I just want to log in and play the game with my friends. We can’t transfer to another server, we had a guild formed and ready to go before there even were other Oceanic servers. Heaps of people seem to argue against it but nothing convinces me there is any benefit to turning layering off that outweighs the negative of not being able to play at all. In fact all the arguments against layering seem to come from people who are not affected by queues, such as those who log in early in the day, or who play on a small server, and who are in a guild or friends group with people who are the same.
To review a few common anti-layering claims:
Claim, “It ruins the econonmy”. It reduces overall prices, which is bad for the gold balance of people who invest in materials to sell at a premium in a different phase, but good for everyone else. WoW classic has no real economy because every person is Nostradamus and knows what will happen in the future.
Claim, “It ruins world PvP”. It depopulates the zones a bit. Most people think this is a good thing. Are you worried people will switch layers when getting camped or wanting to quest instead of standing there as a ghost contemplating how much better at the game you are?
Claim, “You knew what you were getting into when you rolled on a mega-server”. This isn’t a real argument, I am not sure what this is. It just comes across as gloating over the misfortune of others. Many of us formed guilds when there were nothing but mega-servers. OCE only had one PvP server at launch. Do you feel like you’re being excluded from all the fun that people on high pop servers are having and you want them to be miserable? I don’t understand.
Claim, “You could just switch servers”. Not realistic. We have friends and communities, guilds and rivalries. You’re asking us to leave all that behind, when blizzard could just press a button and turn layering on again. The instances of a mass exodus from a mega server to a smaller server has resulted in the smaller server becoming a mega server. This doesn’t solve the problem.
Claim, “It reduces player engagement with the world when people can just switch layers”. This is true. However, waiting in queues for hours is far worse for player engagement.
Claim, “Layers are a cop out and Blizzard should just fix the servers”. Agreed! And while we’re waiting for that to happen, please turn on layers so I don’t have time to make forums posts while sitting in hour+ queues at 5pm on a Saturday.
When the queues were at their worst a few months ago, I was at angry at Blizzard’s inaction. This time, I am just feeling sad and hopeless. I don’t understand this decision. I think I’m out.