Classic is blizzard’s practice/test subject to analyze player behavior pre-launch for a large MMO so they can use that data to maximize player engagement for their true project: WoW 2 - The Invasion of Sanctuary. The biggest gaming crossover ever conceived. The Gnomish and Goblin engineers are at it again and this time their curiosity and love of explosions has ripped a dimensional portal open into HELL!
It is heavily predicted that at the end of BFA the Alliance and Horde will no longer be at odds, and this timing couldn’t be more perfect as WoW 2 introduces the world of Azeroth to the world of Sanctuary. The pieces of the soul stones have been recovered and Diablo threatens to destroy Azeroth! All WoW races are now joined together to fight this new evil. The twist is that you now have the option to play as a minion of Diablo in his new conquest against both Azeroth and the Nephalim, OR you can play as the Nephalim in staving off Diablo (again) and the new threat of the warring hordes of this strange new world “Azeroth.” Thats right…there’s three factions now!
I’m calling it now. Classic is a lab test. WoW retail is dying. WoW 2 - The Invasion of Santuary is inevitable. Diablo Immortal is all part of this plan as well, Immortal is going to introduce the crossover to the world at Blizzcon this year. This way BFA can unite the PC players for the new game and Immortal can get the mobile gamers wet. Yeah I said it, this game will be multiplatform PC/Console/Mobile.
If you are not juiced yet…Just wait for WoW 2 patch 1.69 when amidst the intense infinite conflict the gnomish engineers receive a strange transmission from SPACE! It is FROM THE FUTURE and a strange small planet called Earth, an elite team calling themselves Overwatch has been observing the struggle and want to join the fight. The Overwatch toons will be implemented similar like a hero class and you can choose any of the three factions. OMG I’m so pumped.
Relistening to that, I picked up on a little detail I hadn’t noticed before. He doesn’t just say they’ll be reducing the number of layers week to week.
First, he says that the layers will start off with a capacity similar to what they had in vanilla WOW. So far, so good.
Then he says that over those first few weeks, “as people spread out more, we can actually increase the number of people we put in one layer while also decreasing the number of worlds required”. (Start around 5:50 in your video link)
Basically, they may very well eliminate layering by the time they release Kazzak or Phase 2, but if populations haven’t shrunk down they’d be doing it with much larger server populations on that single layer.
Blizzard has said in the past (in fact, I think it was Ion) that the server populations can flex, can be a lot larger. So a single Kazzak, but potentially 10k people logged on at once? Is that what we’re ultimately going for?
But does he mean they will remove layering? Or he just expects enough people to leave where it would automatically drop off to 1 layer… because I’m telling you now that’s not going to happen for every realm.
I replied before you added the link. I wasn’t watching that closely.
That was a big SNAFU, it will be interesting to see if adding the new server worked to bring populations down. As Stalagg has increased to Medium, it would seem as if things will be better.
As the two realms I intend to play on are Stalagg (I moved) and Grobbulus, I’m actually not affected, but I understand your concern. It is difficult to know how it can be fixed though. I guess you will have to either move or put up with layering for longer than the rest of us.
No worries. I am a grobby in any event. Just discussing current events.
I just feel it would have been best to have caps and slowly raise them over time rather than allow a free for all with bandaids applied comically late.
My fear for Herrod is that entire large guilds (I know of one in particular) had chosen and reserved names there and are not apt to move at this point.
That is his ideal situation. Blizzard has said in the past that they will not allow race changes, faction transfers, or server transfera from PvE/RP to PvP but all of those happened. Never trust what any of them say they promise or plan to do. They would LIKE to have layering removed in a few weeks or by phase 2. There is no execution plan (i.e. no set date or plan in case the population is too high on servers to remove it).
They’ve never had character creation limits because that leads to split groups of players. They have limits in the form of queues, which they’ve already confirmed will be active day 1. So obviously they are putting a cap on online server population and the number of layers they’re willing to create.
That’s not what he says, though. He says they’ll start reducing the layers over the first few weeks as player activity drops and EVENTUALLY (his words) the server will be reduced to one layer. He then talks about Phase 2 world bosses requiring there to be only a single layer.
Translation: layering is going to be around for a while in Phase 1. Guaranteed to be gone by Phase 2.
Let me stop you right there and ignore whatever followed. There are a number of things that classic is doing that were “never had” prior. The way that they have done it over the past 15 years has led to how many dead realms? The definition of insanity applies here, and has led to imbalanced servers, cross realm garbage, phasing, etc. So, “never had” is not a very compelling case.
And as I mentioned above, that’s not all he says. He also says they’ll start increasing the number of players on a layer “as people spread out”. End result is a single layer, but a larger population cap than vanilla release.
The fact is, they’re going to be using queues to place limits on server populations and layer counts. That addresses everyone’s doom and gloom predictions of Herod going into Phase 2 with 1 million players online in 100 different layers.
