World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is finally here, and unless Blizzard has figured out something about server overload that the rest of the video game industry hasn’t, the return of one of WoW‘s most popular expansions ever will likely also mean the return of server issues that prevent some from playing the game.
Server problems are essentially the cost of doing business for those who love to play online games, but knowing that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to learn that you can’t actually play your favorite game because the servers that run it just aren’t working. Staring at a log-in screen for hours is sometimes enough to make even loyal fans walk away from a game entirely.
While there’s rarely a quick fix for the majority of video game server issues, here are a few things you need to know about Burning Crusade Classic‘s most likely server issues and what you can at least try to do about them.
World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic: How to Check Server Status
It’s incredibly likely that Burning Crusade Classic‘s servers are going to go down at some point during the game’s first few days of availability (and possibly longer than that). When that happens, you’re going to want to check on the game’s server status.
The very good news is that it’s relatively easy to see the current status of TBC Classic‘s servers. You just need to go to this website, find your realm, and check what its current server status is. While it’s entirely possible that every TBC Classic server will go down at once, the more likely scenario is that different realms will be active at different times.
It’s obviously not possible to connect to a server that’s listed as “down” or “in maintenance” on that website, so you can save yourself a lot of frustration by checking that site before you start repeatedly trying to log in to a server that’s not even working.
Choose Your World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic Realm Carefully to Avoid Long Queue Times
If WoW Classic‘s launch was any indication, your ability to play Burning Crusade Classic at any given time may be less about a realm’s server status and more about which realm you’ve chosen to play on.
At the moment, the following Burning Crusade Classic realms are listed as “Full,” and therefore will likely be the most difficult to join at the time of TBC Classic’s launch:
- Arugal
- Atiesh
- Whitemane
- Sulfuras
- Pagle
- Mankrik
- Herod
- Grobbulus
- Faerlina
- Benediction
Even if a server isn’t on that shortlist, you have to remember that a lot of people are going to be trying to play TBC Classic during those first few days. That means that even lower population servers could quickly fill up.
The important thing to remember is that you can’t skip queue times, so you’ll just have to wait them out whenever a realm’s server fills up. More importantly, you have to remember that Classic characters are listed as “AFK” after 5 minutes of inactivity and are sent back to the character select screen after 30 minutes of AFK status. If you’re on the character select screen for 30 minutes without activity, you’ll be removed from the server.
For the servers listed above, you may want to consider transferring your character to a different realm if you’re not willing to deal with longer queue times for at least the first month of Burning Crusade Classic. You can also pay to “boost” an alternate character on a lower popular server if you’re desperate to play the game when your main realm is full, but that’s obviously not an ideal option for many players.
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Horde Queues Will Probably Be Longer Than Alliance Queues
This will probably only really affect you if you’re trying to play TBC Classic Battlegrounds while you’re already logged in to the game, but it’s worth noting that Horde players will probably have to wait longer than Alliance players during at least the early days of TBC Classic.
Why? Well, Horde will most likely be the more popular faction at the start of the expansion due to the power level/popularity of the Blood Elf race. While that disparity may not impact overall server wait times (at least in many cases) it does mean that Alliance players may have shorter overall wait times than their Horde friends when it comes to certain in-game activities. Then again, a lot of that is going to depend on how Blizzard chooses to handle PvP queues this time around.
World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic Dark Portal Server Problems
From the moment that TBC Classic was confirmed, fans assumed that the hardest part of the expansion’s earliest days would be entering the Dark Portal and properly starting their TBC adventure. After all, if WoW Classic‘s AQ40 event was any indication, anything in WoW that requires players to gather in one place at a set time will likely lead to server crashes.
The really bad news is that there will likely be no way to “avoid” this problem when it happens. The best thing you can hope for is that everyone on your server gets through the Dark Portal as quickly as possible, but even if you logged into TBC Classic early, there’s a very good chance you’ll be kicked out of your realm once the expansion properly launches if there is too much activity outside of the Dark Portal.
The other option is to “wait” for some of those issues to be resolved and try to sneak in when things settle down. However, that’s probably not going to be a great option for players in high population realms who will need to log in as early as possible to stand a chance to get into the game at all.
Will World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic Have Layers?
In the early days of WoW Classic, Blizzard utilized a “layering” system to handle player queues and the problems they result in. Basically, you could be in the same realm as another player, but if you weren’t on the same layer within that realm, you could stand right next to them and never see them.
While that system helped Blizzard control server crashes during Classic‘s early days and helped players complete certain quests more efficiently, it also proved to be controversial among other players due to some who exploited the system for XP gain and those who wanted to simply embrace the chaos and truly play together.
So far, Blizzard has been somewhat non-committal in terms of whether or not TBC Classic will have layering. While it feels like there will almost have to be some level of layering in place in order to handle the massive influx of new and returning players during TBC Classic‘s early days, the team has stated that they’ll only utilize layering if it’s the best possible solution to the game’s server problems.