I dont give a single solitary care about sharding in the starting areas like Northshire Abbey, Anvilmar, Aldrassil, The Den, Deathknell and the likes.
Those areas you are in for 30 minutes and you are gone. And without increased spawning (which wasn’t vanilla like either) itll take people all day to get out of the area.
As long as sharding is restricted to those starter areas for the first few weeks I won’t care at all. But it needs to never be enabled beyond that. Once people step foot into Elwynn, Durotar, Teldrassil, Tirisfal and Mulgore… sharding needs to stop right there.
Other than that, Im never going to care about sharding for the 1-5 areas. Its too miniscule for me to care. Especially when its only the first few weeks. It would be so absurd to cry like a baby over something that small.
itsd a tough call but id like to keep the experience the same as back in 04 when i played./i remember flame shocking mobs before people got to them and they got mad nad yelled kill stealer…lol
The whole point of sharding is to prevent population overload. That’s it. They’re not going to keep it. There are no major events in starting zones, except being exceptionally annoyed at mob tagging.
No it doesn’t. You can still interact with every player in the zone through general chat, whether you can see them or not. Sharding does not affect zone-wide interaction. And it does not prevent you from grouping up with people, either.
it certainly reduces the chances i see them, thus random interactions like buffing each other or helping them fight mobs or crap like that. which i did ALL THE TIME in vanilla and burning crusade.
whether you like to admit it or not, sharding does effect interactions.
Seriously, I don’t giva a damn if the servers are overpopulated to the point of every mob being camped by 10 players at launch. That is a better experience than being isolated into a shard.
How about this: Have everyone login on the primary shard by default and then give impatient people and power levelers the option to switch to secondary shards during the launch weeks.
Let the rest of us experience the chaos of a true MMO!
Why would people with an instant (figure of speech, not literally “instant”) gratification, convenience oriented mindset who are concerned only about themselves and see all those other players as nothing but obstacles in their way even think about buffing?
I would say that sharding should not be an option at all.
The problem I have with it is that it becomes a crutch. If there’s a stability issue that will be solved by sharding, devs can throw it in as a “temporary” fix that stays forever.
My memory of sharding was that when introduced it was only going to be for old zones to make them more alive. Now I can’t even give a guildie mats without inviting them to a group.
Back in Vanilla, we hung out on the rock between the AH and bank in Org. I could see who was around looking for something to do by just going to the rock.
Introducing sharding means I’m back to interacting through friends lists and queue lobbies. I want to see people in game. I guess I just don’t believe that if something like sharding were introduced that it would forever stay in only the starter zones.
This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. If it’s too crowded for you on launch day, chill for a week and things will settle down.