World of Warcraft players planning to jump into WoW Classic (opens in new tab) can now reserve slots on servers (opens in new tab) ahead of the official launch later this month, and one server is proving so popular that Blizzard expects login queues of more than 10,000 players for it.
In a blog post yesterday (opens in new tab), the developer urged anybody that had reserved a slot on the PvP Herod realm to switch to the newly-opened Stalagg, because at the current rate Herod will be "massively overpopulated" at launch.
"If all existing players on this server remain there, login queues in excess of 10,000 players are a certainty, and possibly much higher than that," it said. "There are a lot of players currently on Herod and we want Stalagg to fill up before we open any new PvP realms. This is so that player population is spread as evenly as possible before launch, in order to provide the best play experience."
The WoW servers can take "several times more players" than they could back in 2006, but that still leaves Herod with far too many people. Blizzard said it could raise the server cap further, but that will just create problems in the future.
"Raising realm caps would simply forestall the problem, letting more players in at launch but creating an unsustainable situation down the line," it said. The problem would arise when it turns off layering, a new tech that allows realms to create multiple instances of themselves to manage large populations. It will turn off layering before the second of six phases (opens in new tab) it has planned for WoW Classic, it said in the blog post.
Wow Classic launches August 27: here's everything we know so far (opens in new tab).
Thanks, GamesRadar (opens in new tab).