First week will be nasty in BC...

Q u o t e:
Maybe longer. I mean think about it... there is not a multitude of regions for level 60 players. There is ONE new zone for the level 60 character in reality, and EVERYONE will be there.Competing for quests and kills, it's going to be a chaotic mess. It will probably take you hours to complete a simple quest to kill X # of orcs or whatever in that zone.

I'd not count on actually experiening BC content for a week or two. : )

I guess if you camp out in Hellfire Citidal, you might get some stuff done. Can you hit that at 60?

There will be more than one zone. Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh can both support a populace of pre-60s and 60 plusses fairly well. The zones are large, there is a multitude of quests and activities to do and of course there is no telling how many people will create a new character to level up vs continuing to level up to 70 first. I know some guilds have designated people who will be leveling up a Blood Elf Paladin or Draenei Shaman as a way of helping the guild out.

I guess we can try to foretell the future all we like and maybe even come up with a pretty good picture of it, but the reality is often a bit different.

Q u o t e:


And based on Blizzards past record the reality is likely to be a pretty bleak time for many of your subscribers :(

No no no. It's Friday. I will not let you be sad and morose. Please have a /cookie.

Seriously. I think the best thing is for everyone to realize, we've done a lot of work on the back end in preparation for this release. While no one can guarantee that things can't happen to put a crimp on the 'jump in and get at it' end of things, we have been working very hard to try to minimize the pain of launch as much as possible. We of course want things to go as smoothly as we can possibly make it. We are preparing to succeed and working toward a positive release.

Even if for some reason things do happen (not saying they will but we all know the man they call Murphy), patience will get us all through any difficulties and in the end, the game will still be there and available to be played.

Q u o t e:
I only hope that the CM's are saying what they've been told to say, which is to try and encourage us and put pretty thin spin's on the upcoming storm. But in all honesty, how much can Blizzard prepare for 80% of it's userbase all being in one or two zones at once.

We all know (okay, assume based on it happening to use a dozen times before) that the first couple days and weeks will be rough. But in all seriousiness what can Blizzard do?

Sure they could buy the server capacity for that storm but I'm guessing your looking at 300-400% of the server capacity they have now, and for what? To make the first few weeks a little better? Your computer is still going to have to be able to handle being in close proximity to 200 other players.

As a driver I dislike morning traffic here in SoCal, but as a taxpayer I'd rather they not charge me to build enough lanes so I can do 80mph eastbound on the 91 fwy Friday afternoon.

I think we'd all just like to hear a little more reality from the CM's rather then having them blow sunshine up our....

I'm not trying to blow sunshine anywhere however, when I see rain clouds gathering, I do like to at least get a little light in there to take away some of the dreariness people have envisioned.

No, I'm not being told what I should be saying in this regard. Contrary to belief we are not just programmed puppets. If you've noticed, I have given very measured responses. I've told everyone what we've been trying to do to prepare. I've said that we are preparing to be successful. I've also said though that things happen (ala Murphy's law) so we certainly aren't going to sit back and expect everything to go flawlessly. We'd like to think that we will do everything we can to make it happen as smoothly as possible and if wrinkles do pop up, iron them down as quickly as possible. That's the reality of it. I just choose not to look at it from the "Doom and Gloom" perspective. It does me no good to think negatively and it doesn't necessarily do anyone else any good either.

We will continue to be as proactive as possible to prepare for everything we can and take care of anything that happens to come up as quickly as possible. That's the reality of it.

The launch of the Burning Crusade should be an exciting time for everyone. There is a lot of great content being released with it and focusing on the negatives takes away from the excitement and fun. I'm sorry if I'm getting in the way of the black cloud club. :)