zones, perfectly balanced pop imo, eventually made 15, had a blast trying out some bg’s
The social environment was amazing, total blast to play and test
cant wait for Official launch day in August
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too much fun hahaha
Great stress test! Me, my wife and my mom enjoyed playing. Very few issues with quests. Just ran into an issue where the snow leopards around Brewnall village weren’t respawning last night. Killed about 5 of them then ran around for 30 minutes and couldn’t find anymore and the ones we killed prior weren’t coming back (about 9pm eastern). The population definitely died down as we went outside the starting zones. Progression to level 15 was great. Seemed like the number of people around was manageable. Could get plenty of quest items and kills and still had people to group with if needed. We hope to test again soon!!
I can only say this as an old EQ player, and playing WoW since release.
Everything was absolutely perfect. What made Vanilla great was the low key environment and the simplicity of play. You have captured that again.
I do not belong to a guild in retail. I joined one in this stress test and was over joyed.
I’m not much of a grouper, but spent the last hour in a pick up grp with two others helping anyone who wanted to finish the Hogger quest.
I was engaged in General, Guild, and Group chat the entire time I played.
There were people everywhere and it made for a beautiful experience.
In the final few minutes as we were all saying goodbye it was as if we were leaving friends that we had known for years. If we could have hugged each other it would have been a perfect ending.
Thanks Blizzard, and to quote Rowdy Burns from the movie Days of Thunder, “She’s dialed in, don’t change a thing.”
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When I moved away from the start zone Undead to any other place- undercity, sepultcher, org and cross roads were all pretty empty. World seemed deserted and I was wondering where all the people disappeared. I was on number 12
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Please state your Realm, otherwise your comment means little.
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Prior to the stress test I had no issues with the planned ‘layering’ for the first little while once Classic launches. However, after seeing the ways it is easily abused and the wicked fun and community that was in the starting zones, even with so many competing for quest kills, I realize how layering shouldn’t be a part of Classic at all in any way.
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Day one it was real crowded and a suggestion to help with that might be multi tagging of a target to get credit in the starting zones only for the first couple of weeks to help with flow and player frustration. I know its a change and we have a large or vocal group not wanting any changes down to the blades of grass being in the same place as 14 years ago but most the less vocal group would probably be ok with it in the starting zones. Zone 15 and 3
Only starting zone was too crowded, otherwise was fun. Had to compete for some stuff in second zone, but it felt organic for a launch server.
(realm 15, server open onward, and some the next day in the evening)
I played on Classic Realm #15 –
- I found it very crowded. I played a Gnome Warlock, and logged in an hour or two after the 2nd stress test began. I couldn’t get any of the first quest done at all. It was very crowded. However, on day #2, I had success and found plenty of people but not to the point of not spending great deals of time obtaining quest objectives.
- I never made it to the 2nd zone. If I didn’t have to go to work today, I probably could’ve. I reached level 9, about half way through, and had moved on to the Quarry but didn’t quite make it, and when I came home tonight the test was over.
Thoughts: Day 1 was painful, day 2 was great. I attribute this to plenty of people eager for Classic’s release and checking out the open stress tests. It felt authentic and even though I didn’t play until Wrath of the Lich King, I was very impressed with how “real” it was, according to how I remember it.
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I’m a bit sad, for sure. I guess next time. I did not make it to a dungeon. ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
My 1st two experiences were on realm 15 PVP, which is described earlier in this thread.
My 3rd time, I’ve decided to go to a different realm, just to see the difference. I was on Server 12 PVE. I’ve leveled Night Elf druid 1 to 15 in Teldrassil and Darkshore only. Traveled to Wetlands -> Ironforge -> Stormwind -> Elwyyn Forest -> Westfall after that.
Here is the timeline and experience:
6/21/2019 01:15 until 02:05 MST I’m in the Night Elf starting zone. Plenty of people running around. I’d say not too empty but not crowded. Little to no competition for mobs. Got all quests done pretty snappy in 48 minutes time. Good stuff. Took a break.
6/21/2019 02:44 until 04:19 MST Roaming with quests near Dolanaar got to lvl 8 or so in 2 hr 18 min /played. Had to group up for 2-3 quests. Seen ppl around, but waaay more desolated. I was a bit sad not to see as many people, but it might be ok since some quests still had a lot of competition, like the ones right out of NE starting zone for bird, spider and cat parts.
So, Webwood Spiders right to the outer border of the Teldrassil had some looting bugs so as Nighsabers and Strigid Owl right around Starbreeze Village primarily, but spiders the most.
Animation would show loot, right click, and the window with loot quickly flashes, but no loot is being collected.
Took a break.
6/21/2019 06:30 until 07:20 MST got to lvl 10 in 3 hr 9 min /played.
Got not so nice experience with a layer. One population of mobs was wiped out when I got to a location. I killed one mob and that’s it (Gnarlpine Ambushers to be specific). They are confined to a small area only. So, I decided to leave and come back later, and as I ascend a hill, to my right and look back to the left, a whole bunch of these mobs appear out of nowhere, I mean like 9 or 12 of them all spread out where their spawn spot are, probably. NUTS. I don’t like that. No other players were seen around at the time. During questing these two levels I have not seen that many players roaming about, but seen some and was able to group up for longer/more challenging quest like the one in the Den.
Took a break after lvl 10.
6/21/2019 07:36 until 09:32 MST got to lvl 12. /played 4 hr 58 min. Fewer people yet. Darnassus looks very empty. I’ve seen like only 3 people with whom I briefly grouped up. Rare Elemental was not up, sad face. By the way, Moonglade, the Druid zone seemed very dead. Every time I traveled there, I’ve seen no one.
6/21/2019 09:45 until 11:43+ MST got to lvl 13 in /played 5hr 51 min. got to lvl 14 in 6 hr 59 min, 15 lvl in 8 hr 58 min (major frustration with the looting bug getting to lvl 15.
Also, O M G. Darkshore was incredibly dead. through 13-14-15 levels I’ve seen probably only 3 people in the zone beside the main hub. Don’t like that at all. Was not able to group up even if I wanted to.
At level 14 I’ve encountered very annoying loot bug with the Buzzbox 323 quest. Any Moonstalkers lvl 10-15 mobs were not looting in 90% of the cases. I’ve gained like 25% of lvl 15 just by killing those it an attempt to get 6 Moonstalker Fangs. Crazy. It had the same animation as the Webwood Spiders back in Teldrassil. Sparkly animation shows up after the kill, right click, quick flash of the “loot window”, but nothing is collected, and the sparkly animation disappears. Fyi, had an “auto-loot” option ON. Very frustrating. The fun part is that when killing bear right next to those, bear corpses had loot 90% of the time. It’s a bug of some sorts, for sure.
After getting to lvl 15, I’ve started my journey to Eastern Kingdoms about 55 minutes before 6/21/2019 02:00 PM PST.
Beside Trade district and Goldshire area everything was dead. Area in front of Ironforge AH/Bank was empty. I met 3-4 people running in the opposite direction through Wetlands.
I was in Westfall when all layers collapsed. After the collapse, the zone looked more lively. Just right. Prior to collapse, pretty dead.
The best thing I got to say is for servers with population like #12 PVE during the times when I played, I’d like to see no layering for zones 10-20+ levels like Darkshore, Westfall, Loch Modan, Redridge Mountains. Definitely not for Darkshore for any kind of server population probably. First of all, it’s Night Elves zone (not very popular race for vanilla). That zone is huge and covers quests from lvl 11 to about 24. A bit of competition there would be nice.
At the start of the test, I was on the sole RP server. There were a modest number of other people there and I was able to perform the early quests in a totally reasonable amount of time. The server was then shut down and I transferred to Realm 3. On both servers I did the Undead area.
The population in this start area was very crowded. Mob spawns were fine, but with the amount of people, it made the area a chore to be certain. Once out of the initial area, it was fine. There were obviously people around still but at that point you had the ability to spread out more. It was at this point I felt I was able to play the game, as I wasn’t competing with others, simply doing my quests (both solo and in groups).
There were some lag spikes in the initial Undead area on Realm 3 after the other servers were shut down. I do not know if they were present prior. They were annoying, but not game breaking. I did not experience any outside of the first couple hours.
Thank you!
I started on server 3 and stayed there for the duration of the test.
The first few minutes before the realm list was condensed, the realm felt too empty for a real launch experience. I was able to get through the first 3 or 4 quests in northshire without waiting for many respawns, playing without a group. After the realms were condensed I notice a lot more players in the area, but I was already far enough ahead to not have to worry much about competing for mobs/quest items.
I was pretty much completely alone in the world after hitting level 8, as very few people were leveling as quickly as me. This was as expected. Around this time we also experienced a little bit of server lag, which appeared to only affect looting and interacting with NPCs. This server lag wasn’t as bad as the lag that people experienced during the previous stress tests, in my opinion.
After the initial test and after I hit level cap, I felt like the major cities were way emptier than they should have been. Up until right before the servers shut down, I’d only see up to maybe 10 different people as I ran through the city working on professions, queuing for bgs and checking the AH. However, I can’t say whether this was due to layering or there just simply weren’t many people in the cities.
Throughout the experience I felt that mob respawns were just fine, I don’t think I ever had to wait more than 5 minutes to complete a quest due to all the mobs being dead, and in my opinion 5 minutes or less is perfectly fine.
I can also tell that there has been an improvement in server stability since the previous stress tests. All in all I feel that things are headed in the right direction, and I can’t wait to see Classic go live.
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I started on server 15 right after “the snap” in the dwarf starting area.
The starting zone felt exactly like it did in the original WoW launch. Yes, it was probably too crowded and it could be hard to tag mobs even in a group but it’s exactly how I remember the zone early on. If the idea here is to recreate the original launch then I would say the dwarf starting area felt perfect and very close to the original.
I was with 2 friends so our group of 3 started to quest around Kharanos. It felt like the population really thinned out after we left the starter zone. We met very few people in this zone. It didn’t feel completely dead but it was far different from what I remember. I know, memory can be tricky but I clearly remember people being everywhere in that zone and mobs being almost as hard to tag as it was in the started zone. In fact, i remember the first zones being super crowded up to at least Redridge mountain.
In the original, I remember fighting with other groups for a tag on Vagash because there was just so many groups trying to complete the quest. In the stress test, when we got to Vagash, we were alone. We saw a group coming up the hill when we were done and that’s it.
The whole experience outside the starter zone felt more like it was when I leveled my alts, something llike 1 year into the game, and not like a launch day at all.
The capital cities were completely vacant. It’s hard to forget the first time you discover Ironforge and I can say without a doubt that it was not faithful to the original. I think I saw 2 people in IF when I got there to get my professions. /who would say 50 people are in the zone but definitely not in our layer.
As an experiment, I ran a lvl 1 gnome to IF on all servers and they all felt completely empty. Something is definitely not right with the way layering work in the capital cities.
Was on pvp test server right at launch. Small amount of issues in the first few hours when booted with key bindings but then smooth after a few hours. Reasonable amount of population in starting zones Alliance human and Horde troll. Same with second zone, plenty of people for groups.