The latest Hearthstone expansion has arrived, but some in Europe faced hours of frustrating delays in being able to crack open their packs.
The Grand Tournament, the fourth expansion since Hearthstone‘s launch last March, officially launched yesterday, adding 132 new cards and expanding the meta with the introduction of the Inspire mechanic and cards designed to bolster a variety of deck styles.
But due to launching at peak time in Europe the game’s EU servers ran into significant problems.
After the launch at 7pm CET, some players were able to log on right away while for others had to wait hours to get in the game. But even after logging in the game experienced significant lag which made the process of opening new packs quite the marathon.
Eventually Blizzard took the EU server offline for maintenance at 9pm CET for an hour, and many players reported a much easier time of things after that.
It’s a pretty typical problem for major game launches to experience server trouble. Blizzard tried to prepare for the rush by offering players the opportunity to pre-order packs of cards to avoid overloading their online shop, but that wasn’t enough to stop the rush for what looks like an exciting expansion.
Players in North America had a much easier time after the initial server overload, and those across the world who have busted open new card packs are already beginning to craft their new favorite decks.
So far the focus seems to be on Totem Shaman, Tempo Mage and a smattering of Dragon Warrior, but new decks will come and go in the next few weeks in the chaotic post-expansion meta.
Image via Blizzard
