World of Warcraft: Forever has proven extremely popular—and while I was preparing for the launch last night, I was bracing for the same experience I had in the beta. Namely: Long queue times, connection errors, and disconnects. At least I wouldn't have to use a VPN this time, I thought, that is some small saving grace.

Turns out I needn't have worried. There was a brief panic, mind, when I finished a breezy five minute queue and landed on a ruleset selection screen that was completely greyed-out. But one eight minute queue later, and I was in—and proceeded to quest until 4 am with nary a disconnection or lagspike to be seen.

Granted, I am playing on both the EU realms and the roleplay ruleset, both of which are bound to be less populous. But having hopped online, it doesn't seem like I'm alone: "I fully expected to not be able to play today, but I logged in with no queue and no lag," writes one equally-astonished player on the game's subreddit.

"Outside of having to spawn camp some wolves at the start, this has been the best wow launch I've seen so far. I haven't really had to compete for mobs, or herbs or quest drops, and I only had a brief moment of lag," writes another.

On that point, I do feel like the phasing is maybe working a little too well. I had an eerie experience jogging around Stormwind (admittedly, this was at 3 am on a Wednesday.

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