How smooth will launch go?

[avitush]

I took a break from WoW when BC hit so I can't attest to that launch but I find it hard pressed to it beating WoD. That was a total dumpster fire inside of a burning building.

BC is my favorite expansion, but it had a very rough launch with all kinds of technical issues. Even some of the pre-launch patches caused so many problems that people were getting game time compensation from Blizzard. Although I guess to be fair, it was Blizzard's first time launching a WoW expansion. I'm pretty sure they learned a few lessons from that one. I don't recall anywhere near as many problems with Wrath's launch.

Although I actually wasn't there for WoD's launch (didn't start playing until a few days after launch), so I can't say how it compared to BC's launch.

[GrinnersGrin]

Chunky Peanutbutter

[Sakula]

Launch will be smooth in my opinion. They have been doing stress tests for a reason.

[MrLachyG]

well if you base it off the last 2 expansion launches, Legion and BfA, then it should be pretty smooth. I remember doing WoD launch and oh god that was awful can't remember any prior to that

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The streamer servers will probably be crashing, but the rest I think will be okay.

thank god i am playing on Oceanic. No streamers afaik

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BC is my favorite expansion, but it had a very rough launch with all kinds of technical issues. Even some of the pre-launch patches caused so many problems that people were getting game time compensation from Blizzard. Although I guess to be fair, it was Blizzard's first time launching a WoW expansion. I'm pretty sure they learned a few lessons from that one. I don't recall anywhere near as many problems with Wrath's launch.

Although I actually wasn't there for WoD's launch (didn't start playing until a few days after launch), so I can't say how it compared to BC's launch.

Setting up the garrison was the main challenge. took ages to actually do it with everyone there. Little wonder why they introduced sharding and layering after that to keep server stress low.

[Derpleton]

It depends on how layered everything is. I briefly poked my head in during the stress test to see how crowded Northshire Valley was and it was impossible to do even the first few quests without a group, now it being the stress test I didn't care enough to try to complete it. But if that is the level of overcrowding that we can expect during the launch then I imagine its going to be pretty rough, not necessarily broken or crashy but I imagine a lot of people could get frustrated when Hogger is being camped by 10 groups. Will be interesting to see how the speed levelers pull ahead of the pack.

[Xyrax]

Fucking around in the end of beta event vs playing live. I had a Battle for Nazjatar the other day where Alliance outnumbered Horde (still plenty of horde though) and with under 30 people on one capture point, it was so laggy that it was basically unplayable, well over 1s of lag between abilities.

Playing beta, I don't know, at least 120 people around, no ability lag at all. My FPS was suffering, but there was no ability delay.

Not sure what they are doing with live servers why they're so laggy with so few people, why the chat gets so laggy etc. especially since they don't get like that in BGs on live, but anyway - the classic servers seem to hold up way better to large groups of people.

I think the launch will go pretty well.

I think its due to the complexity of the modern game versus the (in todays terms) simplicity of Classic. Spell batching and all of that. Theres so much less going on Im guessing behind the scenes that we don't end up with the lag issues.

Everyone was worried that since 40v40 battles in BFA lagged, that meant no classic world PvP, but instead we saw hundreds fighting hundreds in Arathi in the beta and it was super smooth. I was really happy to see that.

[avitush]

with all those stress tests they do, I believe it will be smooth in terms of lag. I however expect that there will be a leveling bottleneck due to lack of quest items and mobs around for the first few days.

Isn't that the reason they're doing the whole "layering" thing though? I'll be interested to see if that actually helps.

[Hittion]

In terms of server stability the last few expansions have been pretty smooth with the exception of mop and maybe wod I remember one suffered heavy from cyber attacks.

For bottle necking... I think quest mobs will be pretty hard to get but once people hit (15?) I think most of the alliance will filter into deadmines to level to avoid the competition.

[HordeFanboy]

It will be very smooth on 1000 layers

[Mukind]

It will be very smooth on 1000 layers

stahp ur gonna give me a stroke

[Zka]

Worst launch on my server was LK. Raids had been literally unplayable due to lag (I mean screen completely stalling for 10-30 seconds during bossfights) at peak times for about 2 MONTHS.

[tikcol]

Hopefully very rough so all the casuals get filtered out

[Celista]

Since I don't possess a crystal ball and I cannot read the future, I selected the only sensible option, which is I like turtles.
Also WoD is the worst WoW launch I've experienced. It was nigh unplayable around the garrison. It was so bad we all got a week of free game time.

I thought it was like two days. Honestly I don't remember it being that terrible, but then again I quit the game for 2.5 years during WoD.

[munkeyinorbit]

What a moronic statement of "1 being Mists of Pandaria"

For most of EU, Mists was actually pretty good, Beyond the first quest and people rughing to the first zone, after an couple of hours, it was pretty stable and fine. Warlords in EU though, was literally unplayable for up to 2 weeks, with queues in the 1000s, and lag that was beyond playable (and bottleneck quests that caused people trying to get past them for over an hour or two).

Actually try looking at some of the launches of expansions, and you will find they have been mostly utter shit, so don't use the "Oh, I hate Kung fu Panda" crap or whatever your agenda is, to hate on what was basically a pretty stable and good expansion.

Heck, Classic, BC and Wrath were all steaming piles of shit launch wise, in comparison too.

Slow your hateboner, buddy. Maybe op has only played from panda. I agree with your sentiment that it was relatively pain free. A bit of lag during the opening area but after that pretty stable, but calm down.

I think WoD was the worst it has ever been. Queued for 12 hours just for the servers to shutdown. Hours waiting for quest to pop up after clicking the guy. Being DCed when going to garrison to then have to join a 12 hour queue again. Not seeing quest mobs cause they die so quickly. Resorting to constantly aoeng in the hope of tagging something for hours.

Classic will be mostly stable. I pick like BFA. A bit of lag but playable.

[Laerrus]

If they only allow streamers on and block everyone else like they did in the stress test, it is going to be a real shitshow.

[Will]

I thought it was like two days. Honestly I don't remember it being that terrible, but then again I quit the game for 2.5 years during WoD.

Are you EU? It was... rough. Pretty rough in the garrison.
Might've been 2 days.

[Zafire]

I gave it a "7" because I think there is going to be a better shot that it will be fine. Even if it is, the level of people might make doing anything almost impossible. Imagine trying to level mining with 100 other Engineering/Miners in Elwynn.

I'm not even going to attempt to play that much the first two days after launch.

[schwarzkopf]

With 1 being Mists of Pandaria and 10 being Legion...

MoP and Legion were both smooth launches for me... so I don't know which end is good and which end is bad.

But if it is a real vanilla experience - then it should go really badly

[Askyl]

It'll be fine

[JJWF]

I'm sure the lag will be nice and smooth.