Posted by iTZKooPA on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 - 39 Comments
Tags: faction based, OMG let me play the game!, playtime, population queues, qqing, queues, realm transfers, wasted time, wrath launch
Estimated Time Remaing: FOREVER
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There were a few things that one expected with Wrath of the Lich King’s launch, first and foremost was long lines at the midnight sales. Next was an Auction House ripe for money making, before and after the second expansion’s launch. However, the ability to cash in for gobs of gold would not begin until WotLK finally launched. The additional opportunities opened up due to the fact that many players would be returning to WoW, while more were joining the ranks of the Horde or Alliance for the first time.
Next on the list of items that experienced players would expect should of been queues. Queue times have been a staple in World of Warcraft since the title’s launch way back in 2004. Originally, they were implemented because the starting areas were so full of players that the lag made the vicinity unplayable. They persisted on the realms for times when the server hit its maximum load. Generally speaking, the cap was only hit for most servers during national holidays, Sunday nights and around the release of major content patches or whole expansions. Thanks to Blizzard’s liberal use of awesomesauce on Wrath, Northrend has supplied my main pair of servers with population timers popping up nearly two months since its launch!
At the beginning I was one of the many who steadfastly told people to chill out, that the queues would go away in a week, two or perhaps a month. While I still hold on to the belief that the lines will shrink and then disappear - either to player apathy or hardware updates - but they are putting a serious hurt on my limited playtime. More importantly, one of my good friends just transferred to another server because Magtheridon has been plagued with 20-30 minute queues during raiding times, and beyond. Hell, last night at 11 o’clock I had to wait 25 minutes to log in, giving me about 20 minutes to play before I had to pack it up. On the plus side, he was a Horde player, so perhaps I can get him to re-roll Alliance once this business dies down.
How are the stacks on your servers? Tolerable? Non-existent? Transfer worthy? Also, does anyone know if the queues are faction based at all? My aforementioned friend has constantly reported longer wait times for Horde than I was getting for Alliance. However, we never managed to login at the same time to truly compare.
Related Posts: Why Do Now What You Can Do Later?, So Much Raiding, So Little Time, Taking It Like A Clothie, Patch 3.2: Call of the Crusade Announced, Midnight Launch Madness: The Recap,
By Kalcifer on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am
First!
Maybe cos now you play on on a famous server with a famous guild everyone wants to be your friend?
Anyway make realm’s never been full or even nearly full but then maybe that’s cos i play rp and that’s never the most popular.
By Fladon on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I’m at Icecrown nd ever since LK came out, on weekends (especially sunday nights) there have been 20 to 60 minute waits. there was this 1 time when i was in about 1000 place for Q so i left my pc on nd ate some lunch. when i came back (about 30min later) i was at 250. so i watied ther for another 5min then at 50 i got DC!!!! when i tried going back on i was at 650 so i jus quit playin WoW for a week. Anyway im back on and since ther are free transfers from Icecrown ther hasnt been much trouble lately.
By Cyn on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Tichondruius Here. Yeah late nights have my self waiting in ques, which suck usually about 20 minute wait. BUt as the man said free transfer are a blessing so my whole guild and i are transfering which is a pretty nice number of 40+ people so hopefully it goes over well.
By Myrlin on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I started playing again after a year long hiatus just before the expansion hit. I fully expected the queues, but still found it annoying when it cut into so much of my play time each evening.
The other problem was that my friends from my former guild were playing on a different server so I had to choose between playing my high level characters alone or starting over with them. Then Blizzard announced the opportunity to do a free tranfer to a low population server and they made it possible to transfer from both my server and from the server my friends were on. I thought it was a dream come true. We’d be playing without any queues while everyone else was still waiting in line.
I talked my guild into it and we all started transferring. Unfortunately Blizzard ended the transfers 2 days early and we had a few people that weren’t able to transfer in time. They ended up having to go through support and it took another week (or 3 weeks in one case) to get their characters transferred.
It was just a few days after we transferred that we ran into the first problem. The new server was “closed” so no one else could join us and start a character from scratch. This meant that any friends we wanted to recruit wouldn’t be able to play with us. This “closed” period lasted a little more than a month. We all kept waiting for them to open up the server so we could start adding a few friends. When they finally did open the server, they also made it the recommended server for new players. This meant that overnight the server changed from being a low population server full of experienced players to being a high population server full of newbs that just got the game for Christmas.
The massive influx of new players also meant that the queues returned. So now everyone that transferred to get away from the queues are stuck waiting in the queue again and once they get in they have to put up with a huge number of newbs begging for gold or asking for run-throughs. It’s been a huge hassle. I doubt my guild will ever take my advice again when it comes to server transfers.
–Myrlin (Dawnbringer)
By Nartin on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Earthen Ring is around 700 - 800 on weeknights at prime time and over 1.2K on weekends. Strat lately is to login as soon as I get home from work and then run errands and eat dinner and then maybe I’ll be able to play for an hour before needing to log and head to bed.
By Pete the Geek on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
The thing that bothers me most about the queues is that the main glut is new players coming back to check out Wrath, which screws over people like me and my guild who have been around since “the good old days”.
Cenarius - US is just downright ridiculous lately. Sure, we’re an old server and a fairly popular West Coast one, but it takes a major bite out of people’s enthusiasm when they have to wade through a 600-1000 person queue every evening.
Blizzard should set something up for older servers (the ones that are really taking the hit the hardest) where they optimize how many people it can really hold on a constant basis without ever needing the queue. Then, just go down the list - people who are in one of the top 20 guilds on the server get to stay. Then, people who have been on the server longer than 3 years get to stay, then 2 years, then 1 year, and so forth until we reach that number. Everyone else gets shipped to a new server.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh…. I suppose I’m just bitter because it takes almost the same amount of time to clear Naxx as it does to get through the queue so you can actually go clear Naxx.
By Clayllynt on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m on undermine, it’s a PvE server and I’ve never had one of the dreaded queue screens. I started on this server over 2 years ago now and I’ve never encountered it.
The only downside about the server is that its around 80% alliance and 20% Horde (I’m a Belf Lock) so its kinda off balanced. The Alliance side is mostly younger kids asking for money for runs and being paid for help, but the Horde is nothing but older more mature players and are pretty laid back. At least I’ve never encountered any bad Horde players that is.
By Mike Fahy on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Im on Suramar (US) and i have rarely ever ran into a queue. only once or twice after the latest x-pac
By Eventime on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I’m on the Hydraxis server, and luckily have had 0 queue problems. There might have been one or two days at launch where I was about 60 or 70 in line, but that was the worst I had to deal with.
By Pauldy on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Undermine is 60-40 and there have most definatly been queues esp when BC came I out i know I had my first char on that server.
By James on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I play on The Scryers and have since it was new. It is starting to get much fuller now and I experienced my first q last week. It was only about 5 minutes long, if that honestly.
By Sno on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
On Quel Dorei i havan’t gotten a single one =)
By Beefeater on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Tortheldrin went from having no queue to having 15-30 minute queues literally overnight, because of the transfers. As someone who was already there (and as someone who transferred long ago to get away from queues) it was extremely disappointing and frustrating.
I hold no ill will toward those who transferred. In fact, I feel very bad for them as well. They were leaving a server they had grown to know and call home to go somewhere they expected to see no queues.
Then, the first time they log on: 30 minute queue.
On top of the queue, our the social environment is extremely hostile right now and latency is horrible. So bad that nobody can raid, and even running heroics is questionable.
So, if you are considering transferring, please keep all of this in mind. Mostly that you won’t be getting away from queues or latency.
By Niimrod on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Nordrassil EU ftw queues = 0
By Viradu on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Being chilean I’m in Ragnaros, a latin server, and I have never experienced queues to log in, must be because its a new server. However lag’s been horribel lately, and WotLK hasn’t helped at all…
By Ozzel's Cousin Fred on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Silvermoon Horde here. We had 1000 queues a few weeks ago, down to 500 ish now. Queues didnt even appear till 5:30 - 6 ish server CST, after they show up though they take like 30 minutes to an hour to get through. I believe they’re faction nonspecific.
Dalaran is barely playable after 3 pm CST and by 6 server I have huge lag there.
So yea.
I believe the entire problem is that the whole world all decides to log in at the same time. Which creates the queues. /shrug
By Sidias on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Yeah I’m on Silvermoon as well. Seriously contemplated a transfer but the destination realm was east coast. So my choice was terrible lag and long queues, or nobody to group with at 11-12 pm. Blizzard isn’t giving people many options.
By Deidare on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Ugh please dont mention the name server… i made a bad descion joining a mid size realm that was normal, meaning a bunch of tardes inhabit it… not very fun. I can gert on my realm every time i log on however so its not so bad, but in my realm i believe there alot more ally than horde makeing me want to ask around to find a realm with tons of horde and mabye a pvp or rpg realm, hell mabye an rpgpvp realm i mean i do like to role play now and then but when i talk to players i dont “role play” then saying like “why hello sir luther” or something. But yes i have considered switching however i have no idea how people act in RPG realms so i’d have to ask around.
By Joshy on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Im on a RP euro sever called Wildhammer, abd this is the first ive heard of waiting times :S
By Jondare on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
i play on Earthen ring and have newer seen a single gue
By Carson on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Horde on Shattered Hand and even being a left coaster playing on an east coast server in the late evenings i’ve been getting nailed with queues of up to a half hour on an almost daily basis.
By Zaltif on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I have 2 accounts one horde one alliance and i find the q times on the horde account to be much lower then my alliance account. At first i thought it was because of the population of the sever but both severs have the same population maybe its just a matter of horde to alliance i don’t really know.
By Rikaku on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
My server had ques for 1 night, wrath launch. That’s all. But Muradin is the most average of the average PvE realms XD
By brandywine on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I’m on the Ghostlands-US server which was initially created for transfers from other servers like Doomhammer (where I came from) and there were queues for a little bit around the holidays but it’s settled back to no wait now.
By Murruhlin on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Never a wait. I did transfer my main from Dark Iron to Dark’Tharon but the move was because of the lack of people I knew after an extended break. Figure I’d try something new. Kalecgos is one of my favorite servers, it’s not a waiting place and it has a load of people that just love to play the game and relax. Theirs not too many crazy-users who play on the server, or last on it I should say.
By Stevo on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Fizzcrank, transferred from Medivh cuz the queues were an hour long. Pretty good, but apparently lots of people had the same idea cuz its now medium
By Kyndranigar on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Myrlin and I share a same tale. ‘Cept my move was from Shadowsong (where there’s still queues even after it had a -second- move option open up for it after Dawnbringer closed up)
I don’t know. Seems Blizz dropped the ball here. I think people should still be given free moves if they had a guildleader move out. Maybe I’m annoyed.
By D Jay on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
there is no lag on ali or horde on keal’thas real. I have only had queue time about 2 or 3 times and the most i ever had to wait was 5 min
By The Darkness on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
no lag at all in coil fang it even has its share of alliance people invading xroads and stuff i think ill stick to coill fang i just hope people don’t move to coil fang and lag it up a lot
By Laeltis on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
AMG, ILLIDOWN ANYONE??? Once, the line was at 1600 and I logged in, and left to watch an hour show and a half hour show and still have 20 minutes to wait. It has died down quite a bit since LK launch, but I agree…it’s cutting on my play time. If I get a chance before bed to play, I have to wait 20-30 minutes to get on and then get off in 10 or 20 minutes. :c
By Jeff on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Thunderhorn - EU is showing as ‘FULL’, but no queues… so I get on easily enough. I only saw any queueing in the first & second weeks after WotLK launched; all peachy since then…
By Alayea on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
To the best of my knowledge, Malfurion didn’t have any queueing until the day the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, was released. Something to be expected but, as I had never been much exposed to it, the number line was quite a surprise. It wasn’t until at least a month afterward that the queue had mostly disappeared. I say “mostly” because it still pops up on occasion.
By Daverrd on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Firetree - US
I’m Australian and I play on an American server so I always get on around 9pm which is raid time and I have never gotten a queue longer then 10 minutes, maybe I’m lucky? xD
By iBuryl on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 12:55 am
1500 persons in Q -> one with a half hours wait! Russian server… and it is an every day situation last weeks…
By dave on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:31 am
when the beta came out i had like 20-30 min waits for a bit but now all i have to wait max is like 3 mins
By Dreåd on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:59 am
I play on Mal’ Ganius and the que times are average 650 almost every week day after 9 pm. sadly, all my friends play on the server and wont leave, becuase it is to hard to find raid groups one medium or low pop servers.
By Sardit on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Lightnings blade Europe server.
No queues at all here. Not during peak hours, not after major software updates. Only lag i ever see is in dalaran, but thats more my hardware then the system being screwed.
( once i had to wait for 5 mins to log in, only time i saw a queue, they had just released the 3.00 patch and my server was down 8 hours more then it should. it came up at 17.30 wich is one of the larger peak times. But that might have been just the server starting up and showing that it was ready when it wasn’t fully booted yet.
By Dulica on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I’m on Silvermoon, and I hate queues. Makes me grumpy and not want to play. But who wants to move when all your friends and guild is on that server? I don’t experience much lag, but man, do I ever dislike queues and all the downtime, esp. on Tuesdays! I have a lot of Tuesdays off work and would like to play!
By Dudeofdeath on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I play on Altar of Storms (US) and I have never experienced a queue except for when I was playing on a Public Test Realm (lol)
I still don’t play that much though, because I work and have 2 kids. Lol
Dudeofdeath of Altar of Storms