A few people are getting through. Just luck of the draw.
 

I am shocked that the login servers proved unable to withstand the beating they received. Shocked and amazed. I don't know how anyone could possibly have foreseen that there might be heavy load on the login servers. No sir.
 

WoWInsider is reporting that it's an issue with the login/authentication servers. Whatever it is, it's a bummer and I hope I don't run into the same when it goes live in the US.
 

I'm more amazed by the lemming-like behaviour of the community.

You KNOW the servers are going to be swamped, the mobs WILL be over-farmed, and that there WILL glitches.

Yet people insist on logging on 'just to try their luck'.

Bandwidth is expensive, even for Blizzard. I doubt they'd invest more in contingency bandwidth just to see demand drop off a cliff after the first few days of religious fervour.

But obviously, history is doomed to repeat itself.
 

It's been a problem getting on since the Shattering - of course it will be worse now! I have had to queue every single day to get on.

I am sure this will change in a few months, but for now I sign in as soon as I get in from work, and hopefully I have progressed through the queue when I am ready to play!
 

Blizzard - pro-active or reactive? Discuss.
 

@almondo: Your one-liner, off-topic troll comments aren't appreciated on this blog. Learn to express you opinion in full sentences, or move to Twitter.
 

Why write a million words when I can sum it up in just a few? Wow has been running for FIVE YEARS now and they still can't handle an expansion. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is the third and you'd guess by now that they would know how to handle the volume. So back to my question... is Blizzard proactive or reactive, and more importantly, what level of service are you really paying for? Blizzard to me seem very reactive and not in the least bit proactive when it comes to expansions and they are happy to repeatedly kick their paying customers in the balls. In short, very poor infrastructure management. There, I said it.
 

I think everything actually went incredibly smoothly. No server crashes, no big dramas. The login servers were (obviously) getting hammered which created a choke point but it didn't last long. I was on pretty soon after 11pm. The smart guys waited in game for a while before restarting though :P

All in all, very well done by Blizzard.
 

@We Fly Spitfires: Then you've clearly never worked in an environment that has to be running 24/7. They either can't or don't want to handle the volume, either way it's very poor. Still, at least they're taking our millions ;)
 

Why is it poor that they don't want to handle the volume? As someone earlier said: what the hell's the point in doing all this for, literally, three days at best. After next Monday there probably won't be a problem; and hey, I assume you're taking a dig at the fact that smaller, more dedicated companies aren't making millions. They should've made better games then.
 

@Drilski: "After next Monday there probably won't be a problem"

That's some statement.

And please don't tell me these problems only occur during new expansions; these problems are constant, they're just magnified during each new patch or expansion. As I said before, it's poor infrastructure management.
 

In my personal experience on low to medium pop Americas servers, I've played in every expansion on opening day. Last night I had to wait about 15 min to log on, but no problems after that (besides the hundreds of people crowding each trainer and questgiver). I played for 5 hours, and it was a lot less crowded by the end!
 

But what are you comparing the Cataclysm launch with? Compared with most other MMORPG launches, this was very smooth. Compared with a theoretical "perfect" launch there were still some kinks. Can you really expect uninterupted 24/7 service for a lousy $15 per month?