The boats and zeppelins are running late and they're also disconnecting players from the game.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
As any MMO player knows, the first boss of any expansion is the struggle to get into the game. World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s (opens in new tab) servers are disconnecting players as they race to get into the new Dragon Isles zone. And, strangely enough, the earliest hurdle has been catching the in-game boats to get there—or the zeppelin for Horde players.
Both factions have to take a trip on either a zeppelin or a boat from their main cities to reach the Dragon Isles. For whatever reason, the boats arrive late and, when you finally catch one, you run the risk of getting booted out of the game. Once you’re out, it can be tough to get back in with the game spitting back a “World server down” message and getting stuck on loading screens.
Players have been able to reach The Waking Shores, the initial zone of the expansion, but it isn’t protecting anyone from getting knocked back out to the character select screen.
Blizzard typically responds to login issues quickly via its Blizzard customer service Twitter (opens in new tab) account or via its official forums (opens in new tab). As of the time of this writing, it hasn’t acknowledged the issues people are experiencing. I’ll update the post when it does.
Queue times are the worst for anyone that plays on a highly-populated server. You can always see the current population by logging into the game and viewing the realm list or by visiting the realm status (opens in new tab) page. If you hit the queue wall, the best you can do is play on a server with fewer people until the congestion clears up.
(Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)
Discover the Dragon Isles
(Image credit: Blizzard)
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WoW expansions have had a history of turbulent launches. In 2020, the influx of players trying to get into Shadowlands had Blizzard scrambling to keep the servers stable. Players experienced lag and disconnects as they tried to finish quests in the opening sections of the expansion. I remember when Cataclysm launched and my character would get stuck bending down to pick up loot before I got kicked back to the login screen. Spells don’t cast and quests don’t complete. Lag is the ultimate nightmare for MMO players and long-time WoW players have had to brace for it with each new expansion.
Hopefully things clear up so you can experience WoW Dragonflight’s new ancient dragon storyline and setting, new playable dragon race (opens in new tab), and new type of momentum-based (opens in new tab) flying mounts.
Tyler Colp
Associate Editor
Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He’s done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He’s interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.
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