Whoever told you that was either making an assumption or repeating an assumption that someone had made.
Blizzard has not yet confirmed that sharding will be used. They have acknowledged that they are considering it, even though they admit that they know sharding is totally antithetical to a cohesive community and vanilla.
Blizzard has not yet defined any geographical or time limits for the use of sharding. They have been very careful with their choice of words to avoid doing so.
Go and watch that video and pay close attention to what is actually being said and the exact choice of words that is used.
Ion did not even say âstarting zonesâ or âstarting areasâ in that video. he did mention Valley of Trials and Elwynn, but never even limited sharding to those areas and their equivalents.
Even the wording in that statement by Lore appears to have been very carefully chosen so as to set no limits, while giving the appearance they are doing so.
Lore has confirmed realm sharding is in for the demo to help stability, however:
As youâve noticed, the Classic Demo does have realm sharding. This is to let as many people as possible experience it without technical issues such as server capacity or spawn density getting in the way.
Longer term, we know how crucial it is to the Classic experience for you to see your friends when you walk into Stormwind or when youâre helping them on a quest youâve already completed. And there should only ever be one Kazzak on a realm, no matter how many people are waiting for him to spawn.
Weâre still looking at how we can best deliver an authentic Classic experience at launch, and in the weeks and months that follow - both in terms of gameplay and community. You wonât see phasing (which is tied to specific quests that donât exist in Classic) or cross-realm zones (which combine multiple realms together) in Classic. However, realm sharding is one of the best tools we have to keep realms stable when hundreds of players are swarming the same initial few zones and killing the same few mobs (like they will be at the launch of Classic). To that end, we do believe that some form of sharding may be helpful, especially in those early days. But we recognize that a cohesive world is critical to WoW Classic and are committed to bringing that to you.
Notice that while Lore does say â(like they will be at the launch of Classic)â, he also specifically uses the word âespeciallyâ when he says âwe do believe that some form of sharding may be helpful, especially in those early days.â If Blizzard was going to limit sharding to âthose early daysâ, why would Lore have to use the word âespeciallyâ. After all, if sharding was not going to be used after âthose early daysâ, there would be no need to state âespecially in those early daysâ, would there?
What happens when there a hundreds of people in Silithus fighting over the same few mobs during the build up to the AQ gate opening while everyone is trying to gather everything they need (or are collecting for the one(s) their guild chose) to be the one to bang the gong.
What happens when the gates finally open and there are hundreds of people in that area trying to participate in the event?
What happens when Southshore and Tarren Mill have a hundred or more players engaged in a massive battle?