A taste of the server lag we should be expecting when we all march on over to Northrend that is, and it does not look too good for us. The event was cool and everything, but the lag was awful. And this was with about 40-50 players at the event.

For those who are not familiar with the event, this event will give us an introduction to the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

If you are Alliance, there is an event which takes place at the Stormwind Harbors, where the King Varian Wrynn and company defends the harbors from forces of Arthas. If you are Horde, you will witness a duel between Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream. Eventually Orgrimmar is attacked by the forces of Arthas, leaving Thrall, Garrosh Hellscream, High Overlord Saurfang, and Lady Sylvanas Windrunner to defend the city. In both instances, the attackers are defeated, and the event will reset and start again every hour or so.

It is nice that Blizzard is giving us a small event to prepare us for the upcoming expansion, but they really need to work on their server stability a bit. If this lag was what I was experiencing with amount of players equivalent to say, Ironforge AH/Bank area, then I fear of what we will be seeing at the starting areas in Northrend. It is going to be a repeat of the opening night of the Burning Crusade.

“But there will be TWO starting areas for Northrend!” Yea I understand the argument but think of it this way. Right before the Burning Crusade hit, the number of subscribers was at 4.5 million. We’re looking at more than double the number of subscribers when Wrath of the Lich King. If the two starting areas in Northrend effectively splits the population in half, we’re still looking at a repeat of the opening of the Burning Crusade. Now it is going to happen in two areas instead of one.

Hopefully the very lengthy server maintenance we experienced yesterday was to fix some of that problem. We’ll find out tomorrow night (Thursday morning) at midnight. Goodbye Outland, it was a fun ride. Hello Northrend!