If Blizzard offered both sharded and unsharded servers

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
81

No shards for me.

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82

I am getting a strong feeling you earned more than just the 2 72-hour actions on your account.

83

It’s so interesting to me that the people saying we should trust Blizzard are the ones encouraging Blizzard to deviate from an authentic Vanilla experience. It’s like they’re saying, “Trust Blizzard to stop listening to me.”

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84

easy call on this one
 no sharding.

reason being, I don’t trust Actiblizzard to stop at just the starting zones. I can definitely see how, as a human let’s say, trying to kill the same X# of wolf spawns for quest #1 or 2 while 100 other humans will be doing the same will be a pain but I would much, MUCH rather feel that pain than start down the slippery slope that is sharding.

Especially when all I have to do is ‘gasp’ talk to a player and ‘gasp again’ ask them to group up for the kills.

where would it stop? tokens? lfg tool? no thanks, that’s what the mess that is retail is for.

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85

Players on a on shard realm can never pay for a toon transfer at all. Same for PVE to PvP server.

I would be ok with it.

You take a QoL you stay and die in the god forsaken server. I assume the shard servers will die.

  1. Raids even if you got world First nobody would care either shard or PVE. You are not playing the true game.
    Why? Did anyone ever celebrate that they beat a game on normal difficulty and broadcast it to the world?
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86

It actually would be an interesting experiment to have two kinds of Classic servers. I expect, as you appear to, that the sharded servers will die a painful death. The thing is
Vanilla is all about community. Community drives the game. So to destroy (or at least significantly diminish) that aspect of the game will have massive ramifications. I expect such servers would be a ghost town
in not too long a time. Both because of the impact of the distortion of social interaction, and also because
well, players who choose such a server probably won’t last long in Classic anyway. If you’re convenience-driven, then this game isn’t going to appeal to you.

Meanwhile the unsharded servers will thrive.

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87

Yeah I picture a bunch of wannabe diehards on the no-sharding servers in such an experiment, and most of those won’t make it long. It will be painful, but what’s left on that server after the smoke clears could be a really cool community.

It’s a nice theory, anyway. Would love to test it! :wink:

(TBH, not sure how long I’d last. I’d like to think I’d come out the other side still plugging, but who knows
)

88

I’m just asking you to stop being a hypocrite but I know that’s probably not going to happen.

89

This is one of the reasons I do not expect Blizzard to offer “unsharded” servers alongside “sharded” servers.

It would shine too bright a spotlight on exactly how much those desiring a truer classic experience despise and loath sharding. It would likely also show that the majority of those that favor the convenience that sharding provides will ultimately not last long without all the other non vanilla QOL conveniences of retail.

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90

They’re a business, and they’re going to do whatever they feel is the best business decision. People who say Blizz wants Classic to fail because if it succeeds it’ll make BfA (and the state of the current game) look so bad don’t know the first thing about business works.

So similarly I don’t think they’re real worried about the perception that lack of QoL (including sharding) somehow invalidates how the game has progressed over the years. Brack and Ion both seem to be very well aware that Classic appeals to a certain type of player, and that a lot of Current players will be turned off by it. It’s no coincidence those that seek a convenience like sharding would want other conveniences, and with them lacking those players probably won’t last long anyway. Which only further demonstrates trying to appeal to that mindset in any capacity is foolhardy.

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91

I don’t disagree, but I do not expect Blizzard to put themselves in a position to have that pointed out so clearly. What message would it send if the “unsharded” servers had thriving populations, but the “sharded” servers were ghost towns within a month?

IMO, it is highly illogical to even attempt to cater to the very people who they do not expect to stick around at the expense of those that desire a truer classic experience by implementing something they admit is totally and completely antithetical to vanilla.

“We know these people will not likely be sticking around, but we’re going to artificially segment the community using a means that is totally and completely antithetical to vanilla to make the game more convenient for them for the brief time that they do play.”

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92

No sharding!

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93

i would go for the highest pop pve server without care about anything else

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94

I’ll pick the (yes) sharding server if given the choice. It means more players can thrive on a server, which means more options/ raid times for raiding guilds, which is nice for me.

On the contrary. #slipperyslope #nochanges

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95

Unsharded but I’d probably still have an alt on a sharded one.
The same thing i learned to do on live because some servers had loooooong ques and others didn’t.
Sure thing I want a decent pop server but most of all I want to play!
Lower pop realms can offer a very active experience.
As long as others on the realm are actively playing and engaging the community.
Only takes 1 person to liven up a party sometimes.
As long as its not a party of 1. LOL
/shrug

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96

I’ll take sharded servers up to level 10 if it means I don’t have to deal with the absolute cluster that is release day leveling

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97

What number of players in a starting zone would be acceptable for that to happen in your opinion? Think about it. Unless they throttle the number down to double digits you are going to have leveling affected on release day.

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98

Do you have links to any of blizzards statements on this? This would be a hard argument against even allowing it 1 time. Most people who are so heavily against it like myself, have minimal trust in blizzard. They have treated there small communities like trash numerous times.

The pvp community gets the poop end of the stick every expac launch with terrible balance, and at the end. Wotlk sticks out above all for that.

99

Sharding starting zones is great for classic, and takes nothing away from vanilla.

People in parties/raids are already in same shard.

I doubt people remember how bad TBC launch was. Classic launch may have just as many people per server. A lot of people will try it, much less will level to even ten, and far less to twenty.

If blizzard creates so many servers that everyone has a chance to find a quest item, then by level sixty, it’s just going to be a couple of guilds per server of people.

Shard now, or regret later

100

Now lets add,
mas·sive
/ˈmasiv/
adjective
1.
large and heavy or solid.
“a massive rampart of stone”
synonyms:huge, enormous, vast, immense, large, big, mighty, great, colossal, tremendous, prodigious, gigantic, gargantuan, mammoth, monstrous, monumental, giant, towering, elephantine, mountainous, titanic; More

exceptionally large.
“massive crowds are expected”
So essential if you limit the number of available players it is by definition no longer massive.

For kicks lets throw this out also

online
adjective
on·​line | \ËˆÈŻn-ˈlÄ«n, ˈÀn-ˈlÄ«n \

: connected to, served by, or available through a system and especially a computer or telecommunications system (such as the Internet)

Anything that limits the massive multiplayer online game or experience (don’t really want to out up the def for experience but will if needed) goes against the design and philosophy of an mmo.
Which indeed makes it objectively antithetical to the game and the design of the game.

You are also neglecting to acknowledge the fact that most freindships that occur out side the guild are by chance meetings that occur outside of general chat. Such as saving someone from getting ganked or killed by mobs and a simpls thank you given. Which i believe happens at lower levels more frequently than higher levels.

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