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Massive traffic on Wow, still fun
So I picked up WoW on Tuesday. I played a few hours that night, when things were really busy. Not suprising, given the response:
We launched with 41 servers in the U.S. yesterday, and we are bringing up an additional 34 servers today to accommodate the influx of players. Over 200,000 accounts were created in just a single day!
World of Warcraft Community Site: WoW - Day One
By shifting around to different servers, I was able to experiment a bit with different characters. Because of the traffic and upgrade issues, you should probably try and create characters on a couple of different servers. That way if your server is down or under heavy load, you'll still have a backup character to play.
There are some unrelated-to-load issues with latency when fighting or getting "loot" at times, but I predict there are going to be a lot of people playing this game and really enjoying it. We'll see if Blizzard manages to make this type of game more accessible to a wider range of people.
What am I playing, and on what servers? Here's the current list:
- Rumba, Tauren Hunter, on Cenarius server (Pacific)
- Cudgel, Human Rogue, on Argent Dawn role-playing server (Eastern)
- Retarxis, Gnome Warlock, on Silvermoon (Pacific)
I'm playing characters that you can either solo easily with, or that are good additions to any team. There is enough "stuff" to do (fishing!) that even just picking it up and playing for an hour or so is fun.
Note: the front page of the community site is very "blog-like", but the individual items don't have permalinks that I can see, so I can't link to the individual items. To be fair, Blizzard does run a huge number of forums, but they also don't have easy ways to keep track. Hey Blizzard -- permalinks and RSS are a good thing!
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I happened to choose one of the 4 servers that went out of commission for 2 days...no big deal really, it gave me a chance to create a couple of different characters on other servers.
I ended up going back to the original server because I really like the hunter class (dwarf with a pet Bear - like in the opening cinematics;). I'm up to level 21 (heard a rumor that someone met the level cap all ready - which is one of my few complaints about the game), this is about the point in the game where it opens up and is more interesting.
I find that I spend most of my time doing quests in the human lands however...developers must have a racial bias or something.
I played City of Heroes prior to the release of WoW, it's completely different and probably not worth comparing as a result. It was like a hack and slash version of a MMORPG, very little downtime so it was easy to pick up and play for an hour or so and then leave it.
A friend of mine plays EQ2 and swears by it...mind you I would imagine that 90% of players had to upgrade their computers in order to play the game. If WoW didn't come out at the same(ish) time I would have probably played that as well.
Anyway, i would like to hear more about your experience with the game now that it's been out for over a week now.
I dig it.
Hey,
A huge number of eBayers are playing WoW, we have a Guild already and tons of people, it's open to anyone else who wishes to join. Our highest member is a lvl 25 paladin, he took 7 days off to play the game (Nice when you're a Supervisor that can do it).
We play on two servers:
Primary: Blackrock (PvP Pacific server, very high load at peak time, up to 800 slot queue during prime time) We play Alliance on Blackrock.
Secondary: Bonechewer (PvP Pacific, very low load, never seen a wait time. Hoarde. Not as many players, but a good base nonetheless.
On Blackrock I've got a lvl 13 Human Warrior Rohirrim archtype. Miner/Blacksmith.
On Bonechewer I've got a lvl 8 Troll Hunter Miner/Blacksmith.
Mining and Blacksmithing are enjoyable and very complementary professions. Mining allows you to explore and earn money, Blacksmithing is also cool. I made an axe for free that was better than one of the few I could buy in a store, it's faster and does more damage. Also can make magic Copper armor now, +2 Stam/STR, can't wear it because I'm a hunter, but eventually. ;)
The game itself is fun, but the art of the world is quite lame and cartoony. Take WC3, blow up the map, and that's basically WoW. Textures are lame, the patterns in architecture are sad and derrivative, it is one heck of a fun game but not because you can make an Uber-fantasy character with purple skin, aquamarine hair, and blue eyes that ripple with energy. It is great fun because the game itself is above average, but the fact that I can play with ten of my coworkers on any given night and watch productivity nosedive the next day is what clinches the deal.
The biggest problem so far is that the server we picked, Blackrock, has also been promoted as the server for everyone in Australia and New Zealand, so at times there has been a 600-800 person queue to get onto the server, which is outrageous. This prompted some of us to use another server. Unfortunately, this has somewhat split the team in that people on day shift get on with no problem. People who get home at midnight like myself get to either wait for three hours and have 1 hour before server shutdown, or go to another server while our main characters stagnate, and fall behind those of the day players.
But anyway, if you want to eventually play with what will be a very large group of people, please let me know. Get a character set up on blackrock if you can get on, and add "Curoi" to your friends list, or "Uuk" on Bonechewer.