So I have 3 RL friends and we all logged on at the same time. 1 was on my server and the other 2 were on other US servers. We WERE all standing in front of the bank in Org and none of us could see the other. How exactly does that work? Is that the same in every zone.
Or, if 5 hunters from same guild all want to camp a rare spawn for a pet, and DOES NOT form a group, is it possible all 5 of them could have that mob spawn at the same time on 5 different shards (or whatever they are called)?
I don’t know how you get placed into a shard, but joining a group with your friends should all move you to the same shard.
Also you can shard hop by joining random groups in group finder, yes.
Right I know that… I am just wondering how they work…
Shards attempt to automatically balance zones so they’re neither overpopulated or underpopulated with Warmode on and off being handled separately. I know they attempt to keep factions balanced in Warmode; I’m not sure if that’s a consideration with it off or not.
With that said, it’s pretty easy to break the mechanism by hopping shards by joining groups/raids. Probably the best example of this is how multiple RUIN raids will pop up in Naz’jatar shortly after the battle starts.
So the number of shards per zone is based on number of people in it?
When an area becomes full a new shard is created and players are moved to that shard.
If you were all in Orgrimmar. it means you all entered full shards and were moved to new ones. Shards are all realms, so it doesn’t matter what realm you’re on.
Except, if you’re on a RP realm. RP realms by design only merge into other RP realms and do not have sharding in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.