World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor expansion experiencing launch problems

Blizzard has a near impeccable record when it comes to smooth World of Warcraft expansion launches, so it's a surprise that Warlords of Draenor has encountered numerous problems since its launch overnight. In addition to a DDoS attack, the servers are currently unable to withstand the sheer amount of players attempting to access the expansion from the same location.

"Europe was our first region to launch, and we encountered a few issues due to the sheer number of players attempting to enter Draenor from a single location," Blizzard wrote in an initial statement. "We worked to add multiple new ways to access Draenor, and this helped ease some of the initial rush into the new expansion as players were able to access it from their capital cities, as well as from the shrines in Pandaria."

In addition to these, users are reporting servers timing out, which is affecting both performance and players' ability to access the game at all. In its most recent update, In its most recent statement, Blizzard says it's tackling the problem by lowering the realm population cap in problem areas.

"We’re continuing to work toward greater realm stability and address the service issues impacting latency. Our current biggest hurdle is the concentration of players in specific areas and zones, and an unexpected effect of that concentration on the realm stability," the studio wrote.

"We’re continuing to maintain a lowered realm population cap to help with the stability, which is resulting in increased queue times. We’re seeing some increase in individual zones drop which are causing localized player disconnections as we get into primetime in the Americas, and if someone is disconnected they will quite likely run into a queue to log back in. Work is progressing on improving realm stability through fixes targeting individual in-game issues, as well as on the backend game and network services."

Look out for our Warlords of Draenor review-in-progress coverage tomorrow.

TOPICS

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.