Blizzard says World of Warcraft: Forever launched on 3,924 virtual machines with 251,136 GB of RAM and 70,480 CPU cores, behind an unusually smooth debut.
What you need to know
Blizzard’s WoW: Forever launch used 3,924 virtual machines, 251,136 GB of RAM, and 70,480 CPU cores, making for a particularly smooth start with queues typically under 10 minutes. Concurrent player peaks were not disclosed, and developers noted issues with boats and zeppelins, as well as areas that seemed emptier than expected.
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Blizzard pulled back the curtain on the server hardware that kept World of Warcraft: Forever online when it launched on November 4, and the numbers show just how much computing it takes to keep an entire MMO from buckling under launch night demand.
The official World of Warcraft account revealed the numbers on Blizzard hasn’t detailed these numbers further, but dividing them equates to exactly 64 GB of memory and just under 18 CPU cores per virtual machine.
Blizzard has also not disclosed the maximum number of concurrent players. So these are capacity numbers and not a measure of how many people are using Blizzard’s computing resources.
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For WoW: Forever players, all of this hardware has resulted in one of the quietest launches in the franchise’s history. Login queues rarely stretched beyond 10 minutes, according to Icy Veins, a stark turnaround from an open beta with hour-long queues. World of Warcraft executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale credited the team on X, writing: “this launch was crazier than the craziness we imagined, but luckily the team made plans and contingencies. They are amazing in my opinion.“
The launch wasn’t perfect, however, as WoW: Forever developer Josh Greenfield acknowledged issues with boats and zeppelins, as well as some areas of feeling “emptier than they should be.“
History Questions and Answers
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Based on coverage of this story by TweakTown.
What changes did Blizzard make between the WoW: Forever beta and launch to reduce login queues?
Blizzard didn’t specify what it changed between beta and launch to reduce login queues. At launch, WoW: Forever ran on 3,924 virtual machines with 251,136 GB of RAM and 70,480 CPU cores, and Holly Longdale credited the team’s plans and contingencies. Queues rarely exceeded 10 minutes at launch, compared to hour-long queues when the beta opened.
What fixes fixed WoW: Forever boat and zeppelin issues post-launch?
WoW: Forever developer Josh Greenfield acknowledged issues with boats and zeppelins after launch. No fixes for either issue are specified.
Did Blizzard adjust the server capacity of WoW: Forever in the days after launch?
Blizzard reported that WoW: Forever was running on 3,924 virtual machines with 251,136 GB of RAM and 70,480 CPU cores for its November 4 launch. It did not say whether it had adjusted server capacity in the following days.
How do WoW: Forever’s server resources compare to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft 2009 backend?
WoW: Forever launched with 70,480 CPU cores and 251,136 GB of RAM, or about 251 TB. Blizzard said that its entire World of Warcraft backend in 2009 used 75,000 CPU cores and 112.5 TB of RAM, so Forever had 4,520 fewer cores but more than twice the memory.
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To give an idea, Blizzard stated in 2009 that the entire back-end of World of Warcraft ran on 75,000 processor cores and 112.5 TB of blade RAM, at a time when over 11.5 million people were playing. WoW: Forever, a game limited to level 60, now runs with more than double that memory.
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