WoW TBC Anniversary: fewer raiders in logs as Forever beta opens

A report published on 26 September says the number of players raiding in TBC Anniversary fell sharply as the WoW Forever beta began. According to data from a raid log service, 212,821 players raided in TBC Anniversary in the week of 8 to 14 September, and 124,487 in the week of 15 to 21 September, a drop of 88,334. A count like this includes only raids that players record and upload to the service, so it is not a count of everyone who plays. Blizzard has not published these figures and has not commented on them: for now they come from this one report.

The report describes a similar fall in Mists of Pandaria Classic, where the number of raiders went from 33,125 to 24,971 when the beta started. It covers only TBC Anniversary and MoP Classic, and it gives no separate numbers for European realms.

The same raid log data can be filtered to European realms. For the same two weeks it shows 121,394 raiders in TBC Anniversary in Europe, then 76,267, a fall of 37%, so more than half of the raiders counted worldwide play on European realms. MoP Classic in Europe went from 17,520 raiders to 13,091, a fall of 25%. Like the report, these figures count normal realms and leave out PvP realms. Classic Era, which the report does not cover, has a single count for all its realms: in Europe it went from 8,846 raiders to 7,940.

TBC Anniversary is in Phase 3, with Black Temple and Mount Hyjal open, and Zul'Aman and the Sunwell Plateau still to come. The report says it is not clear whether a Wrath of the Lich King version will follow after that. MoP Classic has been in its final phase since Siege of Orgrimmar opened in June, and its players are waiting to hear what will happen to characters that many of them have played since WoW Classic launched in August 2019.

The report links the drop to the beta, which opened on 17 September, during the second week it compares. Its reading is that players are either playing the Forever beta or waiting to hear what Blizzard plans for TBC Anniversary and MoP Classic. That is an interpretation, not a proven fact: raid log figures show how many raiders appear in the logs, not why fewer of them do, and the report says Blizzard has yet to set out its plans for either version. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever launches at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.