Can Blizzard fix all their launch problems in Wrath?
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 30th 2008 at 6:00PM
Our good friend Relmstein (who I was able to finally meet in person at BlizzCon this year) is back to blogging about World of Warcraft, even though he was on a WAR trip for a while there. But we're glad to have him back -- yesterday, he posted about how Wrath might tackle all the launch issues we saw with the Burning Crusade.Everyone knows by now that Blizzard has split the entry area into two different areas (with four total Northrend entry points, one for each faction), and of course there's also Death Knights to roll, so hopefully the lag problem is helped (hard to believe it could actually be solved). But Relmstein has other ideas in mind: the dynamic spawn system (mobs will spawn faster the more people there are around killing them) causes some crazy repops last time, and hopefully that's been evened out a bit. He's also worried about the "leveling truce" on PvP servers -- during the last expansion, everyone was more interested in exploring than fighting for the first few levels, but if you missed that ad-hoc "truce," you had new level 70s beating you down as you were trying to explore the world. Hopefully the Lake Wintergrasp PvP zone will keep PvPers busy without griefing all of the people trying to see Northrend for the first time.
And later on, the Karazhan bump is a worry as well -- lots of guilds, early on in BC, were crushed by Karazhan's 10-man limit and the gear checks in there. Will 10-man Naxx also cause a ton of guild breakups, or will the 10/25 man split help guilds play what they want to play? We'll have to see how it all works out -- this is only the second time Blizzard has released this amount of content into the game, so while they're sure to have evened out some problems, you have to think that there will still be a few bumps in the road.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions, Raiding, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Saiforune Oct 30th 2008 6:10PM
Yes there will be another bad experience upon launch with server problems.
EoD was barely a fraction of the size WoTLK will be and we had server problems for a week. Some servers still have issues.
I've pre-ordered the CE of WoTLK and since it's not Amazon it would ship until Nov. 13th. So I expect that the 5 days or so late will be just enough time for them to get the servers fixed and stable.
The Claw Oct 30th 2008 8:09PM
"EoD was barely a fraction of the size WoTLK will be and we had server problems for a week.."
I disagree. I would in fact say thet WotLK is barely a fraction of the size of the 3.0 patch, in terms of code changes, and that's what counts for problems.
Bear in mind that Blizzard have all but admitted that the statistics section of the new achievements system was responsible for the horrendous server load problems.
Heilig Oct 31st 2008 2:09AM
This.
The bulk of the changes are made already. WotLK will just be new content, not new mechanics and achievements and prefessions etc.
Naix Oct 31st 2008 9:31AM
I expect what Blizzard is doing now, with server restart to apply server patches and maintenance, to make Wrath launch day smooth as ice. They clearly have learned their lesson when BC launched. Now with split zones and DK starting areas waaaay back in old country launch day should be stable as ever.
I am rolling a DK as my new main all the way to 80. Next leveling my Druid and perhaps my Rogue.
Optimuze Oct 30th 2008 6:14PM
EoD was done before WoTLK to eliminate a lot of problems and get the servers ready for WoTLK. There will of course be some problems, and most likely quite a bit of lag, but that is to be expected. I recommend playing another game while they iron out all the problems. I am LOVING Fallout 3, and my roomate LOVES Fable 2, and along with the great sports games that are out, I think we can survive a few days without WOW.
SaintStryfe Oct 30th 2008 6:17PM
Server problems? very likely. But get over it, it'll be fixed in a week's space.
THe guild problems? A lot less. Remember, a lot of guilds were doing 15, 20 and 40 man content, then the opening raid of BC is 10 men. That is not an easy shift. I think a 25 man raid guild going into 10 man Naxx will have a significantly easier time. Also, you can go into Naxx with Quest Reward blues, so if you have a successful raiding party now, as long as they level up well, they shouldn't be looking at the gear issues (and having to run dozens of heroics). I went into my first Naxx with my Surestrike 2.0 goggles still on.
Nick S Oct 30th 2008 8:43PM
Adding to what Saint says about Naxx, (which is true, it's tuned lower vs quest gear than Kara is) the vast majority of players are now wearing much better gear than they were when vanilla ended.
Badge gear, in particular, is going to last a lot of people an awfully long time in some cases.
darian Oct 30th 2008 6:17PM
Actually, there are *three* starting zones, counting the DKs of course. Well, maybe two and a half, I don't expect there'll be as many DKs as people entering either of the Northrend zones.
The splitting of the zones should greatly alleviate the issues. Almost everything he brought up is somewhat affected by that one design decision.
Azlan Oct 31st 2008 6:08AM
Actually, there were three startingzones last time as well, funy how noone remembers the startingzones for the blood elves and the drainei. Which were crowded as I remember it.
darian Oct 31st 2008 11:06AM
That's a fair point, one I was aware of.
It's notable, however, that the population of players in Hellfire exceeded the populations of Eversong and Azure Myst combined. I expect the distribution to be a lot more even this time around.
Lethain Oct 30th 2008 6:28PM
Anyone know if you get saved for the 10mans instance of naxx, can you still join in for the 25man or are you saved for both?
Kadathwack Oct 30th 2008 6:41PM
The 10 mans and 25 mans are on seperate reset timers, so you can attend both versions of the same instance and be fine.
Jack Spicer Oct 30th 2008 6:37PM
The 10 man and the 25 man version of raid instances count as separate instances so, yes, you can do both in the same week.
Grubba Oct 30th 2008 6:38PM
They've been very clear on the point that 10 and 25 man raids will be saved separately from each other.
Kyane Oct 30th 2008 6:40PM
10 man instances and 25mans have different raid ids, so you can do them both in the same week.
Beldoro Oct 30th 2008 7:27PM
I can't quite remember, but I am sure I read somewhere they are on different timers....
Jack Spicer Oct 30th 2008 6:34PM
I wouldn't hold out hope for any changes to the "dynamic spawn system", because I still get mobs spawning on top of me in Hellfire when I try to do the SSO dailies. Besides, its more of an annoyance rather than a deterrent like lousy rewards from heroics.
Kadathwack Oct 30th 2008 6:41PM
Overall, the changes that we're getting from TBC to Wrath are smaller than the changes we got going from vanilla WoW to TBC, and it looks like they've spent a lot of time trying to learn how to correct mistakes that they made this expansion.
Guilds are used to the 10 and 25 man sizes for dungeons now, so I expect that there'll be less drama in that area. Lag should be better because people are split up between two starting zones in Northrend, and one back in the EPL (which itself is going to be running in several instanced versions, as I recall). The gear reset isn't as substantial.
Is it going to be perfect, lag and bug free? Of course not. But it's going to be smoother than last time.
Markainion Oct 30th 2008 6:45PM
Server population and faction reputation will have a lot to do with starting zone crowding in wraith. It ironic the first time in WOW being a minority faction on a server may be a leveling advantage, well at least for a week or two.
Dave Oct 30th 2008 6:45PM
Naxx will NOT be a roadblock at all, in anything except simple coordination and intelligence.
It's a very, very easy raid. It's very much tuned towards people jumping into it with nothing but L80 blues, and should only be hard to people who utterly lack the discipline to actually stay coordinated during a raid. With 15 bosses, if you had any of them be a stopping point/gear check... you'd really be missing out on a lot of the actual content in the thing. Instead it's just a super easy Naxx so everyone should be able to get in and gear their characters up without any of the bosses being a huge problem.