Sunday, November 8th 2026
WoW: Forever Sets a New Franchise Record for Peak Concurrent Players
World of Warcraft: Forever is now the biggest launch in WoW history by peak concurrent players, according to Blizzard. The official Warcraft account also says the game brought back the highest number of returning players the franchise has ever seen. Forever went live on November 4 for Windows and macOS, and it is included with a regular WoW subscription. Blizzard didn't share any actual numbers, so it's hard to say how big the lead is. Going by the claim, Forever beat every expansion launch, including Wrath of the Lich King, as well as WoW Classic in 2019. However, Blizzard never published peak concurrent figures for those launches either, so a direct comparison isn't possible.
The launch itself went far more smoothly than the beta, which had its population caps raised several times. Forever runs on large megaservers that span multiple regions instead of dozens of smaller realms, and many players reported short login queues or none at all. Blizzard's Holly Longdale summed it up on X as "so far so goodish." Developer Josh Greenfield admitted to a few problems, mainly with the boat and zeppelin service, and Blizzard added temporary portals while it prepares a proper fix. On Twitch, the WoW category reportedly peaked at around 1.12 million viewers during launch, per Streams Charts. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had already called the Forever beta the largest in franchise history, and it looks like the launch has kept that momentum going.
Source:
World of Warcraft on X
The launch itself went far more smoothly than the beta, which had its population caps raised several times. Forever runs on large megaservers that span multiple regions instead of dozens of smaller realms, and many players reported short login queues or none at all. Blizzard's Holly Longdale summed it up on X as "so far so goodish." Developer Josh Greenfield admitted to a few problems, mainly with the boat and zeppelin service, and Blizzard added temporary portals while it prepares a proper fix. On Twitch, the WoW category reportedly peaked at around 1.12 million viewers during launch, per Streams Charts. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had already called the Forever beta the largest in franchise history, and it looks like the launch has kept that momentum going.
33 Comments on WoW: Forever Sets a New Franchise Record for Peak Concurrent Players
Also keep in mind that Everquest allows for private servers and nobody pays a dime.They received donations and micro-transactions. Light's Hope on the other hand only received donations. It was Elysium before and there was people who were selling items in the game that didn't sit well. It's also not stealing when the servers don't actually host the content, other than dialog text. Otherwise the content sits on the PC, which I happen to have a physical copy of WoW.
If Blizzard offers micro-transactions then there shouldn't be a monthly fee. We are talking about a game released in 2004.
Someone pays for it because it uses internet, electricity, server hardware, and a physical space that is either rented or owned.
Are some people using it for free? Sure, but it's not being run for free. Some people are absorbing all the costs. Are they philanthropists or do they have an ulterior motive to claw back costs from other avenues?
People do still run Turtle WoW on their own computers, but with bots to avoid Blizzards lawyers. It is an open source project so no code was actually stolen. The legal issues with private servers is that when you read quest text and dialog then that comes from the server itself. That text is copyrighted which makes servers technically "illegal". Every private server is based on Mangos which is still on Github and worked on.
The issue with a monthly fee is that it will destroy WoW Forever, just like it did with Retail and even Classic. People will get sick of the game and the $15 monthly fee. They won't want to return in fear of being stuck again because of the idea of a sunk cost fallacy. Focus on cosmetic micro-transactions and making the game good.
Did you just come here to try and get more people on turtleWoW?
I checked Blizzard Webpage, and they offer me 25€ for 2 months!
Americans get screwed by Activision. Subscription prices seem way better in Europe, especially when you consider that the €11 already includes ~20% tax