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

Laeth-hakkar · March 12, 2019, 2:18pm

… okay then.

Laeric-wyrmrest-accord · March 12, 2019, 2:19pm

Sounds like quite the reasonable chap, does he not?

Laeth-hakkar · March 12, 2019, 2:19pm

nods Verily.

Laeth-hakkar · March 12, 2019, 2:20pm

Why do I have the feeling you’re not actually gonna get an epiphany and be okay with sharding during your suspension?

I mean, we can hope.

Trifuser-bonechewer · March 12, 2019, 2:22pm

After what i experienced on northdale the only sharding i want is up to level 5. On northdale you would have 100 people crowded around 1 mob trying to tag it, every person there would be in a full party just to make sure the party would get credit for the kill. God that sucked. After level 5 things were still busy but it was managable enough that you werent going to have your kills stolen everywhere. Trust me, sharding (at least sharding the level 1 - 5 zones for the first week) is good for the game.

Banjaa-deathwing · March 12, 2019, 2:25pm

Boolint:

I just don’t know how i’m going to get through to you.

Sharding is anathema, it will kill the game.

If I’m playing in the barrens, I want to see every one that is there. if you use sharding to handle the load, you are being lazy. you used to be able to handle this stuff without sharding, and the fact that you are even considering using sharding means that you don’t have enough passion for this project and that you are just doing it for the money.

No Shard, No Changes. Handle it the way you used to, or drop it.

If you do use sharding, you can be sure that i won’t be playing it.

All you people who say “Oh they will just use it for the first few hours, first few days, first few months…”, you are missing the point.

Sharding is bad. Sharding is the Classic killer.

You can have a piece of junk with sharding, or a true classic experience, one or the other.

It’s time to chose, Blizzard.

But you can be sure of one thing:

If you make the wrong choice, you’re dead to me, always and forever.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again:

Sharding is the SINGLE most important and complex topic for this game, and boiling it down to “I DON’T LIKE IT WAAAAH” is either disingenuous, or stupid.

You pick.

Kresthius-stormreaver · March 12, 2019, 3:32pm

admittedly, I don’t know much about sharding other than what I’ve read. Keeping that in mind, if the plan is to keep resources small (server resources) than sharding would be beneficial in the beginning until the population stabilizes.

If the population doesn’t decrease and more servers are needed to accommodate a large population, then I can’t see Blizzard removing sharding.

Trifuser-bonechewer · March 12, 2019, 3:41pm

If i could post what pictures of northdale day one were like here then i would cause i just found the. But ill be putting something on reddit to show people the chaos of what the first day is like.

Ponchy-zangarmarsh · March 12, 2019, 3:42pm

OP - what if sharding is only used to handle initial server load and starting areas? It would not effect barrens, it would not effect anything of importance. It would just solve an issue in a reasonable and logical manner.

Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord · March 12, 2019, 3:58pm

Loial:

Here is the Elysium launch. Not as big as Light’s Hope and had more crashes.

You are literally forced to group without sharding.

Now this isn’t a bad thing, as community drives Vanilla. But it destroys early level profession progression combined with leveling. There is no chance to really conquer Elwynn during the “zerg” as us private server players call it. The only thing we care for is getting ahead. Why? So that we don’t have to stress the continued AIDS that is 800+ people at Jangolode Mine.

I am a staunch no-change guy, but on this front, I’d gladly take sharding straight to the beak and hope they focus on getting rid of right-click reporting, and talking to the community about loot trading.

On Northdale, it was worse. We had almost 14,000 players on launch. I was in the top 20 of Warriors Horde-side to get to 60, and I will tell you, Durotar was pure Hell.

There is a mob called Sarkoth you need to kill, a scorpion, in the Valley of Trials. The GMs had to literally balloon him to 500% his original size just so he could be targeted. Warriors don’t get instant casts. We have auto attack. Tagging mobs does not happen. really. You can’t “git gud” when there is 2300 Trolls and Orcs covering a spawn.

There is no “grinding” without a private server adjusted dynamic respawn FORCING nodes, chests, and mobs to respawn on kill and loot.

I see absolutely zero problem with sharding IF we are going to have 5k+ server population caps in the starting zones. Beyond 15, I agree. But even early Barrens will drain you, because the zerg is hungry for Vanilla ice cream.

I had to basically not sleep for the entire first day to get to 24, and then pull another 20 hour shift to get a few levels ahead of the zerg. Fun, yet brutal.

Be careful what you wish for.

I mean this whole post here is the exact reason why you don’t let that many people on a server at a time, especially at launch.

That said, I’m not against completely against sharding the level 1-10 zones, if they think it’ll help server populations down the line. But it has to stay within the level 1-10 zones and only for the 1st week or 2.

This is patently false. You won’t be sharded into a shard that has 0 other players in it.

Threatening Blizzard isn’t going to make them side with you.

I mean, trial accounts aren’t necessarily everyone. If I buy and sub to a game, I’m going to make it past level 10 for sure.

I mean it really doesn’t. I’m against sharding but even I know it’s not just blizzard that benefits from the use in low level zones.

It won’t get anything across.

They also didn’t have the expected player base Classic is expected to at launch

They don’t really shard RP servers. I mean they do in the cities and when it’s really crowded, but RP servers in the non-city areas are largely unsharded and they don’t use CRZ.

This is untrue. I present to you BFA.

Stimpäk-proudmoore · March 12, 2019, 4:03pm

so much reee

Mergons-terenas · March 12, 2019, 4:04pm

reeeeeeeeeeeee

Enhancelord-korgath · March 12, 2019, 4:05pm

It’s going to be a limited feature in the game that is also limited to certain levels. Just sit back another month and you won’t notice a thing.

Farminghorde-malganis · March 12, 2019, 4:07pm

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

anon36833475 · March 12, 2019, 4:07pm

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.

Atticus-aerie-peak · March 12, 2019, 4:12pm

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.

Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord · March 12, 2019, 4:15pm

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.

Enhancelord-korgath · March 12, 2019, 4:15pm

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.

Ebonee-azuremyst · March 12, 2019, 4:18pm

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.

Redheadchild-kul-tiras · March 12, 2019, 4:20pm

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.