Blizzard will choose a certain number of servers and certain number of layers per server at launch. I propose to make those layers selectable by users one time at character creation.
Server list: Mannorth1 Mannorth2 Mannorth3 Mannorth4
When you make a character, you choose your server, and the layer. If you want to play with your friends then you all choose “Burning Blade3” .
Once you choose your layer, you are locked to it. No layer hopping for any reason. It will effectively be an isolated server within a server.
A week after launch when population stablizes, all the “Burning Blades” are merged into one server. All the “Mannorths” are merged into another server. And so on.
Problem solved, no layer exploiting or weird grouping behavior.
Layering will last 2-3 months at least. The server economy will probably be messed up by then. On the servers with high player retention you will end up with a server with 5k more people than the game was designed for.
Why not just turn Mannoroth1 into Mannoroth, Mannorth2 into Kil’Jaeden, and so on?
Y’know… like realms? If you’re just going to suggest layers be solely like realms and merged into a single layer at the end, why not just make them realms in the first place?
give them a questionnaire before the server selection screen that asks if they want pvp or normal, with a brief explanation of how they differ and then whether they want quick create or manual select. explain that quick creation will try to place them on a server layer with the best chances of avoiding login queues. and that manual selection may result in long login queues.
with quick creation, the system could survey where the population was needed the most and least, and place the player accordingly, thus load balancing.
Agreed, and it’s a technology/coder solution which in my experience almost always compromise gameplay. The only “solution” is to create static servers, stick to them, and encourage players to join less populated servers.
Any form of instancing - and I mean any form even or maybe especially boss dungeons - is total crap. Keep it all open world (that’s not vanilla in the case of WoW so it doesn’t apply, but as a general rule it holds true).
The thing that layers are somehow session bound, where you will only be phased if you join a group is total crap.
You can’t have dynamic entrance (through invites) without having dynamic exit (through kick out to another layer). It’s impossible for players to join groups without someone else to be phased out to compensate in full layer.