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

[Aelithdra-blackrock]

They’re also worried about specific bottle necks and the fact we had hundreds of people in Elwynn Forest for example. There is such a thing as too many people. Private servers had problems with the rat pack and the general crowd, it was super high competition virtually the whole way. That wasn’t a natural vanilla experience and Blizzard doesn’t want that.

It’s gonna be competitive no matter what, for weeks at launch. That was a part of Vanilla.

I was a warlock in northshire. Myself and 50+ other warlocks all clicking the same spot trying to get the imp book. It was fun, to me. The book respawned fast enough to keep some flow going.

Even though I got stuck on that bottle neck for ten minutes or so. I don’t regret the time I spent clicking, trying to out click the others.

The awe when you see a thousand people in front of you. I loved every moment.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

Or worse, the initial playerbase being all people who won’t be there 3 weeks later.

Yep, this is exactly why layering is the solution Blizzard is going with.

They’re also worried about specific bottle necks and the fact we had hundreds of people in Elwynn Forest for example. There is such a thing as too many people. Private servers had problems with the rat pack and the general crowd, it was super high competition virtually the whole way. That wasn’t a natural vanilla experience and Blizzard doesn’t want that.

It’s gonna be competitive no matter what, for weeks at launch. That was a part of Vanilla.

I was a warlock in northshire. Myself and 50+ other warlocks all clicking the same spot trying to get the imp book. It was fun, to me. The book respawned fast enough to keep some flow going.

Even though I got stuck on that bottle neck for ten minutes or so. I don’t regret the time I spent clicking, trying to out click the others.

The awe when you see a thousand people in front of you. I loved every moment.

Except with dynamic respawns it’s extremely competitive period. I’m still expecting long waits (as respawns might still be 5~ minutes on a lot of quest mobs) but it’s not going to be the same as there being hundreds of people in one area.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

If it wasn’t clear, my idea is to choose your layer at character creation and lock it there. That allows you and your friends to choose the same layer, and there is no hopping at all between layers. A week after launch, all layers merge.

It would lower the exploiting, but the friends issue would still be a problem, because people would want to group with different friends who all rolled on the same server, even if they didn’t coordinate layers.

Plus how many layers do they provide as an option. Too many and the game feels empty, too few and some layers will be full and people won’t be able to join their friends etc.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

add that they could ask you first, if you want pvp or normal, then if you want Quick Create or Manual Select. if you choose quick, it puts you on whatever server layer has room on a layer, to help balance the load. and if manual, then you get put in the login queue for the server layer you selected.

[Aelithdra-blackrock]

Except with dynamic respawns it’s extremely competitive period.

Dynamic respawns has an opposite effect to what you’re implying. It makes the going smoother.

At launch, you’re still dealing with the same cluster mess of people. With layering, the only difference is that you see all the chat, but not all the people. Slower respawns for fewer people, faster respawns for more people. It’s the same.

No to splitting the community. No to layering. Dynamic respawns with a gradually lowering cap is the way to go.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

one of the vanilla devs said they had dynamic respawns for vanilla’s launch

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

Except with dynamic respawns it’s extremely competitive period.

Dynamic respawns has an opposite effect to what you’re implying. It makes the going smoother.

At launch, you’re still dealing with the same cluster mess of people. With layering, the only difference is that you see all the chat, but not all the people. Slower respawns for fewer people, faster respawns for more people. It’s the same.

No to splitting the community. No to layering. Dynamic respawns with a gradually lowering cap is the way to go.

People are still competing against each other, and while things respawn faster there’s still that many players fighting over those resources. To the point where it might not even matter. And the biggest thing is the body count. I feel there’s just going to be too many people in the starter areas.

It is what it is. I’m fine with either, Blizzard decided to go with layering.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

Would you really rather take all the worldwide exploiting over a friend who might have to reroll a Level 5 character to play on his friends layer? Seems a no brainer to me.

I’m not saying “open the floodgates” to exploiting. I’m saying that this specific solution would cause enjoyability issues.

Switching layers should be far harder than it currently is. Other options (to be used in conjunction with each other)

1. 10 minute cooldown on switching.
2. Must enter an Inn or City (rested zones) before you change layers.
3. Tied to a default layer, which you return to after leaving a group (and entering an inn)
4. 20 minute gathering lockout, after switching layers to anything but your default layer.

[Aelithdra-blackrock]

I feel there’s just going to be too many people in the starter areas.

Oh there will be. It’s not too often a server starts fresh and you get to experience that initial rush.

It’s gonna be awesome! So excited

You can wait a few days if you don’t like feeling crowded.

[Siç-malganis]

So from what I can tell the crowd for layering seems to believe that it will somehow ease the bottle neck at the start…

You do realize that they are not going to be doing 100 people layers… Think about this, A normal real server opens with no layering, where does everyone go? For horde its like 10% tauren/ 40/40 orc undead. How would you layer this with whole continent layering??? have 1 tauren in the zone with only 20 /100 in the others? LOL Remember Blizz has said that this b.s. layering is the whole continent… NOT STARTING ZONE SPECIFIC. Idiots…

The bottle neck and frustration you think this will solve is a pipe dream.

This system is built around classic wow failing, which it most likely will not.

This system is designed to make launch maybe not have ques and when it is removed have ques.

The pro to this system is to delay ques. PRO STUFF RIGHT THERE BOYS!!!

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

I feel there’s just going to be too many people in the starter areas.

Oh there will be. It’s not too often a server starts fresh and you get to experience that initial rush.

It’s gonna be awesome! So excited

I’m fine with it all and am looking forward to it… except the Relics of Awakening. It’s going to be awful.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

So from what I can tell the crowd for layering seems to believe that it will somehow ease the bottle neck at the start…

Definitely not what it solves, if you mean the bottle neck in the starter areas.

You do realize that they are not going to be doing 100 people layers… Think about this, A normal real server opens with no layering, where does everyone go? For horde its like 10% tauren/ 40/40 orc undead. How would you layer this with whole continent layering??? have 1 tauren in the zone with only 20 /100 in the others? LOL Remember Blizz has said that this b.s. layering is the whole continent… NOT STARTING ZONE SPECIFIC. Idiots…

The bottle neck and frustration you think this will solve is a pipe dream.

The “bottleneck” is the population cap, not the starter zones. They’re building layers so that we get a representative 3k server pop experience, while having 6k or 9k players on the server at once.

I don’t think anyone here is complaining about the starter zones.

This system is designed to make launch maybe not have ques and when it is removed have ques.

The pro to this system is to delay ques. PRO STUFF RIGHT THERE BOYS!!!

and to ensure that there are decent populations after launch. Queues could be far easier solved by adding 500 or 1000 servers.

[Bricklethumb-anvilmar]

Hellfire WAS a terrible experience on launch. low fps… had to look at the ground. .

[Aelithdra-blackrock]

It’s going to be awesome

Fixed that for ya

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

Hellfire WAS a terrible experience on launch

And the only time Blizzard used population based Dynamic Respawns before binning the idea.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

It’s going to be awesome

Fixed that for ya

Eh… 5-10 minutes for each relic easily, and there are four of them.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

Having to enter an Inn or City would be a major pain if your out questing and get invited to a dungeon group.

If you’re invited by friends, its more than likely you’re going to be either near the quest hub for the instance, or have to travel through quest hubs to get there. Duck into an inn on the way.

If you’re invited by random people you meet… they’re already on your layer.

You’re locked out for 20 minutes from being able to play with them?

No, you’re locked out from gathering herbs or ore for 20 minutes. You can play all you like, together. If you did a dungeon in under 10 minutes, sure, you might have to wait a bit for the 10 minute layer change to pass but that’s intended to ensure people don’t go through 50 groups in 5 minutes.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

The only drawback I see with my solution is that friends would have to coordinate outside of game to pick their layer…but then again they have to do that anyway to pick their server.

You’re also assuming that someone with multiple friend groups can coordinate them all together etc. 15 years of WoW has a lot of different connections.

[Turtlebeastz-emerald-dream]

You sat there for 9 hours waiting to log in. So take layering and actually play them game at launch and stop crying

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

Also, still enjoying watching those 8 likes roll in for ya like clockwork every single post

Still creepy, but apparently I can’t do anything about it.

What exactly is wrong with my idea? Seems far simpler than what you propose, and with none of the downsides.

Habits as a software developer. Giving users choices almost always leads to users making bad choices and demanding that it be fixed.