Blizzard has been enjoying a rather smooth release to their most recent expansion, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. A week after launch, the content is certainly not flawless, but players have been impressed at how well the launch has gone.
To get the bad out of the way, no, the title is certainly not flawless, and plenty of people are quick to point that out. Some spawns are glitched, some quests problematic, and some items aren’t working as properly as one would hope.
That said, the launch itself and the game’s playability has remained rather steady throughout the week. Given the history of Blizzard‘s content being not so playable lately, players were happily surprised for this.
Recently, at the prepatch release, players were incensed to find the game barely playable at all. Servers crashed, changes were unsaved, and the game was practically impossible to play.
This was a bit of a repeat when the Scourge Invasion event began, which saw some servers being knocked down as well. While a smooth launch compared to the prepatch, the event was far from flawless.
Many were scared for more of the same this week, but Blizzard has held their own. With their biggest release in the title in years, Blizzard was able to hold steady.
There were some servers that were knocked down, but plenty of max-population servers like Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord – well known for massive populations of Alliance and Horde players respectively – had no issue staying afloat.
Overall, Blizzard has been able to present a wonderful experience on the technical side as well. While some issues remain, the developers’ ability to keep things flowing has been remarkable.
Additionally, the work is continuing! Those issues do remain, but Blizzard is knocking more and more of them out every day. Hotfixes and patches are being pushed out rather frequently, which is helping to take those remaining issues and knock them out.
Frankly, no one expected there to not be issues – with a launch this massive, holding this much content, a flawless and glitchless launch would’ve been unspeakably impressive, if even possible. Given that the issues are (mostly) rather minor, many are impressed to see how much Blizzard ironed out.
Again, given that the last two releases have gone poorly, many were worried that there was going to be a repeat offense of the expansion we’ve waited so long for to end up being unplayable. Instead, Blizzard surprised their players again by presenting a wonderful launch to compliment some incredible content.
