As Elo said, this assumes everyone who will play at launch, played today. And that’s more than likely not the case. If we get 10x the servers and 10x the demand, we’re still in the same place.
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Yep I am aware Somni. Hopefully it isn’t an issue and get’s addressed. But the thing you don’t want is for nobody to say anything and then have this be the actual release.
If there isnt a huge bottleneck for whatever reason. More servers, each with 3 layers, etc. Then there isn’t a need to worry.
However this stress test is a much smaller number of people compared to actual launch too. There will be tons of people who aren’t interested in a stress test, and tons more people who haven’t even installed WoW yet but want to play classic. More still who are on BFA who don’t care for a test, and will probably give Classic a whirl too. We aren’t yet sure how many servers they will have. They stated they will have less servers because of layering.
So if there’s nothing to worry about, great. But they need to know that 50-100 in one layer in a starting zone is a nightmare for gameplay.
Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Yeah there was a lot of competition, but I grouped up and made a few new friends and we chatted for a few hours killing things. I had a blast.
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We know that not everyone who wants in, was playing. Blizzard chose the player cap. But yes, it depends on whether they a) improve the capability, and b) the increase in players is met by an increase in servers. Though not too many or we hit the dead servers issue later.
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That’s a good attitude mogar. But you could also still make friends and chat as you kill things and finish more quests too :). There’s no reason to settle for a disrupting bottleneck on the first few levels.
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if, you get 10x the demand which is a factor that will be measured in time, i also believe that proper layering wasn’t even used in this test since i logged in peak times and i could still see the zone swarmed by gnomes, i mean, cluttered to a point where i was actually dropping frames to 50 when i’m usually at 120fps in Orgrimmar in Area 52.
My point is, that’s the whole point of these tests, to tweak and upgrade whatever is needed to cope with the demand, we’re still in the first week of testing of 3 months, things are bound to change in that span of time.
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Yes Eloraell, good point. It’s a balance between dead servers vs overcrowded servers. The problem is if they underestimate the interest in Classic WoW and we have a bigger turnout than expected. So if they are solely relying on the layering technology of 3 layers per server, then it could end up becoming a false sense of security or over confidence. So Then they put in a lower number of servers. But what if each and every server is still swarmed? If you have 100_+ in a layer for a starting zone, it’s too disruptive. So my hope is they are wise about this, and maybe build the technology to accommodate more than 3 layers if the first 3 fill up.
Also, if they underestimate population, and it turns out not that many people quit. You have one server with 3 layers full of people. They will never be able to condense that back into one layer as they plan to because there will simply be too many people for the world to handle. I wrote another post on that issue.
Overall I think classic will have higher retention than they think, which is why I was agaisnt layers in the first place originally. Because if your server which is meant to have 3k or so players, actually has 3k per layer, then you will never truly be able to condense those layers without creating dynamic spawns or something. but anyhow, I got off topic.
As I always point out at this part of the discussion, layering is not their only tool. They are willing to add more servers as metrics dictate that they’ll be needed, and if servers remain overpopulated, they can offer free transfers.
I don’t think there is any fix-all solution.
Option A) No sharding/layering whatsoever. While the most fair gameplay-wise, the the game would be laggy for days after release to the point of being unplayable. Possibly even over a week.
Option B) Sharding in starter zones. Poses obvious issues with grouping, and does not solve problems when players get to Westfall or Loch Modan in huge droves.
Option C) Temporary world sharding. Bad for grouping, server economy, and world PvP. Could cause irreparable damage to server economy.
Option D) Layering for first phase. Still has laggy issues, and a risk of economic exploitation, albeit less so than sharding. If it can work, it could be the best option in the long term.
Option E) Layering for starter zones. Wouldn’t make much of a difference. Probably a worse option than starter zone sharding.
Option F) More layers with smaller player thresholds. Same problems of economic exploitation, disruptive group gameplay, and bad world PvP influence as world sharding.
Option G) Bottlenecking - a slow trickle of players. Given the slower pacing of vanilla WoW, one could end up waiting in queue for hours to get in. It would also be unfair to give players a headstart at random.
Personally, I was never against the original sharding plan of starter zones being sharded for a few weeks. That seemed like the most stable option, but if they can get layering to work smoothly(as well as their logon servers), I’ll throw in my lot with layering.
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Just watched a few new videos on Layering. If there are 5k players on the server at launch it will divide the players into 2 layers. Each layer has a 3k cap.
So 3k in one and 2500 in another. Then we have to divide those amount of players into the different starting zones, which arent many.
That leaves hundreds and hundreds of players in each starting zone, more in the popular ones like Valley of Trials and Northwind.
Unfortunately guys this is simply too many players questing boars and gnolls. They have to add something more than a layer cap of 3k at launch.
Again my concern is only the starting zones. You don’t want to spend 2-3 hours questing boars and scorpions. Trust me, gathering those 10 scorpid tails in the valley of trials is a pain even with 4-5 people sitting there, much less hundreds.
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The stress test starting areas were fine. Yeah, there were a lot of players. Which made it great. Took me about 2 hours to do Deathknell. Someone said they finished the human starting area in an hour and a half. Sounds good to me.
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How about “/w Hey, do you want to group for this quest?” and “/invite”?
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We had similar problems on the first weekend of the beta.
Elwin forest was horribly overpopulated. I met two other people and the three of us spent over half an hour in the goldshire mine trying to get dust and candles. Between the 3 of us we were tagging one mob every 3-4 min.
Eventually we just gave up and went to the dwarf lands where there were less people.
That was with layering!
Couldn’t you just leave the starting area and run to another or do that exploration exp leveling for first few levels?
There is bound to be a lot of people at the start so why do anything when it will eventually people will leave.
If the only issue is the bottleneck at the start of the game then faster or “dynamic” respawns is the best way to deal with it. I feel like blizzard went with layering because it makes dealing with player retention problems and server imbalance problems easier. Also its a shiny new technology and old people always need to find a use for their technology to be ham fisted into rather than ask themselves if they should be using it at all.
Also please don’t complain about dying in caves etc. No one cares if you suck.
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Dynamic spawns for starting zones only would work and spread out that bottleneck a bit more evenly.
I’ve ran into quite a few bottlenecks especially in the first few days last weekend.
Its kinda part of the fun. You joke around in /s with the other people competing for the same mob. And hopefully they arent cranky when the druid you invited to your group moonfires it first.
It Can be fun, but you can have fun too doing the same stuff while doing quests was a good point I liked.
I am agaisnt a bottleneck at a starting zone. It’s not fun, nor was it vanilla. You have a positive attitude about it though Yin
Bottlenecks were even worse and more common back then. Did you even play week 1?
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Boulderfist here, day 1. Server was low pop and green so I joined up. About 8-10 people in the valley of trials. A few orcs and trolls. Met a troll priest who became my friend throughout.
I enjoyed that experience much more than trying to out tag 50 people for a boar on the beta, that was hell for me. A smooth gameplay was much more enjoyable.
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