We all know that layering is here to stay so no need to argue about that. I’m currently wondering though if blizzard will put a cap on layers for certain servers?
If there was someway to denote that a server would cap at 3 layers say, compared to a large one with 10 layers, I think players would have the option to gamble on a server that may be dead after the tourist leave, but not underwhelmed by the vast amounts of layers on the server.
Personally I enjoy mid level servers that aren’t constantly jammed packed, but still small enough to really foster that community feeling. So in summary, could Blizz let us know how many layers (or layer cap) are available per server?
My assumption was that servers would probably be 3-4 layers or so, maxing out at around 12k potential players. 10 sounds really high and would likely not have enough people stopping playing in order for it to work long term.
10 is just an exaggerated number to get the point across. Lets say the servers were based on 1-4 layers. If you could decide between a server with 2 layer cap or 4 layer cap do you think you would help you determine your starting realm of choice knowing the potential temporary populations?
I’m pretty sure that even with layering there is still a pop cap for a given server. I think if a lot of the numbers that I’ve seen on posts its like 2500 per layer with absolute max of 3k and I think a total of either 3 or 4 layers…so maybe 10k total per server? Idk really, but I would think that even with layering there is still an absolute max that can be reached on the server. And I think the playerbase will spread itself out at the start because there will be so many players that even with layering there won’t be a choice but to do that. Unless everyone dogpiles the PVP servers and leaves the PVE servers alone or something like that. Which is also a real possibility.
It wouldn’t really matter for me personally. I’m joining up with some guys I played with a couple years ago to do a progression style run through the game during Legion, and I’ll be simply choosing whatever server they’re on.
Overall, I don’t believe layering will have that much of a negative impact for a significant portion of time, so even if I wasn’t going with some others, I’d pretty much pick at random even knowing some had higher or lower potential layer counts.
They won’t give out those numbers because they know there are groups who would try(and are possibly capable of) to put Blizzard in a bad position in regards to keeping their word on their targets.
The other side is it possibly provides insights into how their systems are configured, so “trade secrets” play into things as well.
I think it’s up in the air at this point, as this apparently was what was being tested during the last stress test (less layers with higher pop, versus more layers with lower pop). From what I understand, I was on one of the servers with the high layers-low pop settings. Mulgore was crowded, but I never bottlenecked on a quest too heavily (the closest I came was the dwarven tools quest). Later I played a dwarf, and same thing (no bottlenecks).
The other thing to keep in mind is that there is a huge, collective ‘question mark’ on this whole process. They can try to layer the servers in whatever way/configuration they want- it will all be meaningless if there is a huge surge of players returning. As someone above said, layers aside there has to be an absolute ceiling on a server regardless. Blizzard may find themselves with too few servers, regardless of the number of layers on each.
Honestly, I think that stress test was to put the tech through its paces and give some insights into how they could use it in retail, less than testing population caps for Classic.
It was worth stressing the server, but the responses (*generally) were that the populations were either too high or too low, depending on your server.
In the video above, they also said they can quickly spin up brand new realms if their metrics show that the original estimates are wrong. There is a limit to the number of layers, because otherwise it won’t collapse to 3k like they want, and if they see far too many numbers, then they can open more realms and hope that the % of retained players remains accurate despite those new realms.
This is not their first rodeo, and they are willing to make changes quickly if their plans change.
This is very true. Another thing I neglected to mention, but have considered, is that layering is one thing, and server stability is desirable, but hasn’t one of the main problems with Blizzard all along been their prone-to-imploding log-in and hand-off technology? Is this being addressed at all? I think we’ve all had that situation when playing with friends/guildies of, “Don’t log off- I can’t log back in.”
Context matters, unless the context undermines your argument. Blizzard has gotten far better at launches since Vanilla, and aside from a major hiccup in WoD, has had smooth launches since Cataclysm.
