Are the servers as bad as I read about?

[Wasted]

I think I'm finally going to give WoW a go but the main thing that has got me worried is the things I have read about the server stability and the queueing.  I definately dont like the idea of having to wait in a queue to start playing.

Are the things I have read been over exaggerated, or fixed by now or is this something that most people are used to putting up with by now?

[Strazos]

I've never had a problem that wasn't widespread. IE: I don't get random crashes often at all. If I crash, it's usually because the entire server did. Also, I've only been in a queue once, and it was 15 spots long.

[Wasted]

how often are those entire server crashes?

[Strazos]

I dunno exactly....once a week maybe? It's usually not for a long period of time...just kind of annoying.

[Calantus]

I play on one of the most populous realms now and we used to get 2-3 crashes a day about a fortnight ago, we also had ques about a month ago. The que... stopped, not sure why, and even at its height it was only 20 mins (remember, this server is worse than most). As for the crashes, they capped the number of instances a person could have an hour and it seems to have fixed the crashing. As of right now there aren't any real server issues I know of (occasional short bursts of lag notwithstanding, but you'd get that on any online game).

[Merusk]

It's all tied to population.  Too many people on a server, you get instability and the queues are what they implemented to try and fix that.  My server hasn't had any really bad stability problems in a long time, and I haven't had a queue since the first week.  I don't recall ever seeing a downtime message for any of the newer servers, either.

The biggest complaints all came from the folks on the PvP and RP servers everyone and their grandfather from 'official' gathering sites tried to pile on to. (Archimonde and Earthen Ring).  So, given the larger % of board warriors in such a population, there were more whines, making the problem seem bigger.  Right now I think there's only one or two servers that have a real problem, as they're the ones posting most frequently 'omg server down AGAIN.'

  Since you're just starinng out it's easy for you to avoid these problem servers and find a nice stable one with a middling population. (Don't go for a 'low' pop, as that's where they transfer folks from "high" pop servers... and since the High pop has a problem, everyone tries to get off, and wind-up fuxoring the low server as well)

[Lt.Dan]

Server stability, crushing lag, and queues were the three non-gameplay frustrations that led me to cancel about 3 months ago.

I've been resubbed for about three weeks and haven't experienced any crashes, crushing lag, or even queues.  So things have improved.  That said, I haven't been around for a patch and that's normally 2-3 days of cock-ups.

[Fabricated]

Most servers barf about twice a week. Sometimes it's just a disconnect, reconnect, back to the game. Sometimes it's hours of downtime.

Patches fuck the servers something good. Expect random downtime for at least a half week after every patch.

Expect queues on the weekends on all but the lowest population servers.

Not really horrible, but completely unacceptable in my opinion since Blizzard has more money than god.

[Morfiend]

I was playing pretty heavy on one of the more populated PVP servers. We would suffer 1 or maybe 2 real crashes a week. As for the queues, we havent had any for over 4 months.

[Kail]

Hmm... question:  I get disconnected from the server at least once most days I play (three or four times last friday, which drove me nuts).  On a couple of servers, too, mostly at medium and low pop.  Anyone else getting this, or should I be looking at my service provider?

[Rasix]

For me, WoW has been really really stable for the most part.  Since I usually play around 10pm to 1am PST, the populations are mostly settled down and I don't get primetime lag.  I don't ever randomly disconnect.  I never crashed during raids.  The servers do go a bit wonky during patch time.   I think a whole of one or two times it went wonky enough to have a raid canceled. 

Ohh, and my server Shadowsong as far back as I can remember, has really never had a queue.  I think it did just once, when they released Dire Maul, and it was like a whole 5 players long. 

I think I've likely just been very fortunate with how stable the game's been for me.  I think mostly though not playing much ever during primetime has helped tremendously.

[Zane0]

Eonar hasn't crashed in months.  It's a fairly small realm, relatively, but occasionally some people get disconnected and have trouble logging back on because the server is 'full' (no queue though).  I suppose the realms have varied amounts of server architecture?

[Dren]

Whisperwind for a PvE server has been fine.  We had queues about 4 months ago, but nothing since then.  I think the new servers and free transfers have kept this to a minimum for most.

Yes, the Tuesday downtimes happen, but not for very long.  We've gone through patches fine too.  I haven't seen near the problems others have, but I guess I'm either lucky or play casual enough to not notice.

I hardly ever get disconnects.  The last time it happened had to have been months ago and it was one of those disconnect and reconnect deals, so no big deal.  I've had other disconnects, but they were related to my ISP.

[El Gallo]

I've played since release and never had a queue, my server bounces between medium and high population.  I've seen two crashes, I think.  It's pretty solid.

[kaid]

Eonar has been pretty stable. Aside from some odd ball lag in a few zones over the last couple weeks and the instance server crashing issue that hit most of the servers about 3 or 4 weeks ago its been pretty stable. No queues that I have ever seen.

The majority of the issues appears to be amongst a particular set of about 20 servers. I don't know if they are just the highest pop ones but man they appear to be getting their asses kicked.

kaid

[Der Helm]

Bleeding Hollow has been pretty stable for months, it should be one of the highest pop servers, at least it was at launch.

[Wasted]

I got a friend on Khadgar so I joined there.  Havent had any disconnects so far and very little lag problems too.  Guess I have to wait a bit longer though to see if I am going to feel like an idiot for giving blizzard my money yet or not.

And like usual server maintenance is in aussie prime time... oh well at least it is only one day a week.

[Sogrinaugh]

My server (magtheridon) must be magical.  I don't think we've ever had ques, and one of the oldest servers (was live at game launch).  Back during the winter (dec/janish) we were high-pop and even then crashes and watnot were uncommon.  About the only time lag or server issues were really unbearable was the first week 2-3 days of game launch during which 2000 people was in tirisfal glades and even killing 1 rattlecage skeleton was an epic feat.

[Calantus]

Where do you live that it's prime time? I'm in Sydney and from memory (I work late Tuesdays and by the time I'm finished I don't feel like playing) the maintenance kicks in at around 11 pm.

[Sogrinaugh]

Where do you live that it's prime time? I'm in Sydney and from memory (I work late Tuesdays and by the time I'm finished I don't feel like playing) the maintenance kicks in at around 11 pm.

Fairfax, VA.  Back then they had nightly maintenance, not weekly :)

[MaceVanHoffen]

I just started playing WoW a bit to check it out.  I haven't seen any of the server issues people talk about (playing on Doomhammer and Argent Dawn), though maybe I just lucked out and got on good servers.  I do play during PST hours, if that matters.

From the tech side, WoW's probably the second most stable MMO I've played (City of Heroes being the first).

[HaemishM]

Your perception of how bad WOW's server stability has been is usually dependent on how many times you've tried to play the game when it was unavailable. I think I've had about 4 or 5 times where I was either queued up for too long or just plain couldn't get in. And when that happened, it was a widespread problem.

Patch days are particularly harsh. Most days it isn't bad.

[Eldron]

The european servers have/had some serious stability issues. Well the ones located in Paris did. Realy bad lag spikes for 4 days and impossible to do instances or anything(3500-8000 ms pingtimes). Should be fixed now, but there still is some difference between how the servers in Germany runs compared to the ones in France.

Ohh and we are getting full rested XP tormorrow because of the "problems", which they fixed with a 6 hour server downtime friday evening, just when we had 40 ppl together and allready to go kill Lucifron.

[Wasted]

Where do you live that it's prime time? I'm in Sydney and from memory (I work late Tuesdays and by the time I'm finished I don't feel like playing) the maintenance kicks in at around 11 pm.

I'm in adelaide, downtime starts at 9:30 here so it would be 10 for you.  Maybe I am a bit off but prime time seems to be about 8:00 to 11:00 in my estimations.

[WindupAtheist]

As much as I hate this game, I will say I never saw the massive server problems people talk about.