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The World of Warcraft Classic demo has a 90-minute cooldown

I can't do that yet.

The World of Warcraft Classic demo goes live today - but be warned: there's a cooldown on it.

In a post on Battle.net, Blizzard said the demo, which is available to BlizzCon virtual ticket owners, has a playtime time limit and a cooldown that starts when you first log in. This is "to help as many people as possible play the Classic demo as much as possible". I can only imagine Blizzard is expecting some pretty intense server stress at launch.

The playtime limit is set at 60 minutes, and the cooldown is 90 minutes. So, if you play for an hour, you'll have to wait half an hour before you can play again.

Blizzard provided a few examples of how you can play to help explain what it's doing:

  • If you play for 30 minutes and then log off for 60 minutes, when you come back you'll have a fresh 60 minutes.
  • If you play for 60 minutes, you'll be disconnected and then have to wait 30 minutes before you can play again.
  • If you play for 20 minutes, log off for 20 minutes, then play 40 more minutes, you'll be logged off and wait 10 more minutes.
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This all sounds pretty crazy to me, but I guess imposing this cooldown is a better option than not being able to play at all, which might have been the alternative.

And Blizzard went on to explain it plans to lift the session limits as soon as it can after the demo goes live and, presumably, it has a better idea of what it's up against.

"Our goal is to lift session limits as quickly as we feasibly can after the demo goes live," Blizzard said. "We will then only reinstate session limits if unexpectedly high demand returns."

The World of Warcraft Classic demo goes live around 8pm UK time today, 2nd November for virtual ticket owners. A virtual ticket costs £34.99. The demo ends at 5pm UK time, 8th November.

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