I don’t want to worry anyone, but there was a launch of a wildly popular MMO yesterday, and nothing spontaneously combusted. World of Warcraft Forever had over eight million characters created during its beta, and while all of those can’t be translated into new players, it’s safe to say a fair chunk would have tried to log in at the same time yesterday. Turns out, it all went smoothly, with only a couple of minor speed bumps.
There was an issue in the first hour or so that prevented players from choosing a gameplay ruleset – WoW Forever’s alternative to servers – but even this was resolved quickly. Reddit, which is, as we know, not always the most level-headed of places, was super complimentary about the MMO launch, with players praising it almost unanimously.
“Eight-minute queue and then got right in. No lag, no crashes.” Beamed one user, while another laments their caution: “The one time I tell myself I’ll just go to bed and not ruin my sleep because it’s a Blizzard launch, Blizzard apparently actually just nails it.”
Some commented on the fact that their world, if you will, felt a little empty at first, with Forever layering its players in different instances to retain some semblance of smoothness. This isn’t a huge issue, and feels preferable to the opposite: having to race half the lobby just to complete a simple quest.
“Too many layers; I wanted to be struggling in the starting zone”, one player joked. “Well, too bad, you are going to have a smooth, enjoyable launch no matter what.” Not a bad problem to have.
The WoW Forever beta was a resounding success, with an aforementioned eight million characters being created – this also led to a ton of data for Blizzard to pore over, and a rather hefty patch that appeared a few days ago, one which touched every class and even perfected controller support.
World of Warcraft Forever is out now, and by the sounds of it, you won’t have much trouble getting into a game – I guess the only issue you are going to have is: Alliance or Horde?