{"id":2152550,"date":"2026-09-19T08:26:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2152550"},"modified":"2026-09-19T08:26:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:26:06","slug":"as-fans-flood-the-world-of-warcraft-forever-beta-dev-says-its-putting-up-the-craziest-numbers-ive-seen-in-17-years-working-at-blizzard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2152550","title":{"rendered":"As Fans Flood the World of Warcraft: Forever Beta, Dev Says It’s Putting Up ‘The Craziest Numbers I’ve Seen in 17 Years Working at Blizzard’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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World of Warcraft: Forever<\/a> looks like it could be a smash hit after the launch of the beta was overrun with eager fans, surprising even Blizzard itself.<\/p>\n

Blizzard\u2019s ended last weekend\u2019s BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony with the announcement of World of Warcraft: Forever<\/a>, a \u201cClassic Plus\u201d MMO developed by the World of Warcraft Classic team, and set during the first year of World of Warcraft.<\/p>\n

While Forever doesn\u2019t launch until November 4, the beta was made available this week, and it was flooded by players. Those who did manage to get in faced disconnects. And then actually playing the game was tough due to extreme lag with looting and accepting quests. Hardly ideal.<\/p>\n

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World of Warcraft Classic developer Josh Greenfield took to X \/ Twitter<\/a> to provide some insight into the popularity of the beta.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, it was hard to sleep last night, I was so excited,\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cBeta has been… crazy. The craziest numbers I’ve seen in 17 years working at Blizzard and almost eight years on classic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got something really special here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That suggests significant interest in Forever, beyond even the launch of Classic itself. As a grizzled veteran of World of Warcraft\u2019s early years, I remember well the brutal login queues most players would face when the groundbreaking MMO launched late 2004 and early 2005. Forever is rekindling those memories for me.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s going on with those queues? World of Warcraft senior game producer Tom Ellis took to X \/ Twitter<\/a> to offer an explanation that acts as a fascinating insight into what goes on with the launch of an MMO. The upshot is this is a beta, and usually World of Warcraft betas don\u2019t see this sort of interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAHMAGERD, this game is 20 years old, how do you still suck at this!?! a. Heh, fair enough, short answer is, this is our BETA PTR environment stack, it’s not a Production stack by a long, long, long, long, long, long shot. Betas for WoW aren’t usually huge meter movers so this environment just isn’t that powerful. This led to the first problem you saw today,\u201d Ellis explained.<\/p>\n