I highly doubt it’s that simple. If it was, sharding wouldn’t even be on the consideration table for launch.
What Blizzard call “Sharding” is what is referred to as “Load Balancing” in I.T.
An example of Load Balancing is an automatic process where the server farm allocates ‘resource’ to a different server when connections begin to peak. IE: A Citrix connection tries to log onto Server 1 but it has too much on it compared to servers 2, 3 and 4. It sees that server 3 has the least amount of connections and activity going on and it then allocates to server 3 that new connection request.
That’s a very crude way of putting it and I apologise for that – but that’s probably the easiest way I can explain it.
Actually, it can be - it’s very simple to put a hard number on max connections per server.
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Then why even make a big deal about sharding to begin with? If it’s that simple, and it’ll theoretically run launch (and hypothetically AQ) better than Classic did, why even entertain the notion? It just doesn’t add up to me.
Not that I don’t believe you! I do! I just don’t see how that adds up with what Blizzard’s already said about how they’re thinking of handling launch. Bearing in mind they didn’t even confirm 100% there would be sharding to begin with.
Because there’s still an effective limit. It’s just higher than Vanilla was, and without sharding isn’t infinite.
Also, the game play experience for launch will be far different from Vanilla if everyone’s thrown into one instance.
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Oh, I wasn’t making a big deal of it - I just wanted to try and simplify some of the confusion surrounding it - in terms of what ‘sharding’ is - and the comment regarding the 200 connection server crash. (Which I am yet to see, I might add.)
I’m actually on the “No Sharding” camp. 
I wasn’t intending to imply you did. I was intending to imply Blizzard did, sorry for not being clear on that.
Alright, for your perusal, the videos showing streamers successfully crashing WoW servers:
Swifty’s during Cata:
Asmongold’s from last year:
And, again, I’m actually “no-sharding” myself. I just want crashing servers and login queues less. Sorry if that’s tough for people to wrap their heads around or find acceptable.
Many are confusing sharding with server instancing. This might be because of the way sharding can be used, or the lack of knowledge about server instancing.
- Sharding <use 1>: Groups players to reduce server operations caused by interactivity, such as messaging or collision detection.
- Sharding <use 2>: Groups players into communications processing groups to reduce latency caused by input and output, which creates something akin to a subserver.
- Server Instancing: Groups players with logically distinct server processes, so that a single physical server may reduce operations and internet latency. [EDIT] It creates multiple VMs.
They do similar things, but in different ways.
Since management expects an immediate and major decline in Classic players until a stable minimum is achieved, my suggestion would be to start with more server instances with a lower population cap to begin with. For example, setting initial server caps at 1500 with a merge-tolerance of ~1000 will give high sensitivity with adequate headroom for the receiving server. More server merges will occur (in quantity), but staging the merges at the same time will not cause players to perceive frequent merges.
The concern over names is moot, because name control ought to be Classic-wide.
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This… I honestly don’t understand why everyone seems so obsessed with “having a perfectly smooth launch”… Who cares? The only people for whom that is remotely relevant are hardcore folks who want to go for world-first.
Big deal.
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Except there are no servers. Only the cloud and your server tag that keeps you phased by your like-tagged toons. This is why they have to shard, and why large scale PvP sharded on the demo.
They. Can’t. Support. 40v40. Anymore.
You watch.
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I get it, you don’t trust in Vanilla to be a good enough product to gain traction by word of mouth after it launches. You think of it like a game like Anthem or No Man’s Sky or something.
But it’s you who are wrong.
The best thing is for the game to not launch big. That’s why Blizzard isn’t hyping it like mad. All they have to do is open the doors, and eventually people will come.
Day 1 Classic means next to nothing just like Day 1 meant next to nothing all those years back for Vanilla.
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As someone who played classic, the cries over login queues, frame rate and the AQ difficulties are greatly exaggerated.
Login queues happened a lot, but it took at most 2-15 minutes to get in a high pop server.
Frame rates dropped in the big cities sometimes, but it was never unplayable.
It was hard getting into Kalimdor on the day AQ opened(it took me multiple boat rides before I made it), but once there I didn’t have many issues.
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Battlefield 1942, which came out before WoW, had 32v32 for a total of 64 players. That was never considered an MMO, even though it meets your “technical” description. Since you want to get technical.
Misrepresented?
Did you not say you advocate sharding in perpetuity?
Did you not say that you NEVER want to be in A queue?
Did you not say that you don’t want to have to wait for quest mobs or quest objectives to redrawn?
Did you not say that you don’t want to deal with lag?
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No, I trust Vanilla to be a good product because it was a good product. Its the narcissistic idea that “If people don’t like long queues and unstable servers, its their problem” that will kill it. No-one new can fall in love with the product if they can’t see it themselves.
By that logic you should be all for launch day sharding.
There was this game once which had login queues and major launch issues that become of the most popular games ever.
In fact, it was so loved that people wanted to restore it - in spite of all the server problems - they still wanted to play it after 14 years.
It was called Original World of Warcraft.
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Or people who want to actually play the game when they log on instead of just having a glorified chat room while they wait 5 minutes to kill 1 wolf.
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People who want a single player experience and hate mmos you mean. Because people don’t have to squat in the first zone waiting 5 min to kill 1 wolf, there are options they can either wait a week or just level a few levels through exploration.
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Prety much what Leafgreen said. It sounds like a complete non-issue.
You’ll get over it. No big deal.
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In 2003, I played open world PvP in fights that regularly would crescendo to 300-500 players in one location, all visible, in another MMORPG called Dark Age of Camelot. There was noticeable lag and my cheap desktop computer was pushed to render all the spell effects, but it was playable and amazing. That type of experience is still a rarity. Here we are 16 years later discussing sharding to alleviate overcrowding problems for game developed in that same year (2003).
You can’t level through exploration. Believe me, I tried.