The new action RPG Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has generated so much interest on Steam that the servers could not withstand the surge of players. Fortunately, there is an offline mode, but players are alone there. The team addresses the issues in an initial statement.
How did the launch of Wolcen go? The hack ‘n slash Wolcen went online relatively on time on February 13 at around 6 PM. However, those who started it had to wait briefly as the game tried to connect to the servers.
Most then saw only the message that the connection could not be established. Because the servers were completely overloaded.
The small indie developer studio did not expect such a surge.
At least there is an offline mode
Were there players who played online? Yes. There were actually players who managed to get onto the servers. However, this was not without issues. There were some severe lags, and there are reports that the character was gone after logging out and back in.
Could one at least play offline? It is possible to switch to an offline mode in Wolcen. However, you play the beautiful hack ‘n slash alone, and the created character cannot be transferred to the online mode.
Therefore, it was possible to play Wolcen yesterday despite the server issues.
What did the developers say? The team from Wolcen Studio apologized for the launch and for the server issues.
We are closely monitoring the release and are aware that there are issues with the servers and authentication. This is due to the overwhelming success of the game. We are working with our partners to increase server capacity and resolve authentication issues as quickly as possible.
We would like to apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for supporting us on this special day. This is clearly unexpected.
Wolcen Studio
This is what the players think
How are the players reacting to the situation? Opinions about the server issues are divided. Some are glad that they could at least play offline, while others were very much looking forward to experiencing the adventure cooperatively with friends and are thus disappointed.
- Jakescape states on Steam: “The problem right now is that, at the time I wrote this review, the servers are having issues. Creating a character, going online, and grouping with friends is difficult but hopefully will be resolved soon.”
- Hakan writes angrily: “This is an offline game! No one can join the damn online mode! Don’t buy it until the developers have fixed this problem!”
- A Deaf Guy explains: “Yes, there are server issues, some bugs, and it is not possible to play publicly, but that’s okay! I am still playing privately until they fix the problem. Even though it is a very small developer studio, this game is twice as good as Diablo 3!”
What is the situation like now? Logging in currently works well. We have tried it ourselves several times this morning, and every time we connected to the server, it worked without issues.
However, lags are still to be expected. The currently PC-only available Wolcen is not running completely smoothly in online mode yet.
Update: Since midday, there have been increased login and connection issues again. It has become a gamble to get into the online game.
Update 16.2.: The server issues have worsened over the launch weekend. Wolcen was offline for the whole Saturday, and there are outages on Sunday as well. The latest information regarding server maintenance for Wolcen can be found here.
The action RPG Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has had a very successful launch but still faces some bugs:
