Discussion for Removing Layers in Classic WoW

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Hello WoW Classic Community,

Classic WoW launched with layers 6 years ago as a “necessary evil” to deal with the initial launch rush in zones like Elwynn Forest and Durotar. Multiple times the developers stated they would be removing layers and that layers were meant to be temporary.

Layers have hurt the game long enough. It’s time to make good on the original promise of removing layers.

  1. Layers were always dseigned to be temporary “…as we go to phase two, of having all layers stable and having a single layer for each realm as the end state.” - Ion Hazzikostas
  2. Layers kill the Vanilla WoW community feeling. If you try to meet up with your friend in Stormwind…chances are he’s on another layer.
  3. Layers wreck the economy. Bots take advantage of the extra layers to camp herbs and mining nodes. A single layer with faster node spawns would have less botting, as the bots would be easily identified and reported. (and also killed on PvP servers

What should Blizzard do to remove layers and lessen their impact?

  • Upgrade server architecture. A 15000 player server on architecture designed for 3000 players means we HAVE to have 3+ layers for the game to function. Except…the original player caps were created with 2004 server technology. It’s time to upgrade the hardware so layer caps can drastically increase
  • Create Layering 2.0. “Other” servers have high playercounts, and solve layering through methods like “layering only the cities” so that the game world is packed, even with thousands of players.

Layering must go.

If you have additional ideas to facilitate the end of layering, please share them. And if you agree (or disagree) with the idea of removing layering, please comment in the thread with your ideas.

Your comment in this thread will add to the discussion to make layering a thing of the past. With your help, we can solve the layering problem once and for all.

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yea iv never been a fan of layers, people often abuse them to escape pvp encounters.

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PvP is one of many casualties of layering. Events (PvE ones, PvP ones, anything) are much less awesome with layering. Showing off your cool loot you got from Naxxramas to other players. Could put 100 things on that list.

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Petition threads are not allowed lol

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Hi Keineschuhe,

I’m sorry about that. I have re-titled the thread to be a discussion within the guidelines now. (hopefully)

What do you think about layers in Classic? Are they necessary or is it time for them to go?

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the zones won’t get any bigger, the mobs won’t become more numerous even with the newest technology.

The game world is packed … that’s not how WoW should feel. It should be sparsely to moderately populated with the exceptions being towns, quest hubs and dungeon entrances.

… but this can only be done by opening more servers with a hard pop cap … and as mega servers is FOTM it won’t happen.

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Yep 1000%

Layers are just another big reason along with many others why I don’t want to play their battered servers anymore.

Where’s Ion at? What happened to temporary?

Mega servers are trash and make the game worse. All because what, the unemployed can find a deadmines group at 4am?

The benefit of mega servers is an illusion. The game world itself was designed for few people. 2019 caps were fine imo and the limit. Adding 8 layers on a server or essentially 8 “vanilla servers” stacked on top of each other still shares 1 economy not 8 and we have all seen how that works out.

If you are worried about dying servers, (you wont have to if the game is good) just make east and west coast cluster servers, that way everyone knows if their server “just dies one day” they know their server will be merged within their cluster, and all realms will still be cross linked regardless for bgs etc anyways.

Part of the reason the server fiasco back in 2019 happened is because Blizzard perpetrated it with paid transfers. Just dont do this. People will understand their choice of which cluster they pick matters. You dont need to kill servers with paid transfers, if you want to mentize, you will be doing so soon with the WOW token anyways, just throw mounts, name changes, vanity stuff, whatever on the shop.

And honestly if they are gonna layer it regardless no discussion, just layer cities like you say., not carbon copies of the entire server when noones in deadwind pass anyways, for example. - I guess this would be sharding certain zones. IF, SW, whatever. All the fun zones like STV/ BRM etc are supposed to be jam packed. Thats just classic man. Thats what the game is.

the game can never just be 100% cozy and insulated. Otherwise its boring. Friction is part of what makes the game good. Notice how lie 2019 was and now low T all their other servers since then are now.

If the game is good your servers wont die. Classic era has been going strong for 7 years now. Obviously it is not for everyone as it is static, but its a great example that good foundations/good games wont just randomly die for no reason.

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Grobbulus had a balanced ratio, was high population and had a great economy in 2019. There is nothing wrong with high population but there is an issue with layers and botting. There are other ways to handle economy issues than limited server size. The main way is gold sinks.

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I also think the “giant server” ecosystem doesnt matter as much for progressive realms for a alot of reasons. One big reason is the current MOP game is heavily instanced based. That technically starts in tbc forward

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I’m talking about for the creation of classic+ though not progression. It is very possible to maintain great economy but drastic optional gold sinks have to be included for long term 5+ years. An example would be a mount only black market auction house with each item starting bid at 25k gold. Once players start getting that amount of gold, you’d be theoretically removing 50k to upwards half a million weekly if it got to that point from bids. That’s gold just removed from the realm completely. Either end of this spectrum weekly would vastly lower prices on the AH.
Now let’s say we are on naxx, t1 could be thrown onto the black market auction house with huge starting bids only. 5k+ starting. You are again removing 5k+ gold permanently from the realm.

As for which mounts, add the ones that were in early vanilla. The colorations of mounts that were removed early on in vanilla. This being the only way to get the mount colors will make bids highly contested

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We have seen recently with “other” servers that the layer cap can be increased a //lot// and feel a lot better. A sparsely populated game was not the original promise in 2019. We have consistently 3 layers, where it could be one and the game would work better. Currently 3 layers means a safe haven for bots, 3 layers means not being able to see your friends ingame, it’s not what the game was about.

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No, it so was not. Tight-knit communities, and guilds that mattered, Friends and foes … that was what the game was all about, not mega-servers.

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Isn’t Grobbulus in Era a server that has no layers?

:woman_shrugging:

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It has layers.

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On Era? Are you sure? Like, can you provide some steps to confirm this, because I’m not seeing any using Nova World Buffs (perhaps I’m doing something wrong).

:woman_shrugging:

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Thought you meant Grobbulus on MoP Classic. I have no idea about the other Grobbulus, wasn’t even aware of another one.

Definitely has layering on MoP Classic.

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Oh okay, yeah I meant Grobbulus on Era, not MoP.

It has no layers.

:woman_shrugging:

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Wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually add layers though tbh. Then they’ll say, “it’s only temporary”

:sob:

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I’m not sure what would prompt this statement, but Grobbulus (Era) only has like 2 raiding guilds. It would have to have a significantly larger population to warrant layers.

IIRC, it may have had layers at one point in time, but there were requests from the community to not have them on the RP PvP server, and I believe they were turned off for this reason. I could be misremembering, but I think that’s accurate.

Here are some historical threads discussing layers (or lack thereof) on Grobbulus:

Anyway, it has been a few years, but I think layering was turned off on Grobbulus on May 14th, 2020 and has not been turned on again since. Of course, this is relevant for Era only, and not for WoW Classic Progression.

:woman_shrugging:

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People who actually want layers in a regular vanilla aren’t the classic players they think they are

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