Overcrowded Realm Update

Based on name reservations so far, the Herod realm is looking to be massively overpopulated. If all existing players on this server remain there, login queues in excess of 10,000 players are a certainty, and possibly much higher than that.

We recently opened up the Stalagg realm, and we urge players on Herod to consider moving there. There are a lot of players currently on Herod and we want Stalagg to fill up before we open any new PvP realms. This is so that player population is spread as evenly as possible before launch, in order to provide the best play experience.

While we are able to fit several times more players on a single realm in 2019 than was the case in 2006, we are not going to raise that cap any further, even though we have the technical capacity to do so. Raising realm caps would simply forestall the problem, letting more players in at launch but creating an unsustainable situation down the line, with severe queues when we turn off layering permanently before Phase 2 of our content unlock plan.

Please also note that our realm population estimates of Low, Medium, High, and Full are based on this increased capacity – a Medium realm today already has more characters on it than even the most crowded realms did back in 2006.

Our top priority in planning for WoW Classic’s launch has been ensuring that we are laying the groundwork for strong realm communities that will endure over the months and years to follow, which is why we’re cautiously opening new servers to meet demand.

328 Likes

Thank you. This answers so many questions lol.

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First in 10 char. Damn!

Thanks for the update. :smiley:

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Really interesting. Thank you, Kaivax.

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This is really exciting. :smiley:

I cannot wait.

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Interesting, nice bit of knowledge there.

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Thanks for putting that into perspective, I think a lot of people weren’t exactly sure what the actual populations were on these realms

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Thanks for the update.

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1st TY for the update. 2nd I LOVE reading that line right there. Gives me a warm fuzzy !

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The most important part.

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No I’m staying Herod can’t trick me buddy!

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They already said it, but it does help repeating it for the people that think “they’ll never turn it off! They wont be able to!”.

They’re going to turn it off and just make us suffer queues if the population is too high.

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What about faction balance? Wouldn’t it be good to have devs review what the current faction numbers look like and then communicate this to the community?

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Thank you for update.

This 100 percent

oooo. massive realm populations. me likey.

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REAL SOLUTION would be to open yet another server and designate it STREAMER FREE if you want people to switch from herod. you have over a week left blizzard, please release one more server and designate it STREAMER FREE. the overwhelming popularity of herod is because people want to avoid streamers. give us what we want. thanks!!

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Honest question: What happens if nowhere near the number of people quit before phase 2 as predicted?

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In other words, the smallest realms in Classic are going to be more lively than the largest realms on retail.

This, this triggers my dopamine like finding an arcane crystal while mining.

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