I'm okay with sharding on launch

[Odinmar-eldrethalas (Odinmar)]

i keep trying to come to peace with sharding at launch and then someone comes in and keeps moving the goal posts on us.

My impression is that you can’t really turn sharding “off.” You can only turn it “down.” You can probably turn it “down” enough that you can’t tell the difference from “off,” but the principle of the thing is that sharding will be everywhere and always, different in degree but not in kind.

[Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel (Matcauthon)]

i keep trying to come to peace with sharding at launch and then someone comes in and keeps moving the goal posts on us.

My impression is that you can’t really turn sharding “off.” You can only turn it “down.” You can probably turn it “down” enough that you can’t tell the difference from “off,” but the principle of the thing is that sharding will be everywhere and always, different in degree but not in kind.

yeah. i have a problem with that.

[Lãrrel-akama (Lãrrel)]

i keep trying to come to peace with sharding at launch and then someone comes in and keeps moving the goal posts on us.

My impression is that you can’t really turn sharding “off.” You can only turn it “down.” You can probably turn it “down” enough that you can’t tell the difference from “off,” but the principle of the thing is that sharding will be everywhere and always, different in degree but not in kind.

Yeah, I had that impression too. I think Blizzard isn’t commenting further because there’s no separating it at this point. It’s ingrained in the infrastructure they have and it would be too expensive and wildly unrealistic to expect the company to change out their servers to accommodate the older game (which may or may not do well). I think Blizzard understands what we want and may try to keep sharding away as much as possible.
The only problem is the slow creep that has led to current WoW. Will it all start creeping back in again? Sharding would be the easiest QoL to creep back in. And that’s what makes me wary.

[Gnocci-emerald-dream]

First 10-15 levels

Hahaha, now it is the first 15 levels?
Uh, hard nope on that.

It will not destroy the game, you will not be alone in a barren wasteland because of sharding and there are people who don’t want to deal with massive congestion and sit around while even though in a group, they can’t complete a defias bandana quest because everyone else is on the quest too.

Then wait a week or so before you start playing.

[Tuathaa-wyrmrest-accord (Tuathaa)]

started with 1-10 for 2 weeks tops and were all the way up to people wanting everything sharded permanently and everything between.

Actually it went from the 1-5 starting area to 1-10 zone and has progressed even further

[Gnocci-emerald-dream]

Indeed. I view “starting areas” as the 1-5 subzones, and after having been on a few PS launches a day or two is PLENTY of time to tame those. A week or two is absurdly long.

Anyone unwilling to group for the quests beyond the L5 zones deserves to be outpaced.

[Tuathaa-wyrmrest-accord (Tuathaa)]

Yep after the initial area you can go where you want. No need to shard all of durotar or elwynn

[Gnocci-emerald-dream]

Yep after the initial area you can go where you want. No need to shard all of durotar or elwynn

There are so many kill count quests at that point that a group could zoom through.

As others are, I am TRYING to come to grips with minimal levels of sharding and limited length of time. Those trying to force a slippery slope so they can solo grind quests should just wait a week or two before playing.

[Fesz-cenarius]

People act as if their phase will be only them and they will never see another soul. It is only being added to deal with the initial congestion.

No, people don’t act that way. That is not their concern.

It is not being added only to deal with initial congestion. It is being added because modern cloud-based server structures are not as stable as the older single-server-per-machine technology was when it came to local/zonal population spikes. This launch-day population boom followed by dead servers a few weeks later story is not real. It’s an excuse they’ve come up with to put a sheen on the fact that the new server technology (which they are selling as a modern benefit to the player rather than as the cost-saving mechanism for ActiBlizz) is not as capable as it used to be and it comes with sharding whether they tune it to a point where people will notice or they tune it to a different point.

People understand this and wonder if this sharding and this less-capable server technology will get in the way of something like a spontaneous 300 v 300 Tarren Mill PvP event or a very, very large raid on Stormwind or Orgrimar.

Also people realize that shard-hopping could easily kill the economy because each shard has its own mob respawn timers, herb/mining node respawn timers, etc. that totally ruin any amount of tuning you might do to throttle gold generation in a given server.

At this point I’m seriously wondering if they can turn off herb/mining node sharing or if that comes with the sharding/CRZ technology package somehow.

If they “turn off” herb/mining node sharing so that only one shard has those herb/mine nodes to prevent “harming the economy”, imagine being the unlucky one who got put into a shard with no herb/mine nodes.

[Fesz-cenarius]

i keep trying to come to peace with sharding at launch and then someone comes in and keeps moving the goal posts on us.

My impression is that you can’t really turn sharding “off.” You can only turn it “down.” You can probably turn it “down” enough that you can’t tell the difference from “off,” but the principle of the thing is that sharding will be everywhere and always, different in degree but not in kind.

Yeah, I had that impression too. I think Blizzard isn’t commenting further because there’s no separating it at this point. It’s ingrained in the infrastructure they have and it would be too expensive and wildly unrealistic to expect the company to change out their servers to accommodate the older game (which may or may not do well). I think Blizzard understands what we want and may try to keep sharding away as much as possible.
The only problem is the slow creep that has led to current WoW. Will it all start creeping back in again? Sharding would be the easiest QoL to creep back in. And that’s what makes me wary.

Even if sharding cannot be “turned off”, if the threshold for creating a new shard can be adjusted, Blizzard could, if they chose to do so, set that threshold high enough that sharding should never kick in.

I don’t expect them to choose to do so, though, and that is the problem, IMO.

[Fesz-cenarius]

started with 1-10 for 2 weeks tops and were all the way up to people wanting everything sharded permanently and everything between.

Actually it went from the 1-5 starting area to 1-10 zone and has progressed even further

Even one of those who wants the convenience of reduced competition that sharding provides, who sees all those other players in an MMO as nthing but obstacles in their way and expects Blizzard to shard those obstacles into oblivion has gone from “only in the starting zones and only at launch” to “as many zones as necessary”.

[Luceron-thunderlord]

After a 10 year hiatus from WoW, I’m excited for Classic to be returning in all its glory. With that said, I was there at initial launch, and let me tell you, it was not as bad as some people are claiming it to be or fear that it will be. Subjective, I know.

Yes, there was some queue times at the onset, but I honestly don’t remember any major stability issues or having to repeatedly camp mobs due to congestion. I’m sure it happened but there was plenty to do and plenty of people willing to group up. The bottom line is, I was excited to begin my journey. Maybe I’m just an old gamer who wasn’t spoiled by all the mechanics that have made everything so convenient in todays WoW. Players just need to be patient when overcoming initial hurdles. I was.

[Starz-boulderfist]

Cool. Post… The end of it really makes you look like you arent a troll.

[Eopoo-anetheron]

It was bad. Mal’ganis had ques for a long time. I remember them giving out free game time because of the launch.

[Ghan-tichondrius (Ghan)]

You didn’t really need to make another thread on this. Replying to the 10 other existing threads would have sufficed.

[Roran-stormrage (Roran)]

Sharding is needed at launch but I really hope it’s only for the first week or two at most.

[Fateweaver-misha (Fateweaver)]

Sharding is needed at launch

You assume it’s needed at launch.

[Roran-stormrage (Roran)]

There will be too many day 1 players that it will make things unplayable. The starter zones where not designed to handle a large number of players at once. Once you get further into the game that changes, the zones are larger, you can do instanced content and there are different ways and places for you to level.

From my understanding they will only have sharding for a short time and I was told it will only be in the early zones this is perfectly acceptable. Without it I fear no one would get anything done.

[Caelle-exodar (Caelle)]

This launch will be different from the original. In the original people kind of caught on after the initial launch which made those areas not nearly as bad. Servers were unstable back then because all MMO’s were unstable back then, not so much the number of players.

Classic launch will have 1 million players possibly all hitting it at the same time and that will create one heck of a mess that didn’t exist originally. If you’ve ever seen a launch of a new private server you kind of got the idea of what it will be like, except you are talking a ton more players.

Sharding in this case isn’t a means of convenience, it’s a means to keep it so people can play. Hopefully they stick to their word and turn it off as soon as it is no longer needed. I assume it won’t extend past Elwynn and Durotaur unless they are just flat lying to us, which we will find out rather quickly.

[Fateweaver-misha (Fateweaver)]

So…just assumptions at this point?