Let’s say the normal server population is 3000. A server has 6000 people on it, so it gets two layers.
If each layer is meant to support 3000 players, then all nodes gathered on those layers are intended and not “injected” or “+1” to what it’s intended to support. If you had to layer to get nodes someone was farming on the other layer, you did nothing but grab nodes needed and intended to support 6000 players. If you had 6000 people competing for a single layer’s profession nodes them the economy would crash and things would be way too expensive.
No, you’re wrong because you are looking at it as a layer-specific comparison.
The resources of the SERVER are intended to supply the ENTIRE SERVER. On low pop servers you have a resource abundance because of high supply/low demand. On high pop servers you have a resource shortage because of low supply/high demand.
Using layers to equalize these things that have historically always been a problem is not the solution and in a sense helps destroy the “authentic” classic experience.
If you rolled on a high pop server you knew this would be an issue. Blizz shouldn’t be propping up the economy as a short term solution because when they remove layering in the future it will crash even harder because people will be accustomed to a certain price/availability of resources.
This sentence here was exactly my point, so I’m not sure where you are failing to understand how layering hardly has any effect on the economy. If a server has 12000 active players on it then it its going to need X number of layers to support the economy. You know, because layers add up to the server and “The resources of the SERVER are intended to supply the ENTIRE SERVER.”
No layers for that many players means there’s way to many people and way too little resources and the economy crashes.
What? Okay so let’s remove the layer component and let’s talk about just a single server with a population within the bounds of what would fit in a single layer.
Now let’s say that said server is low population. This is bad and not intended game play. The economy in such a scenario is crap, and this situation has no bearing on layering. Also, a low population does not equate to “high supply low demand” it equates to low supply and low demand, which creates extremely variable prices that can never stabilize.
Okay so now let’s move to a high population server, but high population that still meets the requirements to have just one layer. This is the intended game play experience. This does not create “low supply high demand”. This creates high supply and high demand. This creates normal buyers and sellers markets that fluctuate as people decide what to farm. Prices stabilize for the most part but prices move up and down depending on what’s being farmed. And people will farm things that are demand and stop farming what’s flooded and the economy is moving and cyclic in this manner.
Layering does not in any way effect this - all it does is make sure there’s enough resources to keep the economy fulfilled for the amount of active players on the entire server (all layers added together because the AH is not layered).
Except it wouldn’t because all 3500 players wouldn’t be active at the same time, they maybe would get another layer at peak times. Another layer might be more consistently open for a 4500-5000 population server but at that point it’s hardly different than any other medium server at 2000-2500 players.
I never said layering had no effect on the economy, only that it would have little effect on the economy.
1K needles looks like a casino in Las Vegas… The Shimmering Flats had so many people and roving bands running in circles mowing down anything that moves that you can’t get anything done…
Took me 3 days to finish those quests WITH layering… could not imagine what it would be without…
On the upside, it’s really been a significant buff to my Gnomish Cloaking Device. If I ever use it when Alliance see me, they just assume I hopped to a different layer and that I no longer exist.