I think people will actually like Classic (i.e., layering forever)

[Kickrøckz-proudmoore (Kickrøckz)]

Classic is going to do very well, its not going to bomb that’s for damn sure.

Will subs drop off within weeks, I’m sure a few will but the rate of new subs might outweigh it for the first few years as they’re going to stagger content and most players that used to play aren’t just going to play right away, they might wait a bit for the rush to die down. I’m sure some will level to 60 get their BIS, quit and then come back for Content drops, Etc,etc.

Blizzard have said that they understand layering can’t work past P1

And I really hope they hold true to this… I’m fine with layering as long as its just in P1.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

And I really hope they hold true to this… I’m fine with layering as long as its just in P1.

Layering isn’t what I’m worried about. It’s primarily spell batching and leeway being way too generous, and the plethora of hunter bugs that ruin the class. We’re not seeing anything addressing those.

[Shammymarry-zuljin]

The layers that people seem to be fine with? You must be new here.

[Ninjapaw-sargeras]

Except that didnt work for vanilla wow.
So why do you think it would work for classic?

People want to be on high population servers. It has been proven that the majority of people will not transfer off if given free opportunity

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

You don’t know that. They’re making a recreation of Classic, and I expect the amount of players from private servers will be a very, very small percentage of that playerbase.

Look, Classic might have more active users six month after release than on launch day. I expect it will. The point I was making is that you repeatedly stating ‘Blizzard has their data and metrics to analyze’ means nothing.

I don’t think they know how to interpret data, or even what data has value. Certainly not from a game design perspective, and that extends to all avenues. I believe that fundamentally the higher ups at Blizzard have zero understanding of, or connection with, WoW’s playerbase. And “you think you do, but you don’t” is still the doctrine by which they operate in regards to Classic. Also, obviously I think they’re drastically underestimating the amount of non-current players who are just waiting to hop into that Classic experience.

When Blizzard says “we are ok with 10’s of players” they are telling us exactly what and why they are doing things.

“You think you do, but you don’t” is in full effect. They are making Classic even still. Because Classic isn’t for the players. It’s to recover their IP.

They are not underestimating the amount of players waiting for Classic. They are also not underestimating the amount that will either leave or keep their Classic play time low.

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

Except that didnt work for vanilla wow.
So why do you think it would work for classic?

People want to be on high population servers. It has been proven that the majority of people will not transfer off if given free opportunity

Blizzard obviously knows what worked and what did not work. I did not list off a suggestion. I listed off what they said they will do.

The small cases that there might be a need for it. These steps will work.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

When Blizzard says “we are ok with 10’s of players” they are telling us exactly what and why they are doing things.

“You think you do, but you don’t” is in full effect. They are making Classic even still. Because Classic isn’t for the players. It’s to recover their IP.

They are not underestimating the amount of players waiting for Classic. They are also not underestimating the amount that will either leave or keep their Classic play time low.

So… they’re basically saying they don’t care if people will leave because of issues they refuse to address that not even private servers have?

[Ninjapaw-sargeras]

That is exactly what they did in vanilla
It did not work. Dead servers still existed.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

When Blizzard says “we are ok with 10’s of players” they are telling us exactly what and why they are doing things.

“You think you do, but you don’t” is in full effect. They are making Classic even still. Because Classic isn’t for the players. It’s to recover their IP.

They are not underestimating the amount of players waiting for Classic. They are also not underestimating the amount that will either leave or keep their Classic play time low.

So… they’re basically saying they don’t care if people will leave because of issues they refuse to address that not even private servers have?

No. I am saying they don’t care if they only have 10’s of players. All that extra is some attempt to add your own narrative. Blizzard’s reason for that statement is their own.

I am saying that reason is to shut down the pserver’s abandonware defense. Your reason may differ and I am OK with that.

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

That is exactly what they did in vanilla
It did not work. Dead servers still existed.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results

Blizzard used combined realms. It worked. Layering is the pre-solution to combined realms.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

No. I am saying they don’t care if they only have 10’s of players. All that extra is some attempt to add your own narrative. Blizzard’s reason for that statement is their own.

I am saying that reason is to shut down the pserver’s abandonware defense. Your reason may differ and I am OK with that.

I mean, the problem is that while I’m giving them a chance, they’re not really addressing some of the big issues with the beta and we’re getting close to release. If they’re not going to deliver the product people want then it’s not going to stop private servers.

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

No. I am saying they don’t care if they only have 10’s of players. All that extra is some attempt to add your own narrative. Blizzard’s reason for that statement is their own.

I am saying that reason is to shut down the pserver’s abandonware defense. Your reason may differ and I am OK with that.

I mean, the problem is that while I’m giving them a chance, they’re not really addressing some of the big issues with the beta and we’re getting close to release. If they’re not going to deliver the product people want then it’s not going to stop private servers.

If you are saying they need a perfect product to prevent people from going back to an imperfect pserver. Some will but those people are going to find any excuse to go back to pserver, no matter what.

I am saying, the legal, the government, side. The C&D side. If they do not have a product that defeats the abandonware defense. They will never shut down the pservers. A perfect product is not required to accomplish this goal.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

If you are saying they need a perfect product to prevent people from going back to an imperfect pserver. Some will but those people are going to find any excuse to go back to pserver, no matter what.

I am saying, the legal, the government, side. The C&D side. If they do not have a product that defeats the abandonware defense. They will never shut down the pservers. A perfect product is not required to accomplish this goal.

I’m saying they need to fix the major issues with the beta that not even a private server would have - as it’d cause them to fail right out of the gates. We’re not asking for a perfect product. As it is, leeway and spell batching, two systems they artificially made to be authentic to vanilla, are turned up way too high and are causing issues everywhere. It affects everyone.

[Rubmyhorns-bleeding-hollow]

No the primary reason for layering is to allow the starting zones to be playable at launch. That’s why it will be only for a few weeks and it should be only for the zones 1-20

How does a layer of 3000 level 1s chasing the same yellow boar/cat/skorp solve the congestion problem in early game?

[Kerg-scarlet-crusade]

They’re doing layering because they still think that “we think we do but we don’t.” I hope those prognosticators are forced to eat a great big $hitburger this fall.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

No the primary reason for layering is to allow the starting zones to be playable at launch. That’s why it will be only for a few weeks and it should be only for the zones 1-20

How does a layer of 3000 level 1s chasing the same yellow boar/cat/skorp solve the congestion problem in early game?

There isn’t going to be 3000 level 1s in the same starting zone, and three layers (up to) allows fewer players to fight over objectives. It’s better than opening too many servers.

[Vitolri-moon-guard]

How am I going to add or meet someone I never physically see because of layering?

You’ll add one of the many people you see that are in your layer.

No layering means you would actually form bonds that strengthen with these people as you meet them throughout the world.

This implies you’re incapable of doing such with layering? It’s not sharding. People aren’t going to magically disappear unless they’re playing with other people they’ve decided to play with instead. Make friends with the ones on your layer, and guess what? Maybe they’ll introduce you to some of the people they may have met on earlier sessions from other layers, and now you have even MORE friends!

No layering means a lot of people won’t meet anyone at all due to sitting in a queue for hours.

^So much this. One community that 2/3s of the server can’t access, or 3 communities that can intermingle with one another based on bonds building more bonds. Friends of friends.

This has never been the case. Ques solve themselves shortly and a non-layered 60 will last much longer than a layered 60.

Queues solve themselves when people quit playing… That’s not a healthy way to fix queues.

With layering people are going to layer dodge zones with faction imbalances, switch to layers with less populated questing zones, and miss any benefits or punishments of behaving good/bad.

Except that if their server is populated enough for layers… those other layers will be just as, if not more, populated as the one they’re trying to hop from.

you’ll likely never see again.

Why are you never going to see them again? Specific details please.

They are only putting it in because they can’t accurately guess how many people are playing.

Can you?

What if I don’t even see that player on my server because he’s in a different layer?

You’re very likely to see a different player instead.

So you think not seeing players on your server helps server communities?

Big reach. You won’t see some players. But you’ll see a server’s worth of players still. And through them may meet more players. And so on.

People want to be on high population servers. It has been proven that the majority of people will not transfer off if given free opportunity

Then at that point, it becomes their choice. Blizzard gave the option. New servers wouldn’t change that, as those servers would just die. If they want to be on a congested server after layering is removed, let them, at that point.

Blizzard used combined realms. It worked. Layering is the pre-solution to combined realms.

Combined realms are awful, just saying. Fundamentally.

[Rubmyhorns-bleeding-hollow]

There isn’t going to be 3000 level 1s in the same starting zone, and three layers (up to) allows fewer players to fight over objectives. It’s better than opening too many servers.

True, not 3000. 8 races with, what, 5 of them combined into 2 zones? I forget: Gnome/dwarf, orc/troll/eventually Tauren, human, forsaken, night elf? So let’s call that 5.5 starting areas. Assume equal distribution (for simplicity, though that’s a very unlikely scenario), that’s 3000/5.5 = 545 in each starting area. That’s still crazy crowded.

What layering solves is queues. Nothing more. Maybe that’s sufficient, I’m not sure yet. On the one hand, I really want to play on day 1. With my limited game time, queues could easily prevent that. On the other hand, layering has major flaws that that are really best addressed through ensuring layering is super temporary. I would prefer it end well before phase 2.

[Espure-proudmoore (Espure)]

There isn’t going to be 3000 level 1s in the same starting zone, and three layers (up to) allows fewer players to fight over objectives. It’s better than opening too many servers.

True, not 3000. 8 races with, what, 5 of them combined into 2 zones? I forget: Gnome/dwarf, orc/troll/eventually Tauren, human, forsaken, night elf? So let’s call that 5.5 starting areas. Assume equal distribution (for simplicity, though that’s a very unlikely scenario), that’s 3000/5.5 = 545 in each starting area. That’s still crazy crowded.

What layering solves is queues. Nothing more. Maybe that’s sufficient, I’m not sure yet. On the one hand, I really want to play on day 1. With my limited game time, queues could easily prevent that. On the other hand, layering has major flaws that that are really best addressed through ensuring layering is super temporary. I would prefer it end well before phase 2.

There’s absolutely going to be bottlenecks, but with it being up to three layers those 500~600 players are going to be with a lot of players still, but fewer. It’s still going to be a thing and that’s fine.

The major flaw of layering is the potential for abuse, which is easy to fix. Hopefully Blizzard does something about it.

[Ristra-suramar (Ristra)]

If you are saying they need a perfect product to prevent people from going back to an imperfect pserver. Some will but those people are going to find any excuse to go back to pserver, no matter what.

I am saying, the legal, the government, side. The C&D side. If they do not have a product that defeats the abandonware defense. They will never shut down the pservers. A perfect product is not required to accomplish this goal.

I’m saying they need to fix the major issues with the beta that not even a private server would have - as it’d cause them to fail right out of the gates. We’re not asking for a perfect product. As it is, leeway and spell batching, two systems they artificially made to be authentic to vanilla, are turned up way too high and are causing issues everywhere. It affects everyone.

Here’s the thing. Release day is just 1 day. They have an infinite amount of days to tune. Yes, beta is a major data collection period to launch with as good of a product as possible. But that doesn’t mean what you rate highest on the priority list is what Blizzard does.

Does not mean it can not be fixed.