All I can think of,
You can’t have Gates of AQ at all in Modern WoW.
You can’t have pre-Cataclysm Azeroth in Modern WoW.
You can’t have ANYTHING from Classic in Modern WoW.
This is where your rebuttal falls flat on its face and breaks its nose.
What you fail to understand is that we WANT to play Classic. Sharding will allow us to do that in a very literal way. You can’t play Classic if you’re constantly being DC’d and missing events due to being put in a qeue.
It seems that what many want is to play a level 60 capped retail in a vanilla setting.
Let’s call it “convenient classic”.
How is it convenient when what we literally want is to just play Classic? You do realize “anything” in this context literally means “anything” because all the features in Classic are too numerous to fit in one forum post, right?
Who has repeatedly stated tha they do not want to be inconvenienced at all? Who has advocated for sharding to be used throughout the game IN PERPETUITY? Who has said that sharding should kick in anytime they feel they are being inconvenienced?
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So you think it’s okay that people who are desperate to log in and see an event like Gates of AQ because they never got to the first time around, are going to be completely unable to because they’re stuck in 4 hour long qeues. That’s what you’re saying, right?
I’ve never said any of that. Except “in perpetuity,” which I’ll admit was a poor choice of words. I’VE LITERALLY SAID THAT THREE TIMES TO YOU TODAY. STOP BRINGING IT UP.
and what you fail to understand is that sharding literally hinders community growth. which is a huge part of classic.
you can shard the starting zones for a few weeks if you want but anything outside of that is off the table.
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because there is a huge difference between “Vanilla” and “Retail capped at level 60”.
what people spent a decade fighting for is the first.
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BY FIRE BE PURGED!!
Couldn’t resist.
I’m not fighting for “Retail capped at 60.” If I wanted that I’d be advocating for class changes, talent changes, collection tabs, etc. Do you see me doing that? The answer of course is a resounding “No.”
I’m fighting for Classic. I just want to actually be able to log in and play with no qeue times artificially making me miss out on stuff. If I miss out, I want it to be MY fault, not Blizzard’s.
There are several different “layers” to the type of “tourist” involved. One size does not fit all. That being said, there is a history indicating that a lot of people will quit by level 10, and that there is another large drop off that happens at around level 20. From what numbers have been given in the past, if somebody is still playing by the time they’re past level 20, there is a good chance they’re “here to stay” for an indeterminate time.
You’re also confusing and conflating some things. There are likely to be a LOT of a tourists, and they’re not all going to hit at once. Although the ones that would have the most impact on the long-term viability of servers would be the ones who log in during the first few weeks of Classic being live.
Basically you’re looking at a conveyor belt supplying a steady flow of new tourists logging in for the first time as the other tourists are getting ready to throw in the towel and leave. So it isn’t just a matter of waiting for “Player A” to leave the game, you’re waiting for “Player D” to leave as well, but Player D joined up when Player A was level 8, and he quit at level 11. While Player D will quit at level 9, you’re going have Player F logging in while Player D is as level 7. And so on and so forth. Churn for the Churn God.
Sharding being harmful to the community is honestly debatable in some very specific regards(a lot of the complaints about how Blizzard has used it in Retail are also very valid complaints). But the interest in honest debate in these parts in non-existent. What most people are conflating with Sharding is CRZ, and CRZ is undeniably harmful.
But sharding is something that has to be treated like a potentially toxic substance. Sure, in small doses certain substances can enhance various kinds of experiences. But after you cross a certain threshold, it no longer enhances, it poisons and kills.
[quote=“Nechross-eonar, post:195, topic:138995”]
I wholeheartedly believe that the soul of original WoW being restored by this passion project is at stake by the use of sharding. It is like playing with fire. The social heart of the game I loved could be killed again - just like it was by modern (sharded) WoW.[/quote]
I’m in my own little camp that is probably something on the order of in 99% of the normal use case for Classic WoW, there should be no sharding. However, I can see a less than 1% use-case where sharding is likely to be able to enhance things, but they’re very much in a “use with caution” category as it is so exceptionally easy to implement it poorly.
Massive Scale PvP, rather than Large Scale PvP, is one such potential situation. Sharded PvP is better than Lag, Rubberbanding Players, disconnects, and server crashes. I’d say the baseline server should be to roughly handle a (roughly) 120-ish player PvP fight without needing to shard, but if it’s starting to push into the 200+ player range, it’s probably in the realm of time to shard.
Can anybody seriously say they remember getting into Overworld PvP Fights where 3 or more full raids were present at the same time and things worked flawlessly in Classic? I had a reasonably high-end system for the time, and the closest thing I can think of that gets close is Blackrock Mountain and the entrance to BWL. Several of those fights barely remained in the realm of “playable” and that was often fewer than 100 players in total involved.
SS/TM is another example, as would be the capital city raids, but they again move into lag and unplayability as the number of people involved started moving into roughly 100 players engaged in fighting.
Heck, AV itself often had issues when everyone in the BG clashed Battle Royale style.
“No Sharding under any circumstances” have unrealistic recall of what Vanilla was capable of delivering, and seem to be unrealistic about what Classic is supposed to be able to deliver to them today. Yes, Blizzard is going to want to take the easy/inexpensive way out, and we need to be ready and willing to call them on it. But unrealistic expectations are unrealistic. I’ll take a small dose of sharding if it means I can actually play the game instead of it being lagged to Dante’s 7th Circle.
no, but you continually sit here and say “Sharding beyond the realms listed isn’t neccesarily a bad thing”.
yes it is
and stuff like “if people are in queues its going to be seen as a bad thing”.
to me that sounds like a great thing. it means so many people are trying to play classic, that they all literally can’t log on.
Sharding has a lot of downsides to go with the one good thing it provides.
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I’d say that one good thing is heavier than all those downsides put together.
tell you what. you can have your permanent sharding/no queues when you find a way for -
sharding to not effect the economy whatsoever.
find a way for sharding to not be exploited.
find a way for sharding to not limit player interactions.
find a way for sharding to not limit world pvp.
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and to me, it’s not.
the good - everyone is online
the bad
world pvp is affected
player interactions are affected
community development is affected
the economy is affect
rare resources aren’t as rare anymore.
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I don’t want “permanent” sharding. Ideally I’d only want it to be used when it’s absolutely 100% needed. Like at launch or (heaven forbid) Gates of AQ. I don’t expect, nor want, it to be used the rest of the time.
Hell I’d be VERY happy if it weren’t needed, ever, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest it’s not.
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Yes, you can and I did play Vanilla, TBC and Wrath (the last two at lunch) with occasional DCs and stability issues, TBC loot lag and sometime frequent queues - and I LOVED IT. And I loved the game back then (with all it’s issues) - and zero sharding.
I knew my friends and the rest of the plant wanted in the game during those times and I wanted to be right there with them. I was happy to group with a fellow adventurer to get Group XP and credit for a mob. I would rather wait to login to a mass of players than to login immediately and only see a few dozen in my sharded, lonely existence - like I do today.
Grouping often led to doing other quests together and then a dudgeon and eventually joining a decent guild because of my connections and reputation - and that led to joining a better guild, which led to raiding MC and nearly all heroic dungeons and raids in TBC - party due to my social connections, some of which I made from grouping up in some lower level zone and not being invisible to other players from sharding.
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and yet you have said that you don’t want to have queues. the only way to have that is to have permanent sharding.
that is what you fail to understand. blizzard only has one tool that lets unlimited number of people play on one realm. Sharding.
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The opening of the AQ Gates? You mean spending most of the day at the login screen? Or when you’re not at the login screen, you’re watching people rubberband across the zone?
Or how the really die hard people who didn’t flee to the Eastern Kingdom eventually disconnected, managed to get back on only to discover the turn in had been completed and the gates were already open? (One of the players managed to turn it in just before the realm crashed)
Truly an epic experience.
Luckily there is more than one way to witness the gate opening event in Vanilla WoW, you don’t actually have to be there when it happens the first time.