June 19, 2019 The next WoW Classic stress test gets underway later today.
The WoW Classic beta took place earlier this year, but that wasn’t the only chance to play early. A series of stress tests will give a bigger set of players the chance to see Classic ahead of launch, and it’ll give Blizzard some data on what sort of server load to expect when it properly goes live.
The first stress test ran from Wednesday, May 22 to Thursday, May 23, but the second begins today, June 19:00, at 14:00 PDT (17:00 ET, 22:00 BST), and run until June 20. A third test will run on July 18 and July 19. The method for signing up will be the same as the main WoW Classic beta – open up your Battle.net account settings and make sure you’re opted in for Classic betas in addition to standard WoW betas.
Blizzard notes that the dates are all subject to change, and that players will need active subscription time to get into any of the tests. While the stress tests won’t be quite as limited as the beta itself, Blizzard makes the usual disclaimer that opting in doesn’t guarantee access.
The stress tests will have some sort of level cap in place, to help ensure players stick to the same locations and actually stress servers.
WoW Classic will implement something similar to server sharding to help manage server load in the early days after launch. You can find out more on the systems in play with our full WoW Classic interview.
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The WoW Classic release date is set for August 27, so if you miss out on any – or all – of the tests ahead of that point, you know where to mark your calendar.