Forever’s beta rush surprised Blizzard · what happened to the servers?

Forever’s first beta evening offered a reason to be excited and a reason to stare at a login screen. On September 18, Josh Greenfield described unusually strong interest across his long Blizzard career, without publishing a player count. Greenfield’s post.

Producer Tom Ellis separately explained the service problems on his personal account. His account of the opening is more useful than treating one disconnect as proof that the game is either a success or a failure. Ellis’s explanation.

September 22 update · Blizzard addresses EU beta routing

In a September 21 bluepost, Kaivax reported implemented routing fixes for EU beta players. This does not promise an end to every player’s problems; connection issues outside Blizzard’s control may remain.

We consider this useful follow-up to the opening-night account, not a guarantee of a trouble-free beta. If your connection improved, recording when it changed is worthwhile. If it did not, the earlier queue problem alone does not explain your current symptoms. The original article continues below.

Getting through the queue was not the final hurdle

Ellis described a smaller test environment, not the production setup. A protective login limit bottlenecked regional connections despite spare CPU capacity. Adding connections eased that problem.

For players, the important distinction is between waiting in a queue and being disconnected after it. Similar-looking symptoms need not share a cause. The waiting screen alone cannot tell us which part failed. We would not recommend reinstalling the game or changing a computer’s settings on this evidence.

Loot delays and restarts were separate problems

Ellis said database-statistics updates relieved loot and quest delays. Empty maps later failed to shut down, consuming memory and CPU. The fix required restarts, with capacity also expanded. He reported smoother operation at the end of that account.

This describes the opening evening. It is not a live assurance that every region and player is now unaffected. GamesRadar also covered the developers’ posts on September 18.

Strong interest is not a verified record

We think Greenfield’s enthusiasm is newsworthy, but it should not become an invented subscriber total or a ranking against every previous WoW launch. That would require numbers, a measurement window and a definition of what was counted: attempts to connect, distinct players or concurrent users.

Server stability and the game itself also deserve separate judgments. A smooth queue tells us about access. It does not tell us whether a class remains enjoyable twenty levels later, or whether the new Azeroth gives a group a reason to stay.

What we would put in a useful bug report

We would record the time and time zone, region, error code and exact stage at which the problem occurs. Does login fail, or does a connected character wait for loot? Does it happen only on one character or map?

These are our practical reporting suggestions, not a Blizzard-approved troubleshooting procedure. Remove email addresses and other personal information from screenshots before posting publicly. An old forum reply should not automatically become a universal fix.

The next test is the experience beyond the queue

For us, the next useful evidence is whether the fixes hold and what players discover once they can actually explore. The Mac problems covered separately should not be folded into one generic server story: a queue does not, by itself, explain an entire computer freezing.

Our large Forever overview explores the game’s direction, while the era hub gathers further coverage.