No matter how you look at it: the launch of the latest expansion of World of Warcraft was remarkably flawless. Especially in comparison to previous disastrous launches like “The Burning Crusade” or “Warlords of Draenor”, believes Cortyn.
Since midnight on August 14, 2018, World of Warcraft has launched its seventh expansion Battle for Azeroth. The launch was simultaneous worldwide, with us conveniently right at midnight.
And where other MMORPGs struggle with server crashes, mass disconnects, or major glitches, World of Warcraft has excelled. There likely hasn’t been a better launch in the history of “big” MMORPGs.
Six expansions of practice time. Of course, Blizzard did not gain this knowledge overnight, but had already six expansions prior to adequately practice the launch of an addon.
A disaster like the merciless overload during “The Burning Crusade” or the huge phasing issues that Warlords of Draenor brought with the Garrison was something one could not allow anymore. After the already successful launch of Legion, the launch of Battle for Azeroth must have even further improved upon that.
There are always minor hiccups. Completely problem-free it did not go, though. Due to the player masses, there were minor latency issues and at least in war mode on RP servers, strong delays with a latency of 500 or more were normal. However, this settled quickly after the players ventured off in different directions.
Some realms also had to restart – but the downtime here only lasted a few minutes.
Quick hotfixes for problems. There were sporadic issues with quests. Particularly annoying: Some players could not interact with the “War Map” that unlocks the main missions for new areas. Blizzard only needed a few hours for a fix, and in the meantime, players engaged with the numerous side quests that were not dependent on that.
In summary, the launch of Battle for Azeroth may even surpass the start of Legion, where some players did not receive their access quest directly. No matter from which perspective you look at it: Hosting a smooth launch is something the developers of World of Warcraft can now do
. And that is rare in the MMO realm, because planning with hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously, no beta test helps either.
Not to mention, this has also led to the first players reaching the maximum level in less than 5 hours:
How did you experience the launch of Battle for Azeroth? Did everything go well? Or did you encounter minor issues?
