Blizzard Addresses Server Queues, Lag & Population Issues - WotLK Classic

Author: Pride
Date: September 8, 2022
Updated: September 8, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Following the launch of the WotLK pre-patch, Classic servers have been facing massive issues. 2-5 hour queues aren’t uncommon on some of the bigger “mega-servers”, nor are horrible lag issues, preventing people from raiding or using the auction house. Blizzard is aware of these issues, and has announced several measures that they hope will help mitigate the issues.

The following servers will be completely locked indefinitely, preventing players from transferring to them at all, or making new characters on them unless they already have a character there:

NA servers: Benediction, Faerlina, Grobbulus, Mankrik, Pagle, Whitemane
EU servers: Gehennas, Golemagg, Firemaw, Pyrewood Village, Venoxis

Furthermore, they have added a new NA PvP server called Eranikus, and enabled it as a free character migration (FCM) destination server for NA servers experiencing queue issues. Players may only transfer to Eranikus via this free transfer programme, not via regular transfers. No new EU servers have been added just yet, but it is assumed that one will be added soon, with similar provisions in place.

Finally, the FCM programme has been expanded in general. In specific, players on the NA servers Benediction, Grobbulus and Faerlina can now claim a free transfer to Eranikus, Old Blanchy and Sulfuras. EU players on Firemaw, Gehennas and Golemagg meanwhile can claim a free transfer to Mograine and Hydraxian Waterlords.

Players are notably very unhappy with Blizzard’s decision, with multiple forum & Reddit threads being opened up to discuss these issues, mostly stating frustrating at what is perceived as Blizzard missing the mark completely, with measures that are anticipated to not help with the issues at all. It remains to be seen how exactly this all plays out, and what they plan to do with EU servers in specific, as there has been very little communication on that front.

You can read more below. Aggrend has posted a more detailed explanation of these measures and the rationale behind them here.

Kaivax – (Source)

NA Servers

Updated September 7 4:45 p.m.

To provide players who wish to escape the queues with a pristine environment to begin creating communities together, we have now opened a new destination realm for Free Character Transfers from overpopulated realms: Eranikus (PvP).

This realm can only be accessed via free transfer from Benediction, Faerlina, or Grobbulus. Additionally, all four of these realms are now locked for character creation, which means that it is only possible to create a character on the realm if you already have a character on that realm.

Please note: we will close free transfers to Eranikus when we see it approaching a population that is so high that it might begin queueing. This may occur without a great deal of warning.

Over the last week, transfers to the Sulfuras realm have been successful enough that it is approaching full population. To prevent Sulfuras from requiring a queue, we will close Free Character Transfers to Sulfuras tomorrow, Thursday, September 8 at 12:00 Noon PDT.

Thank you very much for going forth and populating this new realm!

Adjustments have been made to some high-population realms in this region.

To prevent further overcrowding, we are now restricting transfers to:

Benediction
Grobbulus
Faerlina
Mankrik
Pagle
Whitemane

We’ve also enabled Free Character Transfers from the most overpopulated realms in this region:

FROM	TO	DESTINATION TYPE
Benediction	Eranikus (NEW)	PvP
Benediction	Old Blanchy	Normal
Benediction	Sulfuras	PvP
Grobbulus	Eranikus (NEW)	PvP
Grobbulus	Old Blanchy	Normal
Grobbulus	Sulfuras	PvP
Faerlina	Eranikus (NEW)	PvP
Faerlina	Old Blanchy	Normal
Faerlina	Sulfuras	PvP

We strongly encourage players who wish to use a Free Character Transfer to do so as soon as possible. Free Character Transfers may be closed without warning.

This is incorrect. Eranikus can only be populated via free transfers from Benediction, Faerlina, or Grobbulus.

If you’re interested in a lot more detailed information about these issues, Aggrend posted an essay on it here.

This is something we’re considering, but we’re planning to close Free Transfers to Sulfuras tomorrow for two reasons:

The total active population is approaching full.
The Alliance/Horde ratio is approaching 50/50.

If that faction balance trend holds, we’ll close Free Transfers and consider it a very fortunate result.

But we’re considering additional Alliance-only free transfers. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow afternoon.

EU Servers

As you may have seen 31, we’ve taken additional steps to address queues on North American realms.

We will be implementing a similar arrangement for EU players soon.

We’ll update you again as soon as we have that in place.

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!