I don’t understand how people can assume everyone who is going to play Classic is going to log in as soon as the game launches and that will be the highest population ever. I have no idea what will actually happen, but I don’t understand how people can be so sure given the number of variables including the potential for every person who’s ever played and their friends who haven’t to join the game at sometime in the future.
You’ve never said how you would be affected by layering. A bad game might not be overcrowded, but that doesn’t improve the experience for the players who may or may not have played the game. Some people will assume the entire game is just like the starting area.
Standing around waiting for a mob to spawn is not a good thing. Grouping with people who never say a word doesn’t mean it’s suddenly a community. Whatever your reasoning is it’s probably one of three reasons: “Vanilla didn’t have layering”, “it builds community”, “layering will cause so many problems” My experience in Vanilla was back in 2005 and the starting zone experience was a good one. My Human starting zone experiences on the stress tests have been tedious and I’ve leveled up two characters through it.
What was your experience like in the Human starting zone in the stress tests?
That’s not the assumption being made. It’s that there will be a [censored]-ton of people on launch day that will attempt to login, and the starting areas (and most likely the next areas) will be HEAVILY populated. The stress test simulates that very narrow band of time which will be the heaviest period (see past xpac release experiences for confirmation).
What happens after that initial sledge-hammer blow is that the population will spread out into other areas, diluting the impact on the servers. The stress test did not measure the impact of that time-frame, just what’s likely to happen on day 1 and/or day 2 when everybody and their brother, sister, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, best friend, close acquaintance, next door neighbor, and pet cat/dog tries to get on 30 seconds after release.
That’s all it was supposed to do. The Beta deals with everything else.
First off, only people who wanted to play on the stress test played and only those with active subscriptions could do so. The numbers at launch could spike once on launch day then everyday as people return from work and then could spike on the weekends, then spike as people got their friends to play. Players may decided their first character wasn’t what they wanted and they could start a new character. The numbers on launch day could also be just a starting point if the game gains popularity. The starting areas could be crowded for much longer than just a week.
Secondly Past expansion launches are not the equivalent of the Classic’s launch. Other expansions have made their starting areas much larger and used sharding and dynamic respawns to make the first zones more enjoyable. The starting zones in Classic are tiny and some are much more popular than others.
There was no sharding in TBC, and it opened up with a starting ZONE, not a starting area within that zone. There was no sharding in WotLK, and it opened up with TWO starting zones. Past xpac launches are the ONLY place you can find similar data, and each xpac on its launch day had queues and greatly increased lag until sharding was implemented.
As for who played the stress test, “who” was/is not important. The idea was “how many” can we get in there before things start slowing down? That purpose was met, according to the feedback.
I didn’t say TBC has sharding and me calling the starting zone a starting area isn’t accurate, but you get my point. An entire zone with tons of quests and quest mobs.
There is no historical data for a 15 year old beloved MMO being brought back as close as it could be to it’s original form. There is no way to know based on other expansions what will happen.
Rare and expensive trade goods are farmed at a rate equal to the number of layers in a single realm, then dumped into a single economy.
Inviting between layers will make world PvP an utter disaster, people appearing and disappearing near or even right on top of you.
Layering, depending on how it’s implemented, will purposely split the playerbase. From my understanding, it is supposed to handle an entire realm’s population per layer, yet how it appears to work in the beta and the stress tests seems to be creating layers far smaller than that.
Layering is far from an improvement to the gameplay. If you disagree, you have retail. Please leave Classic to those of us who enjoy the game as it was instead of trying to riddle it with the kinds of changes that made us dislike the game in the first place.
Some people are stupid. Who cares? They can just keep playing the game, or come back later. In either case, they’ll discover that those massively long queues or overpopulated started zones… aren’t massively long or overpopulated anymore.
In the event a player finds such large crowds to be a problem, maybe MASSIVELY multiplayer games aren’t the genre they should be playing.
Sure it is. It encourages grouping and promotes competition. Slower mob spawns and group-wide mob tagging slows the rate at which items enter the game. Fewer mobs to kill means less loot, which means less inflation.
Honestly, I could stop right here, and it’d be enough.
Vanilla didn’t have layering, and Classic is meant to be a recreation of vanilla. If we were getting “Vanilla+”, maybe you could make an argument for changes. There’s plenty of changes I like throughout the expansions, but I’d make NONE of them to Classic, because that defeats the whole purpose.
I don’t want to set a precedent for changes being made, because I don’t trust other players (or Blizzard) with the power to choose which changes are made. For every good change, there’s 20 bad ones.
It does. People will invite others to form groups. Not everyone will talk; that’s fine. It will happen enough throughout the leveling process that you’ll encounter hundreds of unique players, and you’re bound to find some who just ‘click’ with you.
Good players who are really skilled; funny players; a g.i.r.l., whatever. You’ll know their name because you saw them before. You’ll add them. Ask them to form a guild. Communities form.
Layering doesn’t stop that from happening entirely, it merely disrupts it. When you might normally be seeing those people, you’re seeing others, and others you would’ve seen you can potentially never encounter as a result. The better Blizzard manages to accomplish their proposed system for layering, the more true that is. Ideally, they want players swapping between layers as infrequently as possible.
It will.
So not during launch.
I’m a druid. Can’t play human. I played a Night Elf, and the zones felt empty. Barely saw more than 10 people while leveling.
None of that has affected you in any of the stress tests. How has layering actually affected you?
You have given zero evidence layering affected you at all in any of the stress tests. Why would a person who wants a similar experience to Vanilla want retail? Is that just what people say when they can’t come up with some good reasons to support their opinion?
How is making sure 1000 people don’t end up in a starting zone ‘riddling the game with changes’?
How long will it take for populations in the starting zones to drop? If you got terrible food at a new restaurant you tried why would you go back?
No it encourages people to be selfish a-holes. Grouping? Clearly you’ve ignored my rants on grouping in the Human starting zones. It’s just a vehicle people hop on to get their quests done and hop off when they are finished and nothing else. The people in their parties are their to serve them, silently. It was not at all like that when I played in Vanilla.
But not in a starting zone with 1000 people in it.
It doesn’t stop it at all it doesn’t affect community at all. It’s just like it was back in the day in Vanilla where the starting areas and those after it aren’t packed with thousands of players.
Vanilla launch day was one day of Vanilla and not the entire experience.
Here is a quote from a few people on the forums describing their experiences on Launch:
“my server was down for 3 days during the WoW Launch days of November 2004. A lot of people left and never returned.”
“I was there… Long queue times, constant dcs, huge lag.”
“The game went live and 3 weeks later we was able to play.”
“I was there. I almost quit completely since I couldn’t play at all for the few first weeks on my server.”
And a Quote from Ten Ton Hammer:
" When they flipped the servers on, the little light flicked from “on” to “burning on fire please help” as server queues reached the 1000s…If you got past the queues, you were greeted with latency issues, including the infamous “kneel and loot stuff for half an hour”"
Is that an experience worth having?
So clearly you have no idea what it was like in the Human starting zone, then. Of course you thought it was fine. You didn’t have to wait for 10 - 30 minutes to tag a mob and another 50 - 70 minutes to finish a single quest. I started a character in the Night Elf starting zone and it was actually a good experience. The starting zone is a lot larger and there are more quest mobs and there are fewer players starting characters there. That’s all I want in the Human starting zone, because I want to level up a Human Paladin just like the one I leveled up back in Vanilla.
So what you’re saying is, solo leveling is detrimental to the economy.
Sweet Raptor Jebus.
No, it didn’t, but it also didn’t have people standing around waiting to melee tag mobs as a caster, because you can’t get a cast off before that hunter leveling skinning tags everything. It had increased spawn rates when everything was dead. This does not have it. They’re using layering instead.
I played at launch and my experience, hell, even in the closed beta and stress tests, were nothing like this last stress test.
I remember that!!!
This brings up a good point.
People playing in areas started by less popular races had no problems, and are most often the ones complaining about it being dead. Tauren, for example. Orc/troll start area was absolutely horrendous during the stress test. I felt bad for all the casters not getting tags. There were mages and shaman everywhere, you’d see their cast animations fire off then their target would go grey.
And even with groups, there weren’t enough mobs to go around, and you can’t do quests in a raid group or I’d have tried that.
Wrong. Someone managed to get the Arena Grand Master trinket on the stress test within the first day, which should’ve been impossible if not for layering.
That same exploitation of layering will apply to any and everything gathered in the open world. Herbs? Yep. Ore? Yep. Gold from mobs? Yep.
Seeing as how I’ll be involved in my server’s economy, that most certainly will affect me, and did affect me in the stress test.
Also, one of the things I listed is something SPECIFICALLY related to the stress tests:
Okay, slavery is bad, yes? You’re capable of explaining that without ever having experienced it personally, yes?
You clearly don’t want a similar experience to vanilla if you want layering. That’s my point.
If you want layering, go play retail where it belongs. Please leave Classic alone so everyone else who actually wants vanilla can enjoy it.
Unless you actually mean the experience and not the game, in which case maybe you need a time machine, not retail, because you’ll NEVER get the same experience.
Because vanilla never made any attempts to prevent that.
And if you’re willing to make one change, I can guarantee you’re willing to make more.
I’d say two days at most. That’s about how long it’s usually been.
I wouldn’t consider a lot of people eating at a restaurant to mean the food is bad. The exact opposite in fact.
If I didn’t want to deal with the large crowd at a restaurant, I’d come back at a less busy time. Exactly like I would do in WoW… if I were so inclined.
I, however, enjoy that crowd. I enjoy my massively multiplayer online game.
I’d say trying to split the community up and ruin the game just because you can’t handle having to compete for mobs is far more selfish.
Heaven forbid you /invite someone standing around waiting for the same mobs as you. Can’t handle having to tag a mob before someone else? “Just take away competition! I never want to have to compete for mob tags!”
This is why I said you should go play retail. It’s perfectly suited to you. You don’t have to be in a group to get credit for pretty much anything. Just tag a mob before it dies.
People are less “selfish,” but they also NEVER speak. They NEVER group. Because they don’t have to.
So you admit grouping happens to facilitate faster questing. Thanks for agreeing with me.
Yeah, lots of things in the world during vanilla weren’t the way they are now.
Culture changes. People change. That doesn’t mean the game has to.
That’s probably where grouping will occur the most, as it’s where it will be most necessary to expedite the leveling process.
Once people are more spread out, there will be less competition for the same quest mobs, and thus less reason to invite others.
Excluding dungeons and raids, of course, which don’t really count, since they’re instanced, anyway.
You’re in denial if you think that’s the case.
It’s not like how it was in vanilla, because vanilla didn’t have layering. Vanilla had the same potential to be overcrowded; it merely wasn’t because it didn’t have the same interest it has now, launching again 15 years later in Classic form.
Just like how Classic launch day will be one day of Classic and not the entire experience.
So why ruin up to all of Phase 1, or the first few weeks, just to compensate for people who don’t like launch day experiences?
Yes, especially considering so much of that can be and has been improved upon with better hardware and servers. No changes.
Oh, I have an idea. I don’t have to experience it personally to know what it’s like.
Streams, forum posts, videos, etc.
So layering is unnecessary. Just roll a Night Elf. Problem solved.
No, you misread. Try again.
So what? That scenario was possible in vanilla.
So why not just have the former, since that’s how it was in vanilla?
Seems kinda silly to create and implement layering if vanilla had a solution that worked just fine.
Yeah, I’m sure this stress test was far better. I look forward to the massive crowds.
If you think layering is going to fix that by the way, you’re in for a rude awakening. It might fix queues, but with each layer housing an entire realm’s worth of players… yeah.
The data is not dependent on “what” is being brought back. Comparative data is available on “what happened” to the servers on launch day for each xpac. Blizz has the data on what happened the day original WoW launched, the day TBC launched, the day WotLK launched, the day Crapaclysm launched. That data is valid in predicting what might happen the day Classic launches.
And doing a stress test to evaluate the launch of a product is the only way to get an idea of what is going to have to be dealt with on launch day.
That did not affect you. Someone you don’t know on a server you aren’t playing on getting something you weren’t trying to get doesn’t affect you.
Explain to me how slavery is somehow an equivalent to an exploit in a game that may or may not actually go live.
I can’t believe I have to say this again…I started playing wow back in Oct 2005 there were not 200 players in the Human starting zone and I did not have to wait for mobs to respawn for 90 minutes to get through three kill quests.
This again? This from the person who wants the entire player base spread over 6 starting zone 4 of which aren’t that popular. 3000 people per server 1500ish on both sides so around 1000 people in the Human starting zone. How is that going to be enjoyable? It would take a day to get through the starting area and then another day to get through the next 3 quests. How is that enjoyment?
I looked up forum posts that people wrote about their experience 15 years ago on launch day and they got constant server crashes, constant disconnects, 1000s player queues, stuck picking up items then timing out then having another 1000 person queue then crashing for weeks. So are you telling me people are going to enjoy not being able to play for three weeks because so many people wanted the exact launch experience?
What do you base your opinion on? Feeling? Your gut instincts? Exactly how does wanting to enjoy the game just as it was back in the day mean I want more changes? Please tell me how you can guarantee I want changes?
You are one of the most frustrating people in this forum, you don’t read what people are saying or consider what they mean you just assume what they meant and go off as if you know what the other person is thinking.
I never said I had any problem with grouping up. Grouping is the only way to get past those kill quests. There are plenty of quests in the game where you need to group up and I never said I had a single problem with it. I don’t have any issues with making friends while getting through a tough quest and it’s one of the best parts of the game, but having to group up to kill level 1 boars isn’t one of those situations where any bonding happens.
You didn’t play in the human starting zone you played in the least populated zone. So you have no idea what it’s like actually playing in the Human starting zone.
Clearly you have no idea what my previous point was.
Well clearly you don’t since you’re against layering. The crowding in the Human starting zone was with layering, but you wouldn’t know anything about it since you didn’t play through it.
There are no paladin night elves. Looks who’s trying to change the game, now.
Vanilla didn’t have 100 million former and current players.
Queues were never going to be an issue. Each layer is capable of housing an entire servers worth of players that doesn’t mean they will have that many players in them. It wouldn’t make any sense to host five times the capacity of a server unless there was a guaranteed way of combining them down to a single classic server worth of players.
That data is not valid to predict how many players will be logging into classic. There are 100 million previous and current players and all of them are potential Classic players. Which expansion had a majority of the player base come back to play?
The test was not to determine how many would login. The test was to determine what the servers would do IF x number of players tried to login. It was not an attempt to quantify popularity of the release; it was an attempt to test the servers IF a certain amount tried to login simultaneously. Had nothing to do with predicting how many players would try it day 1. Had EVERYTHING to do with finding out how the servers would stand up under the load.
Try this analogy – Filling up your car’s gas tank for the first time has nothing to do with how many miles-per-gallon your car will give you. It has EVERYTHING to do with how many gallons the tank will hold.
Sure it did. However, after so many being killed at a certain rate they would increase the respawn. This could cause problems because they wouldn’t ramp down the instant people left and the people still there would get stranded.
Dynamic respawns are a good thing but layering will help to make them less necessary. A solution somewhere in-between would probably be good, a bit of an increase in spawn rate and a bit of layering to control the population needing the mobs.
Dynamic respawns are just bad, what you want? people/partys camping spawn spots? Imagine trying to do a quest and there is this group of 3 insta-attack melees, grinding (bc of dynamic respawns) and you cant do your quest but also you cant kill a mob, you go to another spot and… guess what, there is another group doing the same thing.
No thanks, I dont want that in Classic wow.
IMO I don’t think the spawn timers need to be played with too much. Instead, I think SPAWN LOCATIONS should no longer be static.
For example, Devilsaurs; there are 4 if I’m not mistaken (5 including King Mosh.) Each of the 4 Devilsaurs spawn in the exact same 4 spots each time on 15 minute timers. I vote to keep only 4 Devilsaurs but give them like 20 possible spawn locations.
I realise PvP over resources is a huge part of the game, and I love it, but I don’t wanna always have to scrounge up 10-20 guildmates to grab a few pieces of leather from the 2 or 3 guilds that camp the crater 24/7.
Grabbing 3 or so guildies and roaming the crater for spawns sounds much more fun and natural.
Also black lotus. PvP hardly even happens for that stuff. It’s free real estate for rogues and mages that have the spawn timers to CC people and grab.
Admittedly, I was spam clicking the “enter world” button while it was still grey. On my layer, I was the first to run to the quest givers in northshire. The only advantage that gave me was the first quest of vermin getting half done before everyone else began swarming in. Had to group up to get kill credits.
I managed to chop through a couple quests before it became unbearable in the area. I noticed a few guys going straight for the bandits in the vineyard, no quest, just the grind. I ended up skipping the vineyard quests. And running to gold shire at level 3 or 4.
While I was out doing the level 6+ quests, I noticed groups of 5, lvl 2-3 out working together killing higher level mobs that they could tag. These guys skipped northshire completely. it was more efficient for them to group up and take on higher levels around eastvale logging (specifically the gnolls on the N end of the lake) vs competing for tags in northshire.
I guess once the place is overrun you gotta group up and find somewhere else to do it.
Except on live servers there aren’t spawn timers for stuff like that. Instead it’s a semi-random spawn frequency with an average time. You can’t just run a timer and the herb will spawn at a definite time.
If you run a timer you’ll have to do it for the minimum time and then sit there watching for a while until it randomly appears. That’s why it can be better to run a circuit and hope to catch some of the early ones.