Blizzard’s latest major expansion for World of Warcraft didn’t get off to a great start, but the publisher wants to make it up to you.
The company announced today that it will give players in the Americas, Oceania (Australia and Pacific islands), and Europe five free days to compensate for lost time. When the add-on launched on Nov. 13, players struggled to get online to enjoy the new content. Many had to wait in queues until capacity opened up on big servers, and even those who did get a connection noted that it was nearly unplayable. Blizzard producer J. Allen Brack took to message boards to explain what the studio is doing to tackle the problems and to apologize.
“I also hope you’ll accept my apology and keep your faith in us,” Brack wrote on the World of Warcraft forum. “The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated. We’re extremely grateful to be part of such a passionate community. We love World of Warcraft, and we’re very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gate like this was very disappointing for all of us.”
Brack admitted that the first two days after Draenor’s debut were “not a great experience.”
“We worked around the clock to tackle the demand issues and technical challenges, and fortunately things started looking better on Saturday,” wrote Brack. “While millions of you were able to get in and play over the weekend, with many already reaching level 100, others still ran into very lengthy queues, particularly on the highest-population realms.”
Blizzard plans to deal with that by adding more capacity to its servers. It says that the same process that helped improve Draenor’s situation on Saturday will help the company nearly eliminate queues entirely.
This launch is important for World of Warcraft and Blizzard. The massively multiplayer online game is still one of the most lucrative games in the world more than 10 years after its release. It has around 7.6 million subscribers, and that number has grown in recent months due to the anticipation for Warlords of Draenor. Blizzard wants to keep dedicated subscribers and returning fans happy so that they may continue to pay the monthly fee for another 10 years.