Launch night: how long will it take to get into WoW: Forever?

WoW: Forever opens worldwide at the same moment: 3 PM PT on November 4 (11 PM UTC). Everyone with a WoW subscription can log in, everyone starts at level 1, and there's no realm list to spread across. That's a recipe for a busy first night. Here's what we know, what past launches suggest, and what we expect. The predictions are ours, not Blizzard's.

Our predictions

• Queues: likely on launch night, especially on the Normal and PvP rulesets in the Americas and Europe. We'd guess anything from minutes to an hour or two in the first evening, much shorter within a few days.
• Servers: expect some login errors and disconnects in the first hours, not a multi-day outage. Blizzard has had a beta, a stress test on the launch hardware and Classic's launches to learn from.
• Starting zones: busy, but layering should keep them from Classic-2019 levels. The Skyborne's Zephras Isle is our pick for the busiest, as it's brand new.
• The weekend after launch: the next busy point, as people who couldn't play on a Wednesday evening join in.

What the beta showed

The beta opened on September 17 to queues straight away. Players reported waits of around 36 to 40 minutes, and some were disconnected on reaching the front and sent back into a longer queue. Blizzard raised the beta's population cap twice. More than 8 million characters were created over the beta, which ended on October 23.

On October 21 Blizzard ran an open stress test on what it called WoW Forever's "proper regional hardware", the servers it will launch on, open to anyone, subscription or not. Runs like that exist to find the breaking points before launch night does.

Why one world per ruleset matters

Forever has no realms: everyone in a region who picks a ruleset shares one world, split into copies called layers. That cuts both ways. There's no "full" realm to steer people away from, and no picking a quiet server to dodge a queue. But layers can be added as people arrive, which is how Classic coped in 2019 and why Blizzard built it in.

Layering was the beta's most divisive feature: players were moved between layers after boat and zeppelin rides, when entering or leaving capitals, and at zone borders. Blizzard's Clay Stone said on October 23 that fixes for transports and large groups in capitals are coming before launch, while "there will always be some amount of layering". Zone borders weren't mentioned.

Will the starting zones be flooded?

At first, yes. Every player starts at level 1 at the same moment, and kill-and-collect quests are where crowds hurt most. In Classic's first days in 2019, the Human, Orc and Troll starting zones were the most crowded, and players formed queues to kill named quest monsters. Layering is Forever's answer: busy areas are split into more copies, so there are fewer players competing for the same mobs on each.

Skyborne start on Zephras Isle, a new zone for levels 1 to 12, and need the Heroic Pack or higher. A brand-new race usually draws a crowd. If you'd rather avoid it, an old starting zone may be quieter for the first hours.

Other big WoW launches

The pattern: demand is almost always higher than Blizzard plans for, the worst comes in the first evening and the first weekend, and things are usually calm within a week.

How to get in faster

• Have WoW: Forever installed and updated in the Battle.net app before 3 PM PT, so you're not downloading a patch at launch.
• Decide your experience preset, ruleset and faction in advance, and agree on them with friends: you can only group within the same ruleset and faction.
• Once you're in, don't log out. If you're disconnected, it can mean queueing again.
• Expect to switch layers when you join a group; it's how you end up in the same world as your friends.
• Have a back-up plan: a second starting zone, or a class you're happy to start with.

And if you're stuck in a queue, every WoW: Forever stream on Twitch, YouTube and Kick is on the leeroy.tv home page.