Update: Blizzard wrote on Twitter that it’s “currently investigating an issue” that’s preventing players from being able to log into the game. Still no word about the world server and boat issues though.
The boat memes have already started.
Original story: As any MMO player knows, the first boss of any expansion is the struggle to get into the game. World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s 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 is down” message and locking players to 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 account or via its official forums. 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 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.
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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, and new type of momentum-based flying mounts.