This isn’t a solution you cow. If they open more servers, the drop off will result in lower population servers rather than removing extra layers on a server. Layers prevent low population servers…
Absolutely no one has a solid, fact based, idea of how well Classic is going to be received. Will the long term server population settle at 100k, 250, 500 . . . maybe 2 million.
Blizzard’s layering is a method they are using during the startup to allow for realm expansion while disrupting game play as little as possible. If name reservation or game launch crowds are so large that they can’t reasonably accommodate without using more layers than they are comfortable with - they will quickly add realms.
If population doesn’t drop as expected, they will give free, automated, transfers off the crowded realms to less crowded ones.
As to layering destroying community, it will be a bit awkward during the first weeks. You may meet someone today, and not easily find them tomorrow. But they will still be on your realm somewhere and we all know what it’s like to log in and find that your new friend isn’t available currently. Relax. It will be fine.
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I don’t love layering but I don’t see this as game breaking if they do it the right way. Other games that have used this tech slowly dial back the number of shards/layers as you move onto later zones.
Based on the Stress Test the zones will still be mad full and I regularly ran into the same people throughout the weekend.
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You don’t think groups of friends who game together discuss games they want to play and reject some for various reasons?
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At this point they need to abandon layering entirely.
The stress test was like 3 server of US, the pop will be spread better with 10 server… + the drop out, you will not see alot of layering.
/e eats popcorn
ur right I want my vanilla server cap of 2350 concurrent players 
How about I give YOU a rest 
This. So much this.
Nobody (including blizzard) knows what the population will be. Classic players love to pretend it’ll be more popular than retail, but I don’t see any reason to believe that.
Thanks! It’s most appreciated. I work way too hard at this.
The stress test was for current (aka retail) subscribers only. This entire project is geared towards the people who preferred the old version of WoW. The population of the stress test or beta is not at all indicative of what the population of the actual game will be.
If they are going to open more servers, it’s going to require a higher-than-expected number of name reservations today.
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This is correct, which is the whole reason why there is a 2 week name reservation period. Blizzard doesn’t know what the launch population will be any more than we do. Best practice to ensure they have enough realms (and not too many) is to open up some realms early, let people populate the realms with character creations and then open new realms as the original ones start to fill up.
Less QQ more pew pew, it’ll be ok /pat pat
Crying does nothing.
that’s over 10 times the amount of resources being gathered as well.
and we all know what happens to the server economy when the normal resources are multiplied that drastically
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But you also have 10x the players consuming those resources
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Pulling numbers out of our butts again are we? Where did you come up with this magical number of 10+ layers?
- Blizzard has said layering will last for phase 1 only, there is no reason to believe otherwise
there is no reason to believe otherwise
Except for the companys track record of blatantly lying and going back on promises throughout the entire history of the game.
First they said no sharding period
Then they said sharding only for 1-10 zone
and now its continent wide “layering”
And for some reason we are expected to believe them this time?
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Not really. Blizz has seen what 15 years of vanilla pservers have produced. Fresh still attracts thousands upon thousands of players 15 years later.
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So either I am right and it will go off with minimal problems or you are right and you are boned because if everything you said is true why the hell would they listen to you now?
Thanks for playing!
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