Classic WoW Population Update for NA Realms

It's now been a full day since Blizzard opened up two more NA Classic realms, and the Mankrik realm has now moved from High to Full.

NA Realm Population - August 20th

Originally posted by Blizzard

As of now, a large number of WoW Classic characters have been created on the following realms. Players with characters on this realm are likely to experience severe queues at release.

• Faerlina - PvP
• Herod - PvP
• Mankrik - Normal
• Pagle - Normal
• Thalnos - PvP
• Whitemane - PvP

Last Updated: August 20

We have updated the algorithm for the realm population tags so they more accurately reflect the expected population for that realm. The realms that are listed as “Full” are where we expect to see extended queues. If you’re concerned about long queue times affecting your play experience, you may want to consider creating characters on a lower population realm before the game releases on August 26 at 3:00 p.m. PDT.

Blaumeux and Skeram opened yesterday, and Skeram is already at Medium 24 hours later.

Low

• Blaumeux - PvP - Pacific

Medium

• Bloodsail Buccaneers - RP
• Grobbulus - RPPVP
• Skeram - PvP - Eastern

High

• Atiesh - Normal - Pacific
• Myzrael - Normal - Pacific
• Fairbanks - PvP - Pacific
• Stalagg - PvP - Eastern

Full

• Faerlina - PvP - Eastern
• Mankrik - Normal - Eastern
• Pagle - Normal - Eastern
• Herod - PvP - Eastern
• Thalnos - PvP - Eastern
• Whitemane - PvP - Pacific

Queue times and overcrowded realms are a big concern with all of these realms filling up, and Blizzard answered many questions on high-population realms today at the Classic WoW AMA. They have plans to spin up emergency realms very quickly if needed at Classic launch.

Queue Times

Can you elaborate in any way on some on the expected queue lengths (preferably in length of time) at launch?

On the most popular servers, such as Herod and Shazzrah, we are currently estimating lengthy queue times - up to several hours or more in certain instances. That is why we strongly encourage players to use the name reservation period to transfer their characters and their guilds to lower pop realms.

Queue Times #2

Is that on launch/phase patch day only or do you expect lengthy queues (up to several hours) during regular weekdays after the first week aswell?

This is something we are definitely keeping an eye on and making adjustments as needed. Due to all the excitement, we are expecting lengthy queues for at least the first week after launch.

Launch Experience Improvements

What steps are being taken to ensure that at launch, the same thing doesn't happen on an even grander scale during the initial rush?

We're planning a number of fixes to improve that experience. First, we've already begun opening new realms and we encourage people to switch to them. We've also increased the size of the realm queues, so they can hold more people before disconnecting them. And we've improved the error message you get, so that you'll know you're being disconnected because the queue is full, instead of getting a generic disconnect message.

Emergency Realms

Do you have a contingency plan to deal with a larger-than-expected population?

We have contingency plans in place to bring up additional realms quickly if needed. We may also integrate character transfers (this ultimately became a service in original WoW.)

As you can imagine, it's difficult for us to gauge how many people will come to play Classic and stay on to experience max-level content. Ultimately, we want to see realms with healthy stable populations so we'll try to match demand without inadvertently creating low population realms in the process.

Emergency Realms #2

What will you do if all of the realms are capped out at launch day with massive queues? Will you continually put up realms until the demand is met?

As /u/altruiswow said elsewhere: We have contingency plans in place to bring up additional realms quickly if needed.

We took a careful approach here. Taking various things into consideration, we wanted to hold true to our main objective of ensuring healthy realm communities in a post-Launch world. Therefore, we felt that the best approach here was to start off with fewer realms in order to gauge player interest during the name reservation period. As we have seen players congregate on certain types of realms, we have opened up new realms with communication to that effect. While we acknowledge that queues will be part of the launch experience, we encourage players to keep an eye on the forums and message boards over the next days/weeks for communications around realms with lower populations and therefore more manageable queue times.

Source: Wowhead