How layering could play out

I guess you weren’t part of the larger stress tests that have been going on. Or wound up on one with really small layers.

The servers can handle large populations in an area when it comes to Classic. Your internet connection may be another matter.

Which will be gone at the point Katerina is talking about…

If you’re right (and I doubt it), then problem solved. If there aren’t enough people to keep the layers active, the layers will naturally shut down.

If Blizzard throws a Vanilla party and only 200,000 people show up, the servers won’t even have layers.

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ohh no! i wasn’t picked to test it. I wasn’t a streamer shill. I couldn’t get in on the stress test either because the login Q crashed over and over.

I think they have setup a system that will be smoother than what is currently on BFA but I still don’t think that they will be able to handle massive server clashes in hillsbrad anymore. Lag is expected, i don’t mind it. There is this mindset that artificially controlling things to make it smooth for literal babies is better than just letting things happen.

I might be wrong! I really hope I am. Layering might be gone in a few weeks and world pvp will be amazing and untouched by layering.

Until then i will scaremonger as that druid says i do, and i will continue here. I will say this. I don’t trust AAA companies or any Blizzard execs atm, and i probably will never trust them again.

You’re forgetting that there was a “physical media constraint” on how many people could hammer the game back in 2004. You had to have a physical copy of the game in order to even log into it. After the initial release, they even “throttled” the release of new copies of the game to make sure they didn’t further overwhelm the servers.

There is no physical copy requirement this time around, so no throttle limiting the rate at which players can enter the game.

there will still be layers, most servers will just be dead. even blizzard knows it,

they don’t need to do anything like that if players spread out, but they do, because they know that most people will be picking the same realms before overflowing into other realms.

Well, there’s also realm layer caps, so that servers will collapse back down. I imagine a lot of the tourists will be streamer fanbois who leave after the non-Classic streamer does.

I’m basing this off of a few things.

First is what I alluded to above.

Second is the anemic second stress test. Very little participation, apparently, and it caught Blizzard by surprise (reading between the lines a bit, but there it is).

Third is the truncated beta test at level 40, with the remainder being done “internally.” This is the most tuned portion of the game, in theory, so it boggles as to why they’d pull the plug before the beta crowd got that far. And we all know how spotty the beta participation was toward the end there (which could also be a product of Blizzard under-populating their own beta).

Lastly is the timing of the final stress test. Thursday at 11am PDT? That’s dead center in everyone’s work day- including Blizzard’s. It tells me they aren’t throwing any extra resources at Classic (such as developer over-time, weekends, etc.) because something is telling them not to bother. Alternatively, the budget just isn’t there for Classic because of internal reasons that dovetail into this not being an anticipated bull like the original launch was.

Bliuzzard’s devs have been very forthright about this one. Classic is a much simpler game in terms of handling large player populations.

As the tech improved, they added more features/abilities for the players which leveraged that additional tech. Retail has over-leveraged the tech, while Classic WoW has none of those “new features” which created the over-leveraged problem retail had. Hosting a Classic population is an absolute cake-walk compared to retail. There isn’t anywhere close to as much “server overhead” to deal with on a per-player basis.

Whoa, careful, there’s a slope there and it’s pretty slippery. Man, if only we had people warning of this months in advance.

This was due to requiring subs, from a player base that is mostly not subbed.

Because they don’t want it to be like Retail PTRs where the entire game has been played out on streamer screens long before the content is released (again).

And 8pm in CEDT.

It tells me they’re trying to ensure that the European infrastructure is all put together, because they already tested the US infrastructure last time.

It boggles my mind sometimes, how narrow-focused US citizens are about the rest of the world.

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You do realize that it is going to be a Global testing event for all regions?

11AM Pacific time is 7PM in Central Europe IIRC. It’s 2 AM in Hong Kong and 4AM in Sydney, Australia.

it didn’t work in vanilla, what makes you think it will work in classic?

Appreciated, but…

I’m still not seeing prime-time for other markets. I’m seeing a stress test based around the devs rolling into work, getting briefed and getting ready to flip the switch (11am) and then collecting the data for the rest of their work day until they punch out and head home about 5pm or so.

Or is 2am in Asia and 4am in the Oceanic prime-time for stress testing too? The only argument to be made here is 7pm in the Euro market, but it’s not as global as one would think.

or they could have just stuck to the second plan they had.
shard low level zones for the first few weeks and call it good.

Sharding zones got massive backlash, so they said screw it and sharded the whole server. This way, theoretically you will not see people phasing in and out right in front of you as they’re either on your layer worldwide (continent-wide) or they are not.

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I know I have read it all before. I don’t believe that Blizzard has actually fixed anything. To this day they still havn’t fixed the Squelch DC bug from the voice system. Hunter FD is still broken and pets still aggro people as they res in BGs forcing combat.

I don’t think that they have any dev talent left and they just have interns making mount art assets and pet skins.

I get suspended from the forums within days of being unsuspended, sorry i couldn’t let you know sooner. Rats report everything.

and sharding low level zones is still preferential to sharding ALL zones.
because that’s really all layering is. one big shard.

Except that is the very reason why we have layering. Many underpopulated realms kills MMO’s (RIP Wildstar).

It goes like this:

Option 1 - Creating many 4K pop realms and having many 800 pop realms after 3 months.

Option 2 - Creating fewer 20K pop realms and splitting them into 5 layers, and having fewer 4K pop realms after 3 months.

WoW’s population WILL DECLINE after a few months. It doesn’t matter how good the game is… there will be millions just looking for a quick nostalgia trip or for checking it out, given how accessible the game (any game actually) is nowadays.

Here is a wild guess: 80 realms worldwide announced by Friday, and this number will rise to 140 by launch.

NA had it’s primary (and underwhelming turnout) infrastructure stress test back in June. As has already been pointed out, now they’re more interested in verifying the other regions are properly configured, while also making sure no new surprises happen in NA, as it is still part of the Stress Test as well.

Don’t confuse the “focus window” to be the only point in time they will be gathering data for. It’s running for at least 24 hours. Lunchtime on the Pacific Coast may not make a great “focus window” for NA, but I’m sure plenty of people will be signed in all the sign come that evening.