How did Blizzard handle the TBC and Wotlk launches without layering?

[Fury-lethon (Fury)]

So why not give a specific date for removal of layering at that point? They are being intentionally vague to keep it longer.

[Misher-mugthol]

No it isn’t. Limited sharding at launch to handle the tourists is an option.

Heck LAYER the first and second starting zones. Once the player base disperses, Blizzard can evaluate the total numbers.

Sharding an entire server, for a good portion of the leveling experience to 60, I don’t understand unless Im looking to reduce costs long term.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

How did Blizzard handle the TBC and Wotlk launches without layering?

They weren’t launching a previous version of the game on a small amount of servers. Plus, from what I understand, they didn’t handle those launches particularly well at all either.

Every launch except the last two expansion launches were abysmal.

No it isn’t. Limited sharding at launch to handle the tourists is an option.

Heck LAYER the first and second starting zones. Once the player base disperses, Blizzard can evaluate the total numbers.

Sharding an entire server, for a good portion of the leveling experience to 60, I don’t understand unless Im looking to reduce costs long term.

Layering keeps players from fading in and out in front of you every time they cross a boundry. It’s there to basically be sharding, but without sharding.

[Sidearm-exodar (Sidearm)]

Yes I think they should commit to something specific as well, maybe 2 weeks.

And then realize that a cohesive non-layered world is a priority…in other words accept a login queue as a fair trade-off.

[Wigglytüff-stormrage]

No one has an appreciation for the idea of, “Good things come to those who wait.” Nobody wants to use any effort for this kinda stuff anymore.

Why should players wait, when the technology exists that makes that wait unnecessary? What “effort” is there in that?

[Morghast-cenarius]

This is about when they would remove layering though. It’s impossible for them to deliver on their promise of a few weeks because the population would be too high to do it that soon.

They can remove layering anytime they want by forcing the overflow to a login queue. Then what remains is a Vanilla-like state. One population on one realm with a queue.

But doesn’t a long queue still affect the community? How can you meet new people if they are stuck in a queue for hours? How can you play with your friends if half of them can’t even log in for hours?

As far as ‘community’ and seeing the people you are going to be playing with for months/years goes, people on other layers for a few weeks isn’t that much different from people being stuck in queues and not in the game. At least with layers you will see those people in chat and you can group up with them if you want to. More of the people who will actually be playing on your server will be there, at least in the chat channels for you to interact with unlike queues that actually keep people from interacting with people on the server at all.

I’m not really pro-layer but I am against queues. I feel if they can figure a way to block the exploits by programming or by just suspending people who abuse layering for exploitation; then layering for a few weeks is tolerable.

I experienced the queues at BC & LK launch. I didn’t even play on my main server for a few days just because of the queues. I created a few characters on a low-pop server just to be able to play at all. It wasn’t a community-friendly experience at all since I wasn’t even able to be a part of the community on my main server for days.

[Fury-lethon (Fury)]

Because good things come. Layering gives temporary personal satisfaction at the cost of community, broken pvp, and exploits. Look at retail and how community shattered with the introduction of cross-realm and sharding. Layering and the like absolutely doesn’t belong in an mmo.

[Valhallin-kilrogg]

There were long queues, server crashes, maintenance downtime and lag for days during prime time. Also, less populated servers slowly died and had little to no raid progress.

[Wuzeh-wyrmrest-accord]

Things exploded, and eventually enough people escaped the starting zones to make it playable.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

So why not give a specific date for removal of layering at that point? They are being intentionally vague to keep it longer.

They said it’d be no later than the Phase 2 launch, and probably a LOT sooner if enough tourists die off.

[Wigglytüff-stormrage]

Layering gives temporary personal satisfaction at the cost of community, broken pvp, and exploits.

blah blah

I hear constantly about community on a forum whose members routinely suggest that those actually organizing community events (the dreaded streamers) don’t deserve to play…either on the same server as they want to play, or at all. Community, indeed.

[Fury-lethon (Fury)]

If you scroll up to the discussion above you can see how the sooner option isn’t possible without que times. Anything past a week or two will have lots of damage that extends past the removal of layering and it’s looking very likely that is the direction they are going.

[Vlorm-bleeding-hollow]

I believe the game had around 5 or 6 million players when TBC launched, and around 11 million when Wotlk launched. Sharding and layering did not exist for the launch of either game.

To hear Blizzard talk now, layering is a neccesity. Yet somehow 11 million players all logged in at once and were able to play in Wotlk. I’m not saying it was a perfect experience, but people logged, dealt with some crowded zones for a little bit and then just played the game.

Is it overly simplistic to just ask for that again? The wide ranging, worldwide problems that layering is causing just does not seem worth the small benefit of less crowded starter zones for a day or two.

ish…

people, after waiting X hour in a queue, managed to log in, sometime crashed ( back in the queue for you) then ended up spending hours in the entry zone trying to complete a quest with 10 people waiting at each spawn.

the hellfire peninsula bottleneck in TBC was quite famous ; that’s why WoTLK had 2 entry zones ( to help reduce the load).

oh and, both TBC and WOTLK had issues with dead servers few week after launch.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

If enough tourists die off there won’t be any queue times.

This is entirely a cost-cutting measure so they don’t have to spend money on additional servers just to end up merging them later.

I’m pretty sure they’re committed to having a lean realmlist for the entirety of Classic’s lifetime. It’s not seen as a major replacement for Retail, as much as some of us might wish it to be.

[Sidearm-exodar (Sidearm)]

But doesn’t a long queue still affect the community? How can you meet new people if they are stuck in a queue for hours? How can you play with your friends if half of them can’t even log in for hours?

The highest number of players will be active during the first week, with less each week, etc. So layering early - even a week - cuts the brunt of the login queue times.

It then becomes a trade-off issue of when to remove layering and some reasonable queue.

I’m not really pro-layer but I am against queues. I feel if they can figure a way to block the exploits by programming or by just suspending people who abuse layering for exploitation; then layering for a few weeks is tolerable.

A good point that the exploits need fixed. Agree.

[Vlorm-bleeding-hollow]

We simply didn’t complain about it we dealt with it and put up with it like a man. Unlike snowflakes of today are.

right. because not complaining is actually a thing that happen on the internet.

your memory is either totally flawed, or you are big time lying.

[Fury-lethon (Fury)]

Please look at the numbers. They are lowballing their estimates to try and keep realm pops high after which means layering is going to overextend its welcome or it will be removed with que times. If they are on the fence just make some non-layered servers for people who don’t mind starting with que times on launch.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

What numbers?

[Vlorm-bleeding-hollow]

Seems a small inconvenience that would solve a lot of the layering issues were seeing on the beta.

seems like layering is a small inconvenience to solve major issues at launch.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

Lies. People have NEVER been a fan of paying to play a game, only to be unable to play because the servers keep crashing or they’re in a several-hours-long queue.