All these requests for layering makes me realize several realms literally have several servers worth of players on them.
Maybe Blizzard it’s time to implement layering for a different use than you have presently used it.
Instead of just a measure to accommodate over populated servers, you can instead use it as a tool to safely divide servers.
You can establish the individual layers worth of factions for a two week period, and then move them to the dead existing servers.
There can be a primary layer that will remain on the server, this will be established by a mix of medium and high activity players, that way the server remains active even after its divided.
If a character is selected by Blizzard for a move, that character and all alts will be moved to the destination location.
Multibox players can protect them selves from shattering by establishing a solid friends lists.
Layers for transplant can be established by two things, guild tag and friends lists. There is no way for a division like this to be perfectly executed, but this would solve a number of problems with over populated servers and help the dead servers thrive.
End result is the elimination of layering and over populated servers and the remedy for dead servers.
Two problems solved with layers being used in an effective way.
Your “solution” is based on Blizzard forcibly moving customers (against their will, without their permission) to other servers. Blizzard has never done that in 16 years.
While I don’t think this could be implemented in a way that would not piss off the loudest parts of the community, I think it’s feasible and like the thinking outside the box attitude and seeking a solution
Something has gotta be done, and keeping over crowded realms is not working.
They could also have sign ups for free transfers or something akin to the same thing.
Like “Your server is full” Well you can join a Que for transfer and when the boat is full it ships.
It would need to be handled in faction balancing kind of way so that each “Batch” of players would end up in a place where they are needed, and the overall population of the parent server is not in ruins.
controlled management is the only way, and the free for all that blizzard typically uses is a failure 100%.
I understand what you’re suggesting, but this isn’t a realistic solution.
People have reserved their names, people have unique names, all of this will become conflicts ingame when forcing people to select new player names because another person on that server has reserved it.
You could argue back with what Retail does, but that’s just a mess having multiple individual servers with a shared layer.
Yeah it really sucks, its a suck deal since day 1.
Blizzard 100% FAILED at management in the early days and allowed too many realms to get over crowded and did not put in to place realistic caps on these realms.
OPENING transfers to an already crowded realm is very unwise…
does 2 things…
Allows the bots to move good there, never a good thing.
Allows more zug zug to join your server and make the ques even longer.
Totally sucks, but so far no one else is trying to solve the problem, and I don’t think layering is a good option either.
I know, and it sucks man. No one wants to play with layers. There are potentially other things that layers are doing that we dont know about on the backend.
This is the only post I could find on short notice.
It’s not that Blizzard despises layers and wishes for us to deal without them. It’s that they’ve mistakenly believed that we were in a position to no longer need them.