Because of layering , count me out

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
206

For what they are trying to do. I’d say yes it is the right approach.

I’d much prefer layering to the sharding they proposed and I think layering could hinder the community as a whole less. Just depends on how it works. I can say that if it doesn’t improve much from the stress tests it will be disappointing. I may end up canceling my sub before month 1 ends in that case.

However I saw a marked improvement over stress test 1 and 2 so maybe… they can actually get it worked out. There are other issues I have more concerns over than layering though.

The community seems to care less about them judging by the discussion in the posts with those topics compared to layering.

207

Nicely put!

Yes I agree the cohesive world itself is the goal. I will be happy when a community simply plays on a single cohesive realm, with layering /sharding/whatever gone. That is true state for Classic.

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208

This is naive and also dumb for trying to blame blizzard having classic free as an add on to the regular sub. They were doing the right thing allowing it like that. It would be very greedy on blizzards behalf to charge an extra sub fee for classic.

Layering is needed. Either come to terms that it will be there at the start and phased out after P2 or don’t play. Idc

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209

You miss my point. I was saying what they could have done instead of layering.
Because the problems layering fix are problems Blizzard caused themselves by giving retail players free classic and by not giving themselves a means of gauging classic interest.

Obviously, at this point, I wouldn’t do it. A preorder right now would just be handing them money for nothing. It’s too late for them to come up with an alternative to layering. It’s way, way too late for them to start gathering market research.

Honestly, at this point, layering is like loot trading, the shared sub, RCR, and every other change being hoisted upon us. All we can do is either refuse to play or give them our money and hope the changes aren’t as bad as we fear.

Found the retail player.

213

Found the elitist gatekeeper.

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214

I’ll also be very glad to join everyone once we reach that state! I’m really hyped about it :slightly_smiling_face: If layering does go into the game, the wait will be tough for me and others who don’t accept it, that’s for sure. But regardless, to you and everyone else who will play from the start, i wish you a lot of fun and hope all will go as well as possible :hearts:

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216

I don’t know what Layering is, but it just sounds like to me like Sharding but better/worse. My thought is they should get rid of that, upgrade the servers (and computers holding those servers) to hold more people and that’s about it.

This isn’t 2004 anymore and people already have better computers, so it would be a smooth launch… unless Blizzard is not prepared or have woeful systems in place that can’t handle a high number of people. Like 10+ million in total i’m talking about.

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You really think 10 million people for Classic?

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I honestly don’t really know. I checked to see how much are actually going to play classic at launch, but couldn’t find anything concrete. It’s a wait and see sort of thing. I’m just guessing the number, considering the hype and all that.

Let’s be generous and say 2 million then. Blizzard’s Classic servers can handle 2 million people in total without the layering, can it not? like 50k - 100k people per server?

I’m simplely saying to retain the experience of vanilla in classic form, they should get rid of layering and upgrade the servers to handle incase, high numbers, months before they hit launch.

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vanilla experience wouldn’t have tons more players per realm than vanilla did.

I get what you’re saying. I could see 2 mil, 10 seems like a stretch. 2-4 seems more realistic.

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Now, i will give you that unlike back then, we’ll have many more players who will try to play in the inital release, which is unlike the OG Vanilla experience.
However, that is a variable that is naturally one that can’t be changed because times are simply different.

What Blizzard however does have control over, is how far they go with recreating the game in terms of it’s original game design.

To demonstrate what i mean:

  • The original game design, as we’ve uncovered through old devs, allows for dynamic respawns in very crowded zones. It’s authentic to the OG design. It’s OK to put it in. :white_check_mark:
  • The fact that so many people will initially log in, is one we simply can’t have control over in terms of the OG games design, so that one simply has to go through and do it’s thing, which is fine. :white_check_mark:
  • BUT! Putting in a new feature, layering, is an active deviation from the OG games design , because it’s there to serve the modern purpose of catching those initial tourists, and tries seeving many of them out the first weeks or months in, in an attempt to have well populated servers by the end of P1.
    Yet regardless of layering, the servers will become susceptible again to instability (in the longterm!), cause people are people and will move and change, leaving their servers in bad states, putting us back to square 1 in regards to server health.
    And that is while all the drawbacks from layering, which are going to be very significant, will not allow for the authentic beginning experience Blizzard says they will provide just as any other part of the game. :no_entry:

Essentially, Blizzard is currently willing to actively compromise on the games original design, by introducing layering as a new feature to the game.

It will change one if not the most important era of it (the leveling one, extremely vital for building a tight knit community on the realm) for the sake of trying to stabilize servers, which anyway will be left to themselves after it’s gone, reintroducing all the issues they tried to avoid in the first place.

It’s a shortterm solution, and the core audience doesn’t benefit from it in the long run, and the short one. It will even hinder new players to become part of this audience (I’ll explain down below). Keep in mind, their happiness is what determines Classics success for Blizzard.

So who does benefit then?
The curious tourists do in the shorrterm, because layering will improve game accessability to suit modern standards.
But! Even they actually miss out because the time they’ll check out the game, will be at a time where Classic’s not in it’s actual full state in terms of game design.
Because of that, It won’t be able to actually work it’s WoW magic, which would allow it to give the full on Classic experience to the players, giving them a fair chance to asses whether they wanna be longterm fans of the game too.

By the point layering is taken out, those curious to try the game may have already made their judgement during the first days/weeks, and left if they didn’t get enchanted by it.
They’ve gotta make sure the longterm audience, the old one and the new one who fall for the game during the start can be happy from start to finish, because the games success depends on it.

The only way to do that, is to follow the OG design of Vanilla, and let each community of ~3k ppl have their 1 unique world, with a name they can call home, from the start of the game until it’s end.
Take that away, and WoW’s spell on new and old players will have a high resist chance during layerings untimely stay, giving false first impressions to both old and new players, which could really hinder it’s success in the long run.

221

I don’t support layering.

For I am looking forward to being stuck killing 10 boars for three days as they are instantly tagged by a gajillion hunters the instant they spawn. I think taking hours to kill a couple mobs is more realistic and will heighten my enjoyment immensely.

When i logged into vanilla the first time I remember 5-10 people doing starting quest in the area and having to compete with them to kill a miniboss. I believe at the time i was having fun, so upping the competition to 500 people should really up the fun as well.

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222

I could argue 04 Blizzard Devs would have used layering if they had access to that technology in 2004.

It’s like in vanilla you could only have 8 debuffs on a mob at one time. When the technology advanced they upped it to 16 but were still limited. In retail it’s virtually uncapped at 256. Old blizzard devs didn’t mean to have the debuff cap at 8. It was a product of their time.

If old blizz knew they’d have 1 million+ players at launch they’d undoubtedly use methods to handle that if they had access to that tech. Layering in 2019 with the amount of players we will see coming at launch is 100% needed.

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And i’d say that’s not the case. I’ve already went into detail about why earlier.
Essentially, unlike debuff slots and things like it, layering affects a much more vast area of the game. To put it very shortly, it affects the whole journey to 60, and everything that makes it so special and meaningful, most importantly the community.

To compromise on that experience, the one that hooked so many people into spending an immense amount of time playing this game, even 15 years after the original in some cases, is something the devs back then would not have let through, judging on all the times I’ve watched their streams, read interviews, tweets etc…
Using layering would have changed up the whole game experience, and that experience was extremely carefully crafted and super complex, because everything was interwoven. Change 1 thing, and 20 other things change, which change 40 other areas, etc.

Besides, at the end of the day, we don’t have a time machine. Neither of us can say what they would or wouldn’t have done, we can only guess. And I’d guess, they’d use their improved tech, but not let anything interfere with the games very delicate design directly.

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I still have yet to see a single valid reason that isn’t something like “MUH FEELZ” that shows a negative of layering.

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225

Probably because you have those “Blizz can do no wrong” goggles crazy glued to your face :slight_smile:

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226

Nah.

There’s plenty wrong with BfA. Even if I still play it sometimes.

With Classic, there are a few things wrong. If they’re leaving the wall-walking and boundary escaping bugs in the game, that’s wrong.

If they’re leaving world-boss kiting in the game, that’s wrong.

Nothing is wrong with layering, however. Beyond the bugs they have yet to fix with it.

227

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
/wave

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That’s the issue y’all here having with classic vs vanilla. They are not equal. They are recreating the game not the experience. The experience won’t be the same. You can’t have 04 wow in 19.

Layering is an answer to a 2019 problem. These are things 04 blizzard didn’t have to worry about. 250k at launch. We are going to see atleast 4x that amount of people at launch.

Accept this as a reality and your time with classic will be much better.

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229

There’s factors you can’t change. One of them is time, and the natural changes coming with it.
What they however do have full control over, is the games design. And Blizzard currently actively chooses to alter that fundamental vanilla game design to fit modern expectations of easy access to the game at launch, and the period thereafter, over authenticity.

It’s not like they don’t have the capability to take on this many more people.
Just like times changed, so has their tech, which has massively improved and is capable of dealing with a modern launch, because it’s also on modern levels of quality.
They even stated themselves how powerful and stable their tech is compared to back then, and how just how many tons of people they can service with it, especially with a game like Vanilla that has so much old code that new tech can easily handle, unlike their tech was able to 15 years ago.

Layering is not needed. The game doesn’t depend on it. Blizzard sees an issue (tourists and the instability in terms of population health they could bring, and all the manual labor they’d have to put in to balance this early on), and they take out their hammer (layering) to try fix their perceived problem with it, but harming the whole game and it’s community for it cause it changes up the whole game dynamics.

It changes the design, and will give the wrong first impression to new and old players when they come back to the game, playing the “layered Classic” version from Day 1 instead of the full “Classic” game that only unlocks weeks or months after layering gets taken out.
By then, people will have already made their choice whether to leave or to stay, and they asses that choice based on the false, “layered Classic” version of the game, which is not like the real deal at all.
No one wins in the long run from this. It’s not a “necessary evil”. It’s just an “evil”.

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