Realm 3:
Was busy at the start, queues for mobs, expected but was still fun since it was the start of a server. Started to get less busy the further from the start I got.
When I was 15 I went to Gurubashi arena with a friend to get into some pvp action. No one was there and got the chest uncontested 3 different times. On the third I asked in general if anyone wanted to fight for the chest (was getting desperate) . No reply so I whispered someone in Stranglethorn (10 people were there using /who) and asked if they were at the arena. He was and got the chest uncontested as well so I asked him to invite me into his layer. I also asked if he saw my message in general chat and he said he didn’t.
I do like layering for the starting zones otherwise it would be a nightmare, but I have to say I did not like my time in Stranglethorn with regards to layering, even though there was only 10 people in stranglethorn we happened to be in different layers so couldn’t see each other or chat to each other in general chat. I had to manually whisper someone to see what they were doing in Stranglethorn with a level 15 at 12am if they weren’t at the arena. This also made me wonder if this was why I couldn’t see anyone and got no replys when trying to form a group quest in redridge even though there were tonnes of people there (using /who)
I don’t have a solution just saying that layering did take something out of the experience.
Final note, I will say that the guy I whispered at the arena grouped with me and my friend and we went and killed Yowler in redridge which was a battle as he was 25 and we were 15, this was a great experience and the 4 stam and 2 spirit ring wasn’t bad either ![:wink:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
but this was almost missed due to layering
Played the Beta one more time last night. Finished leveling to 15, then did Deadmines and 1 warsong gulch. Biggest problem I’ve noticed was that Line of Sighting npc’s doesn’t work properly. Which makes pulling ranged mobs as a Paladin really difficult. Often mobs will see you through walls or even walk through them to get to you. This was all on Server 3, pretty much the whole time on the stress test from what I’ve seen.
1 Like
Gubba on Classic Realm 3.
- Was it too crowded, even for a launch day experience?
Got on after work, few hours after launch and the server felt dead as anything even though “high population”
- Did it feel too empty or too crowded after you moved to the second zone?
As above but worse.
1 Like
Realm 15 (PVP)
- Was it too crowded, even for a launch day experience?
It didn’t feel overly crowded, but respawn times for mobs were horrible. Literally had to debate not doing quests just to move on and couldn’t just kill mobs to gain XP instead because there were literally no mobs to kill.
- Did it feel too empty or too crowded after you moved to the second zone?
It felt very empty at times and the layering was having an adverse effect. Really hope that higher level zones don’t keep us from playing with other players because of the layering. It would be nice to just see someone and in a say message ask if they want to group…often times there were few people to do that with.
Server 15 was ridiculously crowded, which is to be expected when there are only two servers to choose from right now and every NA player with an active account was invited. My husband and I gave up on the starter quests and just went out killing everything we could find to try and get some levels.
Even grouping was a pain because most of the people we ran into either had a full party already or only wanted to solo stuff. The second zone was less full, though we kept running into packs of people at times.
The only issue I have with layering is the amount of time it takes for us to shift into another one. When my husband invited me to a group, it took me at least 20 seconds to be able to see his character.
Played for a few hours this morning starting around 1 am PDT on server 12. I am not sure this layering is a good idea.
So many players make dwarfs or night elfs because they can level up in those starting areas and they can’t in the human starting area and then move to the human zones to quest later. I wonder if this is what is causing the problems with no mobs to kill problem since layering is supposed to take care of the population issue but if the entire population is questing in one area it doesn’t.
I was questing in westfall and even though this early in the morning there isn’t all that many people around there is an awful lot of hunting for mobs to kill for quests because the respawn rate is so slow.
Layering’s intention is to keep multiple server pops on 1 server so that when the “tourists” leave the server’s aren’t decimated. I’ve read some numbers of a 20% assumed retention rate but I don’t think anyone official posted it.
I know what the intention is but it only fixes part of the problem. The mobs actually do need to be adjusted for the numbers of players in an area as well - just like it was originally.
There is literally no good reason to make it SLOWER than it was originally.
I was on Realm 3 Thurs afternoon and there was anywhere between 10 and 20 people near me at any given time. I liked that because you had to group up if you wanted to get anything done. I think it was perfect.
Even if there was way more people and layering didn’t exist I’d be cool with that. People will move onto the next zone eventually even if the servers get a little overcrowded, and in the mean time you get to hang out & talk to people all over the world who love Vanilla WoW. To me that’s a positive thing and would make the launch day experience all the more special, but idk if that’s something most people are looking for in 2019 or not. I love the social aspects of the game just as much as I enjoying leveling up and completing dungeons though.
Realm 15. 9PM Pacific.
Started a new character last night - Undead. Starting area felt fine. I have to echo my statements from yesterday that a place only feels crowded when people are competing for mob spawns. Otherwise, at NO time did I feel like it was really too crowded from a visual perspective (like Ironforge did back in the day).
Regardless, I’m not complaining about any of it. I feel I have to mention that just because someone feels a place is overcrowded doesn’t mean they don’t like it ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
too many people
too many people camping mobs
Slow spawn rates.
locked mobs are dumb.
I quit playing after five minutes.
kthx.
1 Like
Playing last night, Night Elf Druid, 6/20/19, evening, on the Classic Realm 2 server. It was a bit crowded, and still hard to get a tag on mobs to complete quests. I helped a friend in the evening hours, and by that time I was past level 5 and had moonfire, which made tagging mobs much easier!
The game ran smooth, no real issues.
I did find that the /roar did the motions, but not the yell.
I have seen that number before as it relates to data on free to play MMOs. (Don’t have the link right now.)
Well… gave me something to play which was good… now to sit and twiddle my thumbs while waiting for the next chance to play classic…
Really wish you would just open up beta… not having any games worth playing at the moment blows…!
1 Like
At first, was crowded, but it forced me to party up with people and created a fun environment trying to compete with people to tag mobs at the starting area.
When I deleted and tried Server 3, it was almost dead, only around 3-4 players on at the time, so we were layered into playing with ourselves.
Got to Westfall, that’s about as far as we got. Was not fun when there were hardly anyone around.
Hey Blizzard. Here’s what I noticed.
First night starting zone was really crowded. Basically unplayable except for the memes.
Second zone was also really crowded and difficult to quest.
in contrast the major city Org felt empty. This brings me to my main issue.
Layering in major cities:
This was really bad for selling things directly to players. I would post something for sale in trade chat, only to find they were in another layer and unable to invite me without messing up their WSG ques. I don’t know what the solution is here, but I really like using trade chat to sell to players. Its the social/capitalist experience that I really miss from the game. Can you create a way to determine if I’m whispering someone, and they’re nearby, I join their layer? The social joy of opening a trade with a player is really fun and can have cool unexpected gift giving/good vibes.
I was on realm 13 at 9pm when this occured.
Also the crocs in-between barrens and durotar will vanish when attacked outside of the water. they run at you, make 2-3 attacks and dispensary.
To many players or not, the dismal mob respawns are what made it boring.
Walking all over the place LOOKING for a mob, is not FUN. Having YELLOW insta spawns would allow everyone to play their toons, not just push pixels around a map all day.
Seeing too many other players is nothing, if there are enough mobs to kill, then no problem.
1 million players, I can see all at once, will not make it feel FULL, if there are no mobs, then it’s FULL and too many people.
mobs vs players - more mobs up and available at all times, won’t matter how many people are there, nobody is standing around, that’s what makes it FUN.
my 2 cents
2 Likes
mobs needs to respawn faster only in the starting areas. it’s just way too bottlenecked. even with 4 other people in your group helping it’s still hard as everyoen is fighting over the minimal amount of mobs available. once you get out of the starting area the game is fine, but a lot of people are going to be turned off and just log out since it takes 2-3 hours just to get to lvl 5
1 Like
Started a Troll Warrior on Realm 14 when the servers opened up. The starting zone went very smooth and was able to reach level 5 before Omar Thanosed 80% of the realms including the one i was on.
Remade the Warrior on realm 3 and spent a lot of time just trying to get 10 boars killed. I don’t have a lot of experience with Classic so leaving the starting area and grinding higher level mobs never crossed my mind. i was in a group of four friends throughout most of the first night and questing took a long time. Lots of dead bodies of quest mobs on the ground and getting tags was hard without anything instant to tag with. Named quest mobs such as Sarkoth and Zalazane’s spawns were surrounded by 4 or 5 5-man groups at all times. Everyone standing in a circle spamming their instant casts or start attack macros.
Sen’jin Village and Echo Isles quests were very contested as well. Tigers and Trolls were being massacred as soon as they spawned. I was the unofficial leader of our group and I made the bad decision of island hopping to look for mobs instead of camping one island and waiting.
I checked my /played before writing this and it took me 14 hours to get from 1-15. Did quests mostly and spent a little time in RFC trying to 4-man it with my friends (we were between levels 11-13, this went okay until Tara the felguard ate my lunch). There was some gnarly lag on day one at peak hours, looting and vendoring were the most noticeable issues during this time.
The one thing that bothered me was getting invited to a friends group and having all the mobs I had fought my way through instantly respawn at the same time and take revenge on me. I also killed my friend with an invite on a couple occasions. I know that this isn’t a good solution probably but perhaps when you get moved to a different layer you should be ported to the nearest Graveyard or something. It might keep you from killing your friends with invites but it also might alleviate some of the layer hop farming and gank evasion we have seen in the Beta. I know it would suck to get ported to a seemingly random area if you were questing when you take an invite from a friend who just logged on but it might save repair costs. The run back would probably be faster as a ghost though.
TL;DR
I enjoyed my time in the test very much. I think all my friends did too. We did get a little frustrated with the starting zone and the Echo Isles due to mob scarcity and the circle jerk that was trying to get a tag on named mobs. It smoothed out on day 2 though except if you get put in a new layer when you log in the game can feel pretty dead.
2 Likes
A whole lot of people didn’t read this part and are treating the thread like a conversation.