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WoW: Wrath Of The Lich King Classic Launch Sees Massive Server Queues, With No Relief In Sight

Even Azeroth's public transportation systems buckled under the crowds of players trying to get to Northrend on launch day.

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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic's September 26 launch hasn't exactly been smooth, even if the primary problem players are encountering--server login queues--isn't a new one.

Ever since the arrival of the pre-patch for the beloved expansion's re-release several, many of WoW Classic's most populated servers have dealt with queues in some form. It's a problem Blizzard warned weeks ago would only get worse come the official release of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. The developer has gone on record to say there isn't a technology or hardware fix for the issue, instead encouraging players on high population servers to take advantage of free server transfers to avoid long waits.

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Now Playing: Getting Started in Wrath Classic | Return to Northrend

On launch day, it seems most players on crowded servers had not taken that advice, as queues soared up to five hours or more in order to play. Players who don't have the luxury of working from home have resorted to using Google Chrome Remote Desktop to access their PCs while still at work to help skip the line, or asking their roommates or partners at home to queue them up.

Even the MMORPG's in-game public transportation systems seemed to buckle under the load of thousands of eager adventurers. As players crowded together to board boats and zeppelins bound for Northrend, some initially found it a struggle to make it to the new continent, as an issue preventing players from properly loading into the new region reared its head. The issue appears to have since been fixed, with Blizzard allowing players to teleport directly to Northrend by talking to specific NPCs instead.

It's unclear what additional efforts Blizzard will be taking to help alleviate the server queue situation. In a recent interview with GameSpot, Blizzard said if there was an easy button it could press to fix the server queue problem, it would have done it already.

Wrath of the Lich King Classic may be a re-release of the MMO's most popular expansion, but it's not an exact recreation. New features, like harder Heroic dungeons, will be added in the coming months. One feature Blizzard has gone on record to say it won't add is the automated dungeon finder, a subject that has become a hot-button issue for many in the WoW Classic community.

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