Blizzard urges fans to switch WoW Classic servers, Herod 'massively overpopulated'

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'Login queues in excess of 10,000 players are a certainty.'

(Image credit: Blizzard)

World of Warcraft players planning to jump into WoW Classic can now reserve slots on servers 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, 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 it has planned for WoW Classic, it said in the blog post.

Wow Classic launches August 27: here's everything we know so far.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

Samuel Horti
Samuel Horti

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.