WoW Forever hotfix thins crowds and tackles horde vs alliance chaos

Blizzard's big new World of Warcraft expansion is dealing with a nice problem: too many players. As reported by IGN, the developer just rolled out a hotfix to lower the population in overcrowded zones. This should help players actually finish quests without fighting a hundred others to tag a monster.

The fix is especially significant on PvP servers, per Blizzard's notes. The single-server structure of WoW Forever uses layering to manage crowds, but the massive launch led to packed zones. On PvP rulesets, a faction imbalance is making things worse.

According to IGN, the Horde is far more popular than the Alliance in North America. This leaves Alliance players outnumbered and often instantly killed in later zones. To combat this, Blizzard is throttling character creation for the dominant faction in each region. Community Manager Kaivax stated the goal is a near 50/50 split for balanced world PvP.

In separate news covered by Eurogamer, players are already getting the MMO running on phones and handhelds. Larian's Michael Douse showed off the game on an AYN Thor device using a Github mod. Another mod makes it playable on an iPhone Duo, though it reportedly makes the phone run hot.

Blizzard has hinted at plans for official ports to other platforms. For now, the game's built-in controller support and these community mods are letting a few enthusiasts play on the go.