Blizzard, if you don't make your next blue post about how sharding is NOT going to be in the game

Personally I don’t care about sharding. I’m going to be in instances most of the time anyways (dungeons and BGs).

Funny story- they didn’t handle it, which is why the game was a poop show when anyone was funneled into the same area. Or, it was handled by opening more servers, which caused the monstrosity of dead servers you see today. Bad plan.

I don’t want sharding any more than you do, but this ultimatum stuff is comically misguided. Nobody here wants their game quality reduced to garbage to “have it the way it used to be” but that’s exactly what you’re asking for.

I would say 1-20 is a more realistic estimate. Even in Vanilla WoW, you could get to level 10 fairly quickly. Not nearly as fast as you can today – but it was still possible.

Breaking the shards out to level 20 means that the gap in player population should be large enough to break sharding without having overcrowded zones. By then a lot of the ‘flash in the pan’ players will have left classic for their mains.

Without the lvl 1 heirloom mount, and the slow respawn rate of quest mobs, I don’t think you’ll need it past level 1-10.

Honestly I don’t think it’s that complicated. If blizzard actually deems it necessary for launch and they say it will only be specifically there for launch and nothing else, then we should either just deal with it, or not play until it’s gone and then all is okay.

After all the news we have gotten regarding classic WoW we should get the hint by now that blizzard is not messing around with making this thing authentic and if this is what they think is best then I will take their word for it.

You have to REALLY be tinfoil hat to be on the side of “BUT WHAT IF THEY LEAVE IT ON”, especially after the update we just got.

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I think it boils down to this. If Blizzard overuses sharding at launch… or is tempted to use is more than they stated. People will stop playing.

I would rather not see sharding used at all, but am willing to accept that it may help with the launch stability. For me though if 11,000-12,000 players can be online in a single server on some hosted solution. Then I can’t really understand why Blizzard cannot do it on what must be state of the art servers optimized for MMO activity.

The last Blue post especially reinforces my confidence that they WANT to provide an authentic server based experience:

I don’t think they will use sharding at all unless it is absolutely necessary. And if they do need to… I feel fairly confident that it will only be as much and for as little time as possible.

I do side with the OP in that if this isn’t a fairly accurate reproduction of Classic… i too will bail fairly early on. I cannot stand what WoW has become… and want the WoW I know and love to play. This is as close as I’ll ever come.

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It’s not a matter of giving up, it’s a matter of understanding and being respectful.

It’s possible to argue for something without threats, acting like you are the only verdict of the matter, and belittling others.

I know this will likely be a hard concept for you to understand given your previous replies though.

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Well, Vanilla WoW isn’t designed to have that many people online on 1 server at a time. If Classic has a player cap that high, then they will have to add dynamic spawns which is not something Vanilla had.

I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t play Classic if they added any form of sharding. After waiting 10+ years to play again, I like to think I’m more reasonable than that.

In retrospect, did I really want queues during launch back then? No. Did I want server instability during launch back then? No

Was it forgivable? Yes, it was. If it wasn’t, I doubt I would have had all the great memories to share beyond launch.

But I also believe, now, that if sharding had been implemented zone wide, my experience would have been much different. It would never have been vanilla.

So why wouldn’t I forgive Blizzard for using sharding to eliminate queues and stabilize the server in the launch area?

But that’s my line.

Wait three weeks until the initial rush is over to start playing.

TA-DA!!!

You can have your convenience and classic does not have to have the game cancer that is sharding forced upon it.

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I mean, we don’t even really know how long they intend to have sharding on, if they decide they have to do sharding at all.

Actually it would be two changes… more than the 2000-ish people allowed to be logged in at the same time AND dynamic spawns.

But which is more vanilla like? A server where people phase out to another shard with mobs spawning “Vanilla like”… or a bunch of people in a zone killing mobs that spawn in a way that FEELS like it’s as much as vanilla spawned with 2000 people on it?

Which would feel like a more exciting launch? A massive number of people running around… or people you were chasing down for a kill being phased out mid fight?

No, we do not. I chose three weeks because that was the amount of time chosen by the person to whom I responded.

Why is it perfectly acceptable to expect those that desire a true, non sharded classic experience to wait to begin playing, but unreasonable to even suggest that those who want the convenience that sharding provides wait until the initial rush is over?

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Good thing Vanilla’s concurrent player cap is around 3k then.

Ah, the old “I’ll spam the forums to be heard tactic” Good thing Blizzard has a report for spam option.

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Yeah. Being from larger private servers, I’d be fine with anything around 5000. I’m used to the larger caps and the insane zergs at this point. Most people won’t be able to handle it.

It’s a big reason why I don’t have a lot of issue with sharding. I believe it is against the spirit of the game to have a situation where you are engaging a world boss and having multiple shards, some of which show up and are forced into a PvP engagement while watching another group buff up without any resistance.

It’s a tough call to be sure, and it’s why I’m glad they are keeping it to the starting zones, or hope they do. Spending the first 2 weeks to adjust and regulate the potential insane zergs is smart on Blizzard’s side. And they know long-term, players would be furious to have it happen down the road when people are spread out.

First, define “starter zones” and a time limit for “temporarily”.

Second, are you going to come back here and publicly apologize if Blizzard EVER uses sharing outside those “starter zones” or beyond that “temporary” time limit? That includes the AQ event, BTW.

If there are 1000 people in Silithus for the AQ event and Blizzatd shards Silithus, then sharding wasn’t just in the starter zones or “temporarliy” at launch, was it?

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You going to do a roll call for that event.

If there’s 1000 or two shards of 500. It won’t be noticed.

Not that I am saying the should keep shard but to use that as a way to attack sharding is a stretch.

Other than at launch, if they allow 12k people on a server without any kind of sharding, will you have about 2000 people in a zone at 1 time. And dynamic spawns will never feel like vanilla, because having mobs just respawning constantly to be able to complete quests without ever having to stop and wait for them to respawn is not vanilla.

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To be honest, it’s not likely that the servers will have such a high (10k+) population cap. I could be wrong, yeah. I would really like a post talking about how servers are going to work, actually. Everything from population cap to names and number of servers.

That said, I’d bet that they’re not using physical servers anyway and can almost materialize new ones out of thin air if they need them. Not literally of course, but now I wonder how long it takes for them to spin up a new dedicated virtual server.

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