For those against sharding at launch

Galdor-maelstrom · March 31, 2019, 3:54am

https://mrtoys3-mrtoys.netdna-ssl.com/533374-large_default/stretch-armstrong.jpg

Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel · March 31, 2019, 3:59am

yeah well sharding is one thing i refuse to give much leeway on. i feel nice just saying to shard launch as is considering the stated design goal has been no sharding in classic.

Shibah-spirestone · March 31, 2019, 4:04am

You need to learn more about how the World of Warcraft server and client interact. Most if not all of those assets are contained in the client, not the server. From what I understand, in an overly simplified explanation, private servers were created by reverse engineering the client calls and creating a server that would emulate responses the client would expect.

If you want to debate ethics or morality, that would be great as I enjoy talking about that, but it’s definitely outside the scope of this thread’s topic. We should be respectful to the topic.

Caltheon-stormrage · March 31, 2019, 4:08am

I want insanity. Blizzard should be able to deliver that

Yes! I use to join fresh servers in vanilla just to experience that insanity!

Katerina-mannoroth · March 31, 2019, 4:12am

Amazing.

Evidently “exceptional circumstances” can’t be considered exceptions.

Sharding is a technology which has potential to address certain very narrowly defined situations that might arise in Classic WoW. The only two that come to mind for me are the AQ gate opening, and Launch.

The AQ Gate Opening event is such an enormous outlier, and such an extremely narrow and easily defined time frame as to be a joke for anybody who wants to take significant exception to it. I mean it quite literally is the time frame between “When somebody both has completed the Scepter questline, and when the realm has completed the war effort. And when somebody completes the final turn-in quest for the Scepter questline.” It also further has narrowly definable criteria as to where said sharding would be applicable: Silithus, and Silithus only. So yes, in theory a server could have people disciplined enough that the “window” for Silithus sharding remains open for weeks or even months, but Blizzard has ways to minimize potential “disruptions” coming from their side. Besides, at that point, the presence of sharding at that point is nominally on the players with the quest that can make it stop.

As to “Launch” there are valid reasons to allow them room to maneuver within that specific frame. There are simply way too many unknowns with it for everyone involved. It would be nice to be able to say that “The Launch Window will last for 42 hours, after which no further sharding will be allowed.” But that is something nobody has the ability to predict at this time. It also is something that players will be more than capable of calling Blizzard out on if they try to drag it(the “launch window”) out deliberately.

Fesz-cenarius · March 31, 2019, 4:19am

Katerina:

Fesz:

You saw that poster’s post in another sharding thread.

To me that post seemed to be at best pre-emptively excusing using sharding far in excess of the “starting areas” and a brief time at launch and, at worst, advocating that excessive use of sharding.

Something that many of the proponents for sharding are ignoring is the fact that making It “convenient” for those “tourists” will only encourage them to stay. This will likely have the effect of greatly reducing the population drop off, causing the population to remain bloated and leading to further “need” of sharding.

Amazing.

Evidently “exceptional circumstances” can’t be considered exceptions.

Sharding is a technology which has potential to address certain very narrowly defined situations that might arise in Classic WoW. The only two that come to mind for me are the AQ gate opening, and Launch.

The AQ Gate Opening event is such an enormous outlier, and such an extremely narrow and easily defined time frame as to be a joke for anybody who wants to take significant exception to it. I mean it quite literally is the time frame between “When somebody both has completed the Scepter questline, and when the realm has completed the war effort. And when somebody completes the final turn-in quest for the Scepter questline.” It also further has narrowly definable criteria as to where said sharding would be applicable: Silithus, and Silithus only. So yes, in theory a server could have people disciplined enough that the “window” for Silithus sharding remains open for weeks or even months, but Blizzard has ways to minimize potential “disruptions” coming from their side. Besides, at that point, the presence of sharding at that point is nominally on the players with the quest that can make it stop.

As to “Launch” there are valid reasons to allow them room to maneuver within that specific frame. There are simply way too many unknowns with it for everyone involved. It would be nice to be able to say that “The Launch Window will last for 42 hours, after which no further sharding will be allowed.” But that is something nobody has the ability to predict at this time. It also is something that players will be more than capable of calling Blizzard out on if they try to drag it(the “launch window”) out deliberately.

It seems to me that you are already forgiving them for exceeding those “starting areas” and that “brief time at launch”.

May-stormscale · March 31, 2019, 4:39am

And how exactly does that work?

Having less servers at launch I guess?
And in case player demand happens to exceed the original cap it doesnt matter, right?
I mean, they literally can let in as many as they want thanks to sharding.

Great isnt it?

Until you realise that you just created multiple mega servers that need to fail badly rather quickly if you want to stay true to your promise:

sharding only at the beginning.

It is that moment when you start praying that the tourists leave before the first players hit the late 20is wondering why there is still sharding.
When you start thinking about splitting up servers in order to keep your promise as players start asking questions.

But dont you worry.

Players will leave rather quickly soon. But this time there wont be a portionate playerbase behind when the tourists leave, as they do leave with them.

And what do you do then? Merging whats left?

How ironic.

Katerina-mannoroth · March 31, 2019, 4:44am

The Gates of AQ was an interesting high concept thing on Blizzard’s part. If it had been done in Wrath, it would have been an in-game cinematic.

Honestly the AQ gate opening is the only event where sharding, or even phasing, has a very directly relevant application in Classic. For the people who take exception to that being potentially sharded, or even phased as I consider it, I have to wonder as to what their real objectives actually are. Is it to enjoy the game, or is it to find ways to cause grief for other players.

The AQ Gate opening event has potential to crash PvP “continent” servers in particular, it certainly did in Vanilla. It left Kalimdor unplayable on Mannoroth for the better part of a day, but that might just be me speaking from the experience of being on the second realm to open the gates, and the first PvP realm to do so. In theory that should have been a rather Epic PvP fight as Alliance and Horde fought to decide who turned in the quest. I was certainly down there to participate in the mayhem. Instead, all we had was a gigantic lag-fest that almost invariably turned into a server crash and roll-back. Until it ultimately turned into a race to log in and hearth/port out before things crashed again.

How that is a feature that players feel must be preserved when other options exist is beyond me. But to each their own, I guess.

Of course, World Raid Boss encounters in the right circumstances also have the ability to spawn sufficiently large PVP fights as to do the same, although such instances of that happening were very exceedingly rare(mostly because the raid boss could kill everyone). I’m not aware of any instances (on Mannoroth at least) where the fighting/crashing lasted more than a couple hours, and it rarely took an entire continent offline.

Cardings-akama · March 31, 2019, 4:49am

They’re called private servers. Their legality is dependant by jurisdiction, and a wide set of circumstances.

Blizzard will definitely deliver insanity, even if unintended.

Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel · March 31, 2019, 4:50am

Katerina:

Fesz:

It seems to me that you are already forgiving them for exceeding those “starting areas” and that “brief time at launch”.

The Gates of AQ was an interesting high concept thing on Blizzard’s part. If it had been done in Wrath, it would have been an in-game cinematic.

Honestly the AQ gate opening is the only event where sharding, or even phasing, has a very directly relevant application in Classic. For the people who take exception to that being potentially sharded, or even phased as I consider it, I have to wonder as to what their real objectives actually are. Is it to enjoy the game, or is it to find ways to cause grief for other players.

The AQ Gate opening event has potential to crash PvP “continent” servers in particular, it certainly did in Vanilla. It left Kalimdor unplayable on Mannoroth for the better part of a day, but that might just be me speaking from the experience of being on the second realm to open the gates, and the first PvP realm to do so. In theory that should have been a rather Epic PvP fight as Alliance and Horde fought to decide who turned in the quest. I was certainly down there to participate in the mayhem. Instead, all we had was a gigantic lag-fest that almost invariably turned into a server crash and roll-back. Until it ultimately turned into a race to log in and hearth/port out before things crashed again.

How that is a feature that players feel must be preserved when other options exist is beyond me. But to each their own, I guess.

Of course, World Raid Boss encounters in the right circumstances also have the ability to spawn sufficiently large PVP fights as to do the same, although such instances of that happening were very exceedingly rare(mostly because the raid boss could kill everyone). I’m not aware of any instances (on Mannoroth at least) where the fighting/crashing lasted more than a couple hours, and it rarely took an entire continent offline.

It’s quite simple. If we give blizzard the go ahead to shard AQ, that means we want them to shard any time someone views something as an inconvenience.
how far is it from that to sharding holiday events, sharding high end zones during peak hours, etc?
I’d rather deal with the server crashing during AQ event then deal with any potential for any form of permanent sharding.

Fateweaver-misha · March 31, 2019, 4:51am

Look at BfA launch. Sharding was present, still messy.

#NoChanges

Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel · March 31, 2019, 4:52am

every launch has been messy with or without sharding.

Fateweaver-misha · March 31, 2019, 4:53am

Exactly.

Katerina-mannoroth · March 31, 2019, 4:53am

The AQ Event is a “once and done” event. Further, if they tune the thresholds right, it’s unlikely more than a couple servers would even manage to shard the AQ Gate Opening in the first place, as most realms didn’t have Mannoroth’s experience with it.

Fateweaver-misha · March 31, 2019, 5:00am

So…making a change to an already Non-Vanilla change?

Seems legit.

Katerina-mannoroth · March 31, 2019, 5:02am

Now if only they change the change so the change is less of change than the change was.

Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel · March 31, 2019, 5:14am

yeah. i’ve seen blizzards retail thresholds.

Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel · March 31, 2019, 5:15am

or maybe they could just not shard AQ. furthermore - if they shard AQ, tell me this.
how do people know when the gong has been struck?

Katerina-mannoroth · March 31, 2019, 5:24am

Interesting question, and one only a Dev would know the answer to. I’m not even sure the code for Sharding is written to handle a Realm-Event like that. Considering the AQ gates were set to be permanently open before sharding was even a thing.

At a guess, I’d assume it’d open the gates on all shards at the same time, and possibly trigger the event for all shards as a result. Assuming no CRZ, and a few other factors.

But it is entirely possible the shards don’t interact with the realm/realmstate in that way and people in the other shards would be “stuck” with a closed gate unless they have a future Scarab Lord of their own in the phase with them and they turn in the quest as well. Otherwise they’d be waiting for their shard to expire and allow them back onto the “main”/resynchronized portion of the realm(shards).

Zaldera-moon-guard · March 31, 2019, 5:27am