World of Warcraft: Classic may not be as wildly popular as it was in the first weeks after the legacy servers launched, but plenty of players still are spending time in the game either raiding away at the current endgame or dominating the PvP scene. The usual player base has also seen a wild influx of activity due to recent world events.
As more gamers are stuck at home thanks to social distancing and stay-at-home orders from states and countries, some people are finding a lot more time time to visit Azeroth and spend some with their mains or begin leveling up new alts (even moreso on retail servers, thanks to the experience bonus available). One unfortunate side effect of this traffic is that World of Warcraft: Classic servers are experiencing some unfortunate wait times.
To combat these long wait times, Blizzard seems to be considering whether or not it should temporarily bring back server layering to help reduce the server load and get players logged in more quickly. MMO fans who were around for the launch of World of Warcraft: Classic probably remember that layering was great for achieving this goal, but caused some drama due to exploits that came along with it. There were many debates about server layering and whether it was really true to the Classic spirit before the feature eventually was no longer needed.
Whether or not server layering is a good idea may largely depend on how long the current social distancing best practices stay in place. If the workforce returns to normal in May, this may be a non-issue, but if gamers continue finding themselves stuck at home throughout the early summer, it does seem like a solution to the problem will be necessary. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the community responds to the idea and how Blizzard decides to move forward.
“The circumstances of the last few weeks have led to an unexpected increase in both the numbers of players that have been playing WoW Classic, as well as the length of their play sessions. This has caused some of the most-popular realms to see queues again. While free character moves can act as a relief valve for players who just want to play a particular character regardless of the realm it’s on, that’s not the only tool in our belt.
It is possible to temporarily raise the population cap on a given realm by turning layering back on. While I can only name half-a-dozen realms in this region that really have extended queues right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more realms experience queue growth during this remarkable period we’re living in. So my question for you is this:
If your realm was experiencing one-hour (or longer) queues during peak play times every day, would you want your realm temporarily increased to two layers, to shorten the queue? How do you think that would change your gameplay experience?”
Be sure to check back for more WoW Classic strategy guides, news, and updates in the coming days. Until then, For The Horde!
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth and WoW: Classic are both available now on PC. Shadowlands does not have a release date yet.
Source: Blizzard
