WoW: Wrath Of The Lich King Classic's Pre-Patch Has Been Plagued By Massive Server Queues

The recent arrival of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic's pre-patch on August 30 has not been without drama, as players for the last week have been forced to endure massive server login queues and what seem to be unjustified bans.

Many of Wrath of the Lich King Classic's servers are listed as heavily populated or full, and that's resulting in some lengthy server queues during peak playtimes, like last weekend. One post on the WoW Classic subreddit shows a wait time of 343 minutes (over five hours) on one full server, Grobbulus. While that's an extreme example, queues ranging from 20 minutes to several hours is the new normal on many of the game's most populated servers, much to the community's frustration.

The cruel reality is that while the pre-patch does bring class revamps, a new profession, a pre-expansion Scourge Invasion event, and the ability to play as the new Death Knight class, the actual bulk of the expansion (like the continent of Northrend) won't arrive until September 26. That means server queue times may only get worse as the Scourge Invasion event ramps up in the weeks ahead, to say nothing of the actual expansion's release. Wrath of the Lich King is widely regarded as the most popular expansion in the almost 20-year history of Blizzard's MMORPG, so it seems likely even more players will be looking to play in the coming weeks, further amplifying server queue issues. Blizzard is offering free server transfers for players playing on servers affected by long queues, but so far the ability to move to a new server seems to have done little to alleviate the situation.

Adding to players' frustrations is a recent ban wave affecting those farming the game's PvP battlegrounds. Blizzard recently made it so players can earn XP from battlegrounds, and when coupled with the ability to earn Honor, a currency used to purchase PvP gear, playing battlegrounds like Alterac Valley on repeat is an effective way to get newly made characters up to speed.

Unfortunately, the WoW Classic subreddit is currently awash with players stating they've been unjustly banned for not properly participating in battlegrounds, with posts warning others to stay away from playing battlegrounds entirely. Many of these players look to have been reported in-game for going AFK or for non-participation, but as many players on WoW Classic subreddit point out, playing Alterac Valley in particular can regularly result in players standing around defending a point or tower for long periods of time without ever coming up against an enemy player. Though it looks like some of the bans are starting to be lifted, with Blizzard sending emails apologizing to players for the unjust bans, there seem to still be plenty of players who have not yet had their bans overturned. Blizzard has yet to comment publicly on the matter.

When Wrath of the Lich King Classic does arrive on September 26, it will feature some key changes from the original 2008 version. Meanwhile, WoW's next modern expansion, Dragonflight, recently entered beta and is on track to release before the end of the year.