Servers are better now.
PCs are better now.
We’re not playing on toasters connected to microwaves.
There is no reason to shard.
First week it’s starter zones, then the wave is in tier 2 areas… and they’re sharded “for a few weeks”. Now the masses are in tier 3 zones and the sharding has spread…
DO NOT LET SHARDING INFECT EVEN ONE ZONE OR IT WILL CONSUME AZEROTH!
You are not going to have 1000 people in a starting zone at one time. maybe 300 at peak hours.
Blizzard has also said that they were looking at sharding due to a competition for resource and quest issue and not a hardware limitation issue.
Sorry, I must make it clear to Blizzard that you do not speak for everyone and that sharding the starting zones for a limited launch window is preferable to any other solution.
And while they have not confirmed in exact statements that it will be used for launch, I believe Brockthorn is correct. Reading between the lines, it seems pretty clear that they are saying just enough to get the player base prepared for its inclusion at launch.
To this point, it’s looking as if Classic is shaping up perfectly for me. Sharding at launch, right-click reporting with auto-squelch, battle.net integration, chat spam protections, the old talent trees, the pre-BC world, weapons skills, original music, one sub to all of World of Warcraft (short of having to box-cost the newest xpac)…
Classic is looking amazing so far.
How many zones would they be willing to shard.
I think the experience would be worth it, to see how many players are actually in your area at one time. Sharding will destroy that experience. All for the convenience of a few.
NO SHARDING
Agree
Having multiple servers just sounds like sharding with extra steps.
As many as are necessary. The main difference is that even with sharding, some people are going to fly through it, some people are going to corpse run to another starting zone because they want to, and some will take their time.
Some people won’t even bother getting out of the starting zone because they don’t like the feel of Classic.
The zones after the starting zones are larger, there is a larger pool of quests available, and there won’t be as many people in the same tiny spot at the same time. Sharding launch areas is a necessary evil. Beyond that, not so much.
YES SHARDING.
Is terrible.
Good.
More than you might think.
You forgot to reply in the other thread:
Asking in chat is not the same as meeting people in the world while doing things. Do you understand or do you need me to explain this further?
It may not be the same, but you stated that sharding prevents you from playing with people in the same zone. It does not.
And even then, you won’t be in a shard by yourself, so there will still be people to meet without chatting.
You will meet people in the world with sharding, unless you’re one of those people who thinks sharding creates a personal shard for every individual person?
That’s the authentic classic experience! But seriously, the problem is if they use mega sized servers at the start are they going to lower server caps later on? Or will we just need sharding any time there’s a population influx? So every time there’s a content draught on live or every time they drop the next content bucket on classic? I honestly don’t think blizzard will be able to not shard later if they shard at the start.
I rolled a new character on a fresh server at TBC launch, which I feel like will be a similar volume event to what classic launch will be, and it was chaotic and I definitely got dc’d a time or two, but I don’t remember people rage quitting wow forever over a DC or some lag.
Except the player controls which server they play on? Servers don’t change without notice or control? So no it really doesn’t?
and that’s the problem.
it does reduce the number of people you run into though. which is kind of anethema to the whole “MMO” aspect.
it does reduce how many people you run into. so yes it has issues. furthermore, how many times have you run up to a node to harvest only to have it go away due to sharding?
It’s not a problem, but go ahead and keep believing that if it helps you sleep at night.
Nope. “MMO” is not some arbitrary number. MMO only means that there are many people playing the game at once, not that you are required to see or interact with all of them at once.
no. the problem is that they start with “were sharding only starting zones” and even you said you only want the starting zones sharded. and now you’ve moved onto as many as neccesary.
now city raids are dead
now tm vs ss is dead
now the dynamic of world boss raids changes completely.
the whole point of MMOs is to interact with others. especially classic.
why do you think so many rares and elites require groups?
why do you think dungeons require groups? why do you think raids require groups?
why do you think so many of the best rewarding quests require groups?
the fact is that it doesn’t feel like an mmo with sharding in the slightest. i see far less people out there
Which you can still do with sharding.
sharding actively reduces the number of people i see and thus can interact with. that is the problem.
remember in vanilla when you would run by another player and they would trade buffs?
much less likely to happen.
heck how i got into my vanilla guild would be much less likely to happen with sharding.
no thanks.
furthermore even if you have shown your true colors. not too long ago you were saying to shard only the starting zones. now your saying to shard as much as neccesary. no. absolutely not.
Yes.
No, as interacting with someone can be done via chat and party invites also. You’re hung up on this “I need to see everyone”, when you don’t. It’s as simple as chatting in the zone general chat to find a group.
Happened plenty for me in the demo. I gave a ton of players MotW. Even chased a mage that gave me AI down so I could buff them in return.
This is what I prefer. And as another poster said earlier… I doubt it will be needed at all after the initial launch rush as login times stagger.
Do I want it everywhere? Not really. Do I care if it is everywhere after launch? I won’t throw a fit, even if I don’t like it.
that’s not the only type of interactions.
for example - exchanging buffs with someone you see.
or for example - when i was leveling in vanilla.
i had a mage trade me some free food.
later i saw the same mage aoe grinding.
i saw a horde hunter kite mobs through his blizzard.
i helped the mage kill the mobs and then the hunter.
he then invited me to his guild.
stuff like that? won’t happen as often with sharding.
but it ain’t going to happen nearly as often with sharding now is it?
also it effects the resources of the server.
you may not. but clearly plenty of us here are ready to quit. sharding is about as anti mmo as you can get. it actively splits up the playerbase. and that is a problem.