Since the patch leading up to Shadowlands, I’ve been unable to maintain a consistent IPv6 WORLD connection. It seems to vary, based on where my character is at the time. This has been causing an increase in latency (between 10-15) additional MS when there’s a split between the consistently available HOME IPv6 connection and the IPv4 WORLD connection.
I originally posted this in the tech support forums and they mentioned that the way we connect to servers has changed since the release of Shadowlands, so my experience is consistent with the launch of this new behavior.
I understand it’s not necessary to keep an IPv6 connection in order to play the game and the increase in latency isn’t very noticeable; however, the ability to select and use IPv6 addresses is and has been a feature in the current release off the game for a long time now and should work as expected.
It’s quite possible that the developers and QA don’t consider comprehensive IPv6 support a requirement, so the lack of it wouldn’t be a bug. Reporting in Bug Reports would be ineffective in that case.
To hedge your bets, post a feature enhancement request in the in-game suggestion system or in a forum outside of the Support forums, such as Gameplay.
IPv6 support has been natively available in World of Warcraft since 2011…
But, as pointed out, not consistently across the product line. So, is this inconsistency intentional or not?
If the inconsistency is within a particular product, that could be bug. But my experience with IPv6 issues is that these bugs are more often in the network, not the product. If the software works with IPv6, it always works with IPv6 and the cases it seems not to are because of something on the network path. A tech support issue, not a bug.
If IPv6 is supported in some products but not others, that is probably a deliberate choice based on schedule and priority. For instance, it’s been documented that the WoW Mobile App requires IPv4, but choosing not to implement IPv6 is almost certainly not a bug according to the only opinion that matters: Blizzard’s.
Maybe this will help you understand why I’m posting here: IPv6 Rarely Available in SL - Support / Technical Support - World of Warcraft Forums (blizzard.com)
To help further, I’ve consistently had a solid home and world IPv6 connection since it was introduced and my ISP supported it. Since the release of Shadowlands (and this is for the wow product as this is a wow product bug forum) it’s been misbehaving.
This is, indeed, a bug with the current architecture and the setting in the game client.