So basically I am playing on PvP realm 3. It says the population is high, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. Last night I made a troll hunter and finished most of the quests in the Valley of Trials before logging out. There was a decent population with a fair amount of people around, but I wouldn’t say it was too many or overcrowded. As I said in the feedback thread last night, it seemed to be around thirty or so in the troll/orc starting area.
So I log in today to continue playing my hunter and am still in the Valley of Trials. I rarely saw anyone. I honestly maybe saw about 6-7 different people in my time there before moving on. Is this what you all are trying to accomplish with layering or did I get unlucky and get put on a dead layer? I at first thought maybe everyone had moved on to Durotar and the Razor Hill or Sen’jin Village area and assumed I would see more people as I moved on. But nope, I am rarely seeing anyone at all. It truly feels like playing on a dead realm and it isn’t fun.
I am absolutely loving the game itself and playing a Vanilla hunter again for the first time in many years is really taking me back and I am remembering the more I play just how much I truly loved Vanilla. But I really, really hate being on a dead layer. Oh sure, not having to really compete for mobs is a bit nice, but it doesn’t feel like an mmorpg should feel, and especially not Vanilla like.
If layering is going to be forced on us, (because I really don’t see you all doing away with it at least in the beginning unfortunately), can we please at least have the option to choose which layer we are on? You could have a thing like channels that show the population of each layer and let us choose. Let us decide if we want to be playing virtually alone or with a lot of people.
While I am so thankful you all are making the game I have been hoping for for many years and am loving the gameplay itself, it is really taking something away from the experience not seeing many people at all.
Is realm population being displayed as “high” based off active accounts on the realm (peak population yesterday being max) or based off currently logged in (ie: now)?
And I have to say, I’m not liking it. That is kind of the point of my post. It is truly taking away from the mmorpg experience to hardly see anyone around. The chat is dead and hardly going at all and a player earlier couldn’t even get any help to kill a level 11 elite. It is very different from the last two stress tests, and not in a good way, in my opinion.
I know that layering is going to be in the game in the beginning no matter if I like it or not. I have came to kind of accept that fact. But I really hate not having a choice if I am in a dead layer or a populated one. It’s why I asked if they could at least please let us choose our layers instead of forcing us into one.
Layer at it’s finest my friend. Also remember, it could depend on your zone. Classic feels like a huge world so dead spots are common, i just logged into my level 2 on the same realm i didn’t see anyone in the starting zone haha, but yesterday it was elves as far as the eye can see.
I would assume it’s being based on players currently logged in because last night realms 3 and 15 were high pop while the other two they opened were low pop. Right now realms 3 and 15 are high pop while the other two are on medium.
And last night the area I was in wasn’t packed, but had a fairly healthy population. Thirty or so people in Valley of Trials. Today? 5-6 maybe and same issue moving on to Razor Hill.
I would rather deal with packed than playing what feels like a dead game, but that’s just me. Again, I’m asking if Blizzard could at least let us choose our layer. Show the layers, show the population and let us decide if we want to be in a packed layer or dead one. We obviously don’t have a choice with layering, but maybe they could at least do that much for us.
Considering Bornakk ‘liked’ my post where I said that despite being high, it “felt” like we were a low population server, I’m sure the feedback is getting back to the developers.
It’s also late morning/early afternoon on a Thursday, so that may be why you aren’t seeing a lot of people. Also, it’s almost 24 hours later, so people are probably in the lvl 15ish zones by now, dungeoning, PvPing, etc.
It’s almost 3:30 pm here on the east coast and I bet if I were to log on to my RP realm on BfA right now I would see just as many people with sharding not being enabled. I made a character on a RP realm recently just to avoid any type of sharding or CRZ. The amount of people I am seeing right now on a high pop realm is very, very low.
I don’t think people are in the Barrens so much or dungeons honestly. I think I am just unlucky and on a dead layer.
So change layering tech fundamentally because you have bad luck? Even if your anecdotal example of “Every time I log in” had any weight, it’s cancelled out by my anecdotal example of “Every time I log in,” because I had the opposite experience.
Oh I get that many people here don’t seem to like the mmo part of an mmorpg. That much is obvious by many of the posts I have saw here. But many people actually like seeing a lot of people around and interacting in an mmo.
It doesn’t seem right to me to be on a high pop realm but a dead layer. All I have suggested is that Blizzard gives us a choice and let us choose our layer. With their tech I’m sure they could do something like SWTOR, Guild Wars and many other games do where you have a drop down menu that shows the channels and you choose. Why would it be such a bad thing to have a choice of wanted to be on a highly populated or next to dead layer? We don’t have a choice and are just thrown in wherever the system puts us. So I choose high pop realms because I enjoy it. If I wanted low pop, I would choose it at server selection.
I personally hate layering but am learning to try to accept it. But how dare us have choices though, right? It’s bad enough to not even see most of the people on my realm, but it’s even worse when I’m playing an mmo with hardly anyone around. I did a /who and only 11 people showed up in my level range for Durotar. 11 people. When I did a /who all, it showed 38 I believe.
Edit: /Sigh. Why is it every time I log in to mobile it randomly changes my posting character. So annoying.
I do not necessarily disagree with you, but it’s just not practical.
Sure, it sounds good to have such a dropdown so you can coordinate with friends- “What layer are you on? Okay, logging in now…” But at that point, let’s just have extra servers. Layering is supposed to be dynamic so Blizzard corpos can keep the costs down on the overall amount of servers.
But who knows, maybe this is in the works and we just don’t know it because Blizzard still can’t keep an open discussion going with players to help us make informed posts. Although, looking around here lately, I can’t blame them. If I was a forums Blue, I’d keep my head down as well.
The population of a realm is not always equally distributed. If, say, you were in the troll starting area, but most of the people on the server at the time were starting Night Elves, Undead, and Humans, then your experience would not reflect the reality of the server as a whole.
And I’m basically leaving my feedback and made a suggestion. Although I am highly against layering in general, I am trying to accept it as I said. They asked for feedback, so I’m giving my feedback on my experience as of today. I did last night as well.
The dynamic part of it is what I am mainly having an issue with right now. It’s just discouraging honestly. I am loving the game, but not loving hardly seeing anyone around. I didn’t start playing Vanilla until February of 2005, over a year after launch. And no matter what time I was logged in or no matter the zone, especially the starter zones, I always saw way more people than I have saw today.
It’s just too bad that someone’s experience is lessened at the expense of cost. I do understand them not wanting to have a ton of servers and have some being dead later on down the road. I do get that, honestly. But this just doesn’t feel right either. I’m trying to be constructive in my post to give them feedback, but won’t deny it’s a bit annoying.
But primarily, if I login to a high pop realm, I would expect it to be high pop. I just hope they are watching and reading all the feedback and all the kinks will be ironed out before launch.
Oh I get that Melaneth, completely. One of the reasons I chose a troll instead of a tauren was for that reason actually. I know that there are typically way more people in the troll and orc starting areas than tauren. I wanted to see how the population would be in a typically highly populated area.
![:confused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=6" ":confused:")
That is kind of the point of my post. It is truly taking away from the mmorpg experience to hardly see anyone around. The chat is dead and hardly going at all and a player earlier couldn’t even get any help to kill a level 11 elite. It is very different from the last two stress tests, and not in a good way, in my opinion.![:slightly_smiling_face:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slightly_smiling_face.png?v=6" ":slightly_smiling_face:")