WoW: Forever is working on its server tech to make cities less empty, say devs

World of Warcraft: Forever's launch has been downright impressive—MMOs are notoriously difficult to run servers for, particularly when it comes to launch, where players will get bottlenecked into servers, throwing devs into a catch 22: Do they increase capacity and wind up wasting money in the long run while things die down, or do they ride out the wave? And yet, after the chaos of the beta, it's been buttery smooth.

Which is why I'm willing to forgive Blizzard for a weird quirk of its realmless layering technology—cities have been empty, empty as hell. Which is a shame, given I know that hundreds of thousands of players are technically on this thing—and yet, none of them are in my Stormwind.

Well, Forever's devs are working on a fix, per the official forums: "Just wanted to chime in," says Aggrend, "And say that we are aware of some issues with certain areas not feeling as populated as they should. We will be tweaking some numbers tomorrow to help things feel a bit more lively. Thanks for the feedback on this one!"

That's a relief to hear, especially given I'm on a roleplay server, and there have been problems with this sort of thing where phasing has interrupted the flow of narrative commerce in the past. Cities, especially, should feel lived-in, and it's hard to create a sense of community when people you could be writing with keep bamfing in and out of existence.

But even if you aren't a roleplayer like yours truly, I think you should be gladdened by this news—big cities are one of the places where crowding isn't a problem at all, but rather, the thing you want. They're social hubs, and rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the masses at the auction house is kind of the whole point.

At least anecdotally, my Stormwind's been looking a lot more populated, and I'm sure that as populations settle to sane levels and Blizzard keeps chipping away at this tech, the streets'll be bustling again.