WoW Classic Load Test Went So Well More Load Was Added

Blizzard, rather quietly I felt, announced another stress test for WoW Classic, which kicked off yesterday at 2pm Pacific time.

Classic is as classic does

The kick off time meant that I would be at work when it began.  But, given what happened with the first and second tests, I figured I would be home early enough to see the servers straining under the load.

But by the time I logged in there were no queues or technical problems apparent.

I was confused for a minute because the WoW Classic Beta client wasn’t working, but for this run Blizzard had people download the actual WoW Classic client.  I thought that might take some time, but since I had already downloaded an earlier version of it for BlizzCon last year, that went quite quickly.

When I logged in I found there were only two servers to choose from, others appearing to be offline.

WoW Classic third load test realms

I later saw on Twitter that there was a reason for this; Blizzard wanted more load.

MOAR LOAD!!!

But even with that additional load, I was able to log straight in, make a new character, and run around in game without seeing any technical problems.

Practical problems however… there was an incredible crush of people running around the night elf starter area.

Hey, I guess we’re all starting off right now together!

The first quest, which involves slaying boars and night sabres right there was swamped with people trying to be the first to tag any that spawned, since unlike WoW today, only the person who tags it first gets the credit.

However, even this crowd appeared to be for a reason.

Increased populations are all part of the plan

So while competition for mobs was trying, it was all in service of loading the servers to see how they will hold up when the actual launch comes in late August.

I tinkered around for a bit, ran about, and actually got a few quest mobs, but then logged off.  Things seemed to be in good shape.  I hope this bodes well for the actual launch.

If you want to take a look yourself, the stress test runs into Friday and is open to anybody who is currently subscribed to World of Warcraft.  You just need to download the WoW Classic client from the launcher… which is considerably smaller than the current live game… and you can play up to level 15 while the test is up.