Queues rearing their ugly head more frequently?
by David Nelson 
Nov 12th 2006 at 10:45PM
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It's funny. I get the impression that people are playing less due to the delay of the expansion. But every time I try to log onto Argent Dawn during prime time I am faced with a very, very long queue. Usually 200 or more, and a wait time ranging anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour. Well, according to this thread on the WoW.com forums, Argent Dawn is not alone.Vansmirnoff from the Aggramar server is complaining about 500 player queues, and he is looking for free transfers off the server. I can see his point. Things are only going to get worse come mid-January. And Blizzard is accepting $25 for anyone who wants to transfer to the overcrowded server, so maybe they should allow those that are feeling overwhelmed an exit route that doesn't cost them anything. Also, shouldn't Blizzard stop the transfers to the overwhelmed servers?
What do you guys think? Are you stuck in a queue right now as you read this?
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gereth-llane Nov 12th 2006 10:59PM
yeah but if they stopped character transfers to over-populated servers then it would be just like it was before chacter transfers--where characters on over-populated servers could transfer to a low-populated server
G Nov 13th 2006 12:12AM
I just sat through a queue of 230 on Kilrogg. Our Eastern Kingdoms have also been crashing several times each evening during prime time, if that's related. Neither is a good thing.
Luclan Nov 12th 2006 11:32PM
thats the point, why let players move into a full server? Correct me if I am wrong *I feel like I'm missing something* but doesn't stopping transfers to a full server only hurt that server? and wouldn't allowing full servers to move into low occupation servers help BOTH servers? I think dave's got it down pretty well.
Abe Nov 12th 2006 11:37PM
I think you should be allowed to transfer onto full or high pop servers but only on invitation, maybe with an in game cost component for the inviter so invitations weren't just given away.
Grilden Nov 13th 2006 1:17AM
The queues on Aerie Peak regularly get to 500 and beyond, yielding wait time of 30 minutes or more.
This is particularly annoying for people who are trying to on for raids at peak times.
Weekends are probably the worst as the queues seem to last all day.
You have until about 11am server time to beat the queues.
If you're coming on any later than that you're in for a wait.
Blizzard has opened up free transfers off of Aerie Peak, but i think that's just trying to sweep the problem under the carpet.
Would it be so hard to monitor servers and once they get to a certain population size, direct new players to a different server.
It would be ok to all invites so friends could join you, but no need to allow new players with no connection to the server to join.
If population starts to dwindle then open up the server again.
Surely an approach like this would stop queues on all servers?
Or at least keep them at an acceptable level.
The queues annoy me, but i'm not about to leave my friends and my guild to start over on a new server just because Blizzard won't fix a problem of their own making.
Grilden
Chad Nov 13th 2006 12:52AM
Draenor hit 400 tonight.
Ben Podgorski Nov 13th 2006 12:53AM
I guess I'm lucky, Malorne has never had a queue for me. But I can imagine if it was bad enough that everytime I logged in I had to wait, I'd be expecting a free transfer.
DeathFromabv Nov 13th 2006 1:03AM
I was shocked myself, spirestone had a queue for the first time in about 6 months tonight. Must be a bug or some back end tweaking ? This cant be coincidence
Bill G Nov 13th 2006 1:33AM
Yes, Blizzard should block transfers to servers above a certain population level. Why they don't is a mystery to me. I can't believe it's to get the transfer cash, because that's a terrible business reason, if true.
Dalaran is back to queues most nights now after not having them for at least 6 months.
It would be interesting to have tracked server populations over time and see where the people are coming from. Are they new players joining high pop servers to be with their friends? Are there large transfers to old, typically high pop servers from other servers?
If it's bad now, wait till BC release, it'll be an order of magnitude worse when everyone stays on 24/7 leveling up.
Ghostle Nov 13th 2006 9:38AM
Buring Blade was fine when people started moving off it, and everything was cool, but now we got 200-400 person queues to get in during prime time :/. Not really happy
Chef Nov 13th 2006 2:35AM
Hmm, well they certainly shouldn't stop transfers to any server, even the more populated ones. I am keeping in mind those players who meet friends in real life who play, and want to transfer to the same server to play together. It would suck to find out that one of your best friend plays WoW and then find out that you can't transfer to his server due to its population. I agree that they should, however, offer free transfers off of those servers that frequently have long queues.
Waiting Nov 13th 2006 3:34AM
500 player queues? That's nothing. Khaz'goroth was over 1000 this weekend. I predict BC is going to make it completely unplayable.
dj Nov 13th 2006 3:06AM
I play on Khaz'Goroth, we would love to have your queues of 500. On the weekend queues are regularly over 1000, with people being dc'ed at position 90 in the queue and having to start again.
Savok Nov 13th 2006 3:48AM
Hey remember when Blizzard was gonna let us transfer off Khaz then at the last second screwed us?
Man that was great.
Grilden Nov 13th 2006 3:56AM
@ Chef
In my post I said that invites should be allowed to friends wanting to get onto a server but that new signups should be stopped once a server get above a certain population level.
If the population drops then by all means open up the server again.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
New players with no connection to a high pop server can be just as happy on another server.
And, people could still invite friends.
Free transfers off a server are not the answer.
Grilden
Lori Nov 13th 2006 4:33AM
I'm a US player on Kas'garoth (Oceanic) and thought I had it made. Never saw any queues. Then last night I go to get on and there is a damn 36 person queue. Later my guildies were complaining about a hour and a half wait.
Brommon Nov 13th 2006 5:38AM
Yeah, I hit a queue for the first time on my server tonight. (Malygos US) I've heard there are sometimes small queues during peak hours, but I've never hit one during the off hours until now, and this one was over an hour's estimated wait!
I checked the realm status page at the time and was surprised to find that almost every server was either "Low" or "Max (Queued)". There were about a half dozen "Medium"s but not a single "High"! If a server was above Medium, it was Maxed out and queued, bar none.
I'm with #7. There must be some reason why so many servers are suddenly hitting queues that weren't (or are hitting worse queues than normal) all of a sudden. Is it just an influx of people buying the game at its new, lower price? I would have thought the number of dedicated players "taking a break until January" would more than offset the impact of a few new people who wouldn't even buy the game until its price dropped. That implies to me that something must have changed somewhere internally. That's the only possible thing that could affect so many realms so uniformly.
Well, that or the gold sellers/farmers are stepping up production in droves for some reason, but why would that be?...
Psyclerk Nov 13th 2006 8:19AM
I got my first queue on Gilneas a couple of days ago. It was only 55 or thereabouts, so it wasn't bad. But last night my brother tried to log on and ran into a queue of 120+.
I also wonder if it's not gold farmers causing some of this. In the past week, I have gotten more mail, tells and seen more general chat spam from farmers than I have in the past six months combined.
Unkle Nov 13th 2006 9:13AM
I know on Darkspear there has been a queue at times lately. Usually no more than 100-150 people. But until VERY recently, I never saw a queue on this server.
Gillean Nov 13th 2006 3:50PM
You're right about Argent Dawn. HAven't seen queues in a loooong time and now i'm at 200+ a night. It's a mystery why so many people are playing O.o