In light of the recent Mal'Ganis queue times (yes, thank the transfers :)) I've been thinking about how this could stretch over to TBC. We're currently looking at queues of 200-400 people, sometiemes more, during primetime which usually take 15-30 minutes. When the expansion hits shelves, we're probably gonna see a lot of people reactivate and higher activity among the people that already play (I know outside of raid time we rarely have more than 15 people on). So that leads to the burning question (no pun intended)... are we gonna see the queues increase? double? triple? Its not a long shot to think that an extra 300-400 people are going to be (or try to be) on any given night with all the new content.

Another thing that we've noticed is that the queues just popped up with the release of 1.12. I had yet to see a queue on Mal'Ganis, and all of a sudden the night after the patch we had 10-15 minute queues pop up. Could it be Blizzard's way of getting people to transfer off now by decreasing the server capacity and then bringing it back for the expansion to accomodate the extras? Have any other servers started seeing queue times since the patch?

There was a blue post some months back that stated they're increasing server hardware load by an amount proportional to the landmass being added in TBC. So until you see on average more people per square yard, rather than more people per realm node, I wouldn't worry. Outlands is big.

I suppose the only real answer is, "we don't know but will shortly find out."

Edit: Somebody needs to contribute meaningful insight as padding so I have a buffer zone of posts before making Arthas transfer jokes. Gogo.

I've really no clue what someone would expect in terms of reliable information, and this just seems more like a "Hey, I feel like starting a thread this morning" type of subject.

Seriously, people. I realize a sort of community has popped up here, but most people come for (or to share) pertinent information, not to read how a few people feel about their shitty server queues.

-edit-
I guess Gurg feels otherwise. Piss on you, Gurg.

Guess this is one of the rare times i am happy that most of my play time off peak.

I could be subtle but theres really no point sugar coating the horrible truth - fuck arthas.

I was about to make a similar thread. From having played in the Alpha/Beta for a while now, I can say that TBC is conceptually amazing and is just plain a lot of fun as well as having some inspired design. But as with the AQ War event, I'm left with a sense of dread that logistics concerns are going to diminish or even ruin much of the experience.

There are two issues, really:

1) What you just mentioned -- raw server capacity. People who have let their accounts lapse are going to resub, and we're going to see unprecedented concurrency numbers from those who are subbed -- who the hell isn't going to be playing during the first week of the expansion? Many sick days are going to be used that week. So yeah, either there are further server infrastructure upgrades coming (unlikely) or we're going to have some brutal queues. I'm not as worried about performance, but at this point I fully expect four-digit queues on Mal'Ganis.

2) Separately, once we do get on, what will the first week or two be like? Many of us remember WoW release day and the insanity of competing for limited spawns and trying to get the same quests done, camping a quest mob's spawn point to tap it before three other groups all trying to do the same thing, etc. That was pretty crazy. But TBC is going to bring things to a whole new level:

a) We are all level 60 now and if you are on a PvP server, this overcrowding and competition for spawns is going to also involve a massive bloodbath. Now, a lot of the World PvP is going to be quite fun, and there's no doubt that Hellfire Peninsula on a PvP server will really have a BGish feel to it: Horde going at all near Honor Hold are going to get torn up, as will Alliance venturing near Thrallmar. Quests that send you near the opposing faction base will either require a large group escort or will be undoable until things calm down. On the one hand, that will be fun. On the other, it will only be fun for so long.

b) We are all level 60 now and, unlike players competing to tap Sarkoth or Fargodeep Gnolls, we are not going to be gaining a level every 20-30 minutes. 12-24 hours into a new server, you already have people who are close to or beyond level 20 and who now have several zones to choose from, and things quickly begin to spread out. In TBC, if leveling ends up being slightly slower than is currently the case, you have two options: Hellfire Peninsula for 60-63, and Zangarmarsh for 61-64. You can't really do much else, or get quests elsewhere, until you get to level 62-63. Level 63 is going to take probably 20 hours of playtime, when all is said and done, assuming you are leveling fairly efficiently. That means that all the people crammed into a zone (even if that zone is larger than The Barrens, and it certainly is) are going to be stepping on each other's toes for quite some time. I'm basically doing all the quests I can get my hands on in the beta because I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to see them in retail until I'm far beyond their expected level. The only sensible thing to do on the first days is really going to be to just grind instances repeatedly until you get a bit ahead of the pack, and then head to Teroktar for some 63+ leveling before it gets too crowded.

Is there any solution to this problem, or is it inevitable? There's a ton of amazing quest content, but very little of it will be able to be experienced the way the designers intended for quite some time after release, I think.

Well, for one, people who are unemployed might have a bit more freedom for playtime choice than others. Those with jobs have the option to take a day off (although I'm not sure if I should go for day 1, day 2, etc., I do plan on taking a day off or somehow mucking with my schedule otherwise). College Students..well, if you're like I was, you might just skip class :P High school students and younger seem to get the short end of the stick here, but hopefully the schedule disparity will mean spread the load out a little bit.

Also, if what I read in the official UI forums is true, a slew of people are going to quit. :rolleyes: (I say this like I'm not going to have to reconfig my entire UI for the first few weeks, too)

I still say it's all speculation and tinfoil mumbo jumbo, and there's very little we can do as players to rectify any perceived problems other than the obvious - a) level like madmen and outpace everyone; or b) take a few weeks off and let things settle down before trying to play; or c) play when most others are not.

Sure, my guild mocks my 30% raid attendance NOW, but my whack-ass playtimes mean I will get to quest in relative peace while they all have to kill level 1 boars for 3 weeks just to make progress.

There are only two mitigating factors that I can think of in terms of the initial crush.

One is that there will be a lot of people cramming the newbie zones for the new races and while this may not be overall a lot of people, it will take a very little bit of stress off of hellfire and the swamp. This won't make life any happier in those zones but frankly, that particular situation is at least somewhat expected at first and the early adopters there will indeed spread out fairly fast just like on launch day.

The second is that many people will be grouping up and heading for the nearest instance as soon as they can. It really does make a lot of sense when faced with massive outdoor competition and besides, the content looks like it will be fun and interesting anyhow. I suppose some people will also be driven to farm old-world content as well, but that is considerably less palatable. Things won't be pretty for hunting outside but perhaps they will seek a natural level.

The main issue though will be that of 'sudden' queues and that one is much, much harder to fix. With the number of people I alone know that are planning a comeback, I would expect literally a doubling of attendance from my guild alone and I'm sure that we are hardly in a unique situation. On A-N we've had queues come and go and are just starting to see them again recently but even with the throttles opened up considerably, I don't doubt for a moment that we'll be back to four digit ones for the first weeks of launch. I guess this bleeds into the secondary main concern too; is increasing server capacity even viable during a major patch when the servers are likely to be unstable anyhow? Never mind the instance and world servers, the log-in and Db servers will be getting thrashed. I've never had much faith in them to begin with and this indeed will stress them beyond capacity even if concurrency numbers were static.

It's going to be ugly I fear and personally I'm saving those sick days for week two or three.

Yea, one of the advantages is that now I know where pretty much everything is for the quests, and which ones are the good ones. I'll prolly do the first few in Hellfire to get Bladefist's Breadth and hit 61, then move into Zangar which will most likely be loads quieter.

I dread the new leveling tho, it really takes shitloads of XP to level now (I have to do 560k for lvl 65) and Tseric said they actually sped up experience gain to make leveling easier in the beta. I also expect a LOT of fighting over questmobs; several named have a few minutes on their respawn timers and that really adds up fast.

That said, the instances still give a lot of XP and there's hardly competition for those mobs. I'd advise the heavy grinders to start using instances early on to avoid traffic jams.

To a point it is yeah, there's no going around that. But the queues that just popped up out of nowhere aren't. If anything, I was curious to see if any other servers had queue times show up after 1.12, as I really doubt there are 400 more active players on Mal'Ganis now than there were a month ago.

As for the people saying they're gonna quit on the UI forums, its nothing but empty threats. How many of those people do you think are gonna look at the TBC Box and say... wow they really messed up the UI I wanted, I don't think this game's worth my time anymore.

Renting out rooms in my house for a week or two on release.

Good english beer and quiet times on servers....

Maniq lives in London, right?

Bagsy a room.

The 1.12 queue times appear to be related to them lowering server caps; it isn't that more people are playing, it's that it takes less people to hit queueing.

As to the xpac, the first few weeks of it are going to be one of those times when being on a PVE server is very convenient. On the other hand, it isn't like you can't run the instances to grind XP; might not be as fast as questing, but not having to put up with spawn competition can make up for a lot.

I've long believed that quest driven MMO's like WoW should have a percent completion type thing for quests and such in the same way that Grand Theft Auto has them. Completing all the quests in westfall, for example, would earn you a viewable badge that would offer nonupgradable minor amount of stats. But that's neither here nor there.

My point is that regardless of the cause, it's out of our hands. I suppose one could incessantly bother Blizzard until a convincing answer - and hopefully a subsequent solution - is given, but I feel it's easier and just as productive to bitch about it once on Vent and try to log on earlier the next time.

So you're saying it's more of a FoH thread? =D Too bad we can't move threads across forums.

Too bad that forum is down atm =\

I think Gurgthock pretty much covers everything. High-population and probably even medium-pop servers are going to be a mess come release day. The only concievable solution is to stagger the release over a week or two, but that seems highly unviable. However, this is still a temporary one-time problem. After one week most of the powerlevelers will have moved out of Hellfire Peninsula, though I expect ganking will be pretty horrible on PvP servers for quite some time.

I'm a little worried about Blizzard's decision to raise the server population caps. That does nothing for servers that don't have queues, of which there are many. So desolate wastelands become even more desolate (exaggerating, of course). For servers with queues, can they actually handle 25% more people online without problems cropping up, especially with most of those people concentrated on one continent? I mean, I hope they can. My sense is that servers have gotten a lot better in the past few months or so. But I'm not very optimistic that TBC will preserve those gains.

I'm actually half expecting a reverse effect on our server, similar to what occured with the AQ event. The lag was so appalling outside, that the vast majority of players all jumped straight into the instances. As a result, the lag outside died off, and it was entirely playable.

That said, the circumstances are very different now, given that players will want to explore, play with the Mini Ouro's (!), and just generally enjoy the scenery.

My biggest fear, oddly enough, is not what Peninsula will be like, but whether the instance servers will be able to cope. Ramparts is going to be run a stupendous amt of times, concurrently and repeatedly, and if the instance servers happen to take a dirtnap, I think we're going to have some serious massacres outside.

This is exactly why I love the server I'm on (Zuluhed), last time I checked it was the lowest pop server out of all the US servers. That means it is going to be a HELL of a lot easier to level than on a highly populated server like Mal'Ganis. But Kaubel is right, there's really nothing that can be done, if I was stuck on a high pop server then I'd most likely take a break for 1-2 weeks and wait for things to settle before I even began to level. I'm excited to see the new content, but I would imagine trying to get anything meaningful done directly after release will be frustrating as all hell.

On the other hand a lot of us are in established guilds, and I see no reason why you couldn't just instance yourself up if world quests got too hectic. Also you could just form a perma group with guildies. The interesting thing about BC is that people have been playing the game for a while now, they're all settled in and levelling will be a lot easier with the people you've been playing with for 2+ years.

I can't wait to be unable to do a single overworld PVP quest for the first month of TBC on our 4:1 Alliance/Horde server. Good thing I'm rolling a Paladin so I won't have to!

The thread was recommending that quests below your level be purple or something to signal that it was available but you'd get very little for it. It would be nice if you could get special titles or tags for completing certain events or all the quests in a zone.