Layering sucks even if its just P1 (Video Proof)

[Studmuffyn-veknilash (Studmuffyn)]

Um yes those are, but not what i was referring to not want to happen.

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

Then probably at another point if they don’t get enough to move they may need to do mandatory server moves.

But here’s the thing. They put in this new sharding tech aka layering to avoid this whole situation altogether, by having a servers population merge over time into 1 healthy realm size and avoid splitting communities, which will form on each layer during the first weeks/months of leveling.
That’s assuming they are somewhat sticky to each player, but due to the layers being dynamic, you can’t have 1 static layer community throughout it’s existence as population will fluctuate, and layers adapt to it dynamically, placing people in different layers.

If they end up having too many layers, and need to resort to the measures you mentioned, they end up with the situation they tried to avoid all along. They might even end up with queues again, weeks or months after launch.
Splitting up the albeit strangely loose communities formed on each layer’s pop at that point is a very real option that could be needed to avoid unhealthy server populations.

One of the devs told press in a response about server population decline with a BIG smirk on his face “it’s not gonna die down, man ”. Exactly what you wanna hear from a dev on classic! Awesome stuff!
It’s just that if his confidence holds true, which i personally also share, then layering will turn out to not have fulfilled it’s purpose, and leave the game changed during all of it’s existence, alienating those who thought they get classic the way they remembered it to be or heard about it being.

And if you choose to be very skeptical of classics population health, and layers do manage to merge down to only ~3k players per realm, then you still end up with weeks or months of game and community changing tech inside the game at it’s inception, that will find it’s way into your playing experience whether you want it to or not.

Additionally, if there were for example 2 layers that somewhat kept the same people in them, and they merge weeks or months after launch, those 2 communities will awkwardly merge together and new faces will pop up everywhere that you should have seen during leveling already, but instead they were ghosts in an alternate parallell timeline world.
How is all that preferable in Classic, compared to a short lived inconvenient launch, where they still have the option to open up new servers according to demand very easily (as they said)?
Again, someone is gonna get hurt either way. That sucks. But the most important thing here is that they deliver the game people wanted, and allow it to do it’s thing the way it has back then. That, again, leads to no sharding/layering black magic, but rather one cohesive world, not multiple “authentic” worlds with parallell timelines. Just one that the community can call home and establish itself on.

[Zycci-whisperwind]

OP but you’re showing me a single example of layering gone bad. Without layering, tens of thousands of players will be locked out and get sent to a queue due to full pop.

Which many already expect.

Then we’ll have to sit through thousands more salty threads

Don’t click on them?

Where as here, we’ll get about a dozen or so complaints temporarily until the populations stabilize.

Right. You’ll see more than a dozen complaints the first time SS/TM starts up and half the people just disappear.

Plus, does anyone really believing that layering will actually be removed later? Can it even be removed?

What happens when there’s a city raid or WPvP starts outside a BG, raid, dungeon, or anywhere else? What happens when it’s time to open the gates of AQ?

[Caelle-exodar (Caelle)]

Like I said, in this process we are probably going to end up with something that stinks, I honestly just don’t see a way around it unless the population just nose dives quickly.

Whether its a long as crap queues, a bunch of dead servers, layering, or eventually needing to split things up, something is gonna suck unless the population nose dives quickly.

My guess is Blizzard is going with the idea that everyone will be able to play, and then they will deal with whichever evil they need to deal with when the tine comes.

This idea that its not going to be perfect anyone with a brain should have seen coming for a while. Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but one thing Blizzard has been consistent on the last several years is that they aren’t losing customers because they can’t play.

Like I said, players are going to need to ride the wave just like they did in Vanilla until it settles out.

[Sidearm-exodar (Sidearm)]

Plus, does anyone really believing that layering will actually be removed later? Can it even be removed?

Yes it will be removed IMO, since Classic will fail otherwise - and Blizzard knows this.

Layering will be a disaster if it lasts past the launch window. Ion himself gave his word it would be gone. The population will unsub in mass if layering is still there in phase II or later.

Hopefully it will be gone sooner, and Ion said a few weeks actually.

Layering can be removed even if the realm is overpopulated via server queues, and free transfers off the realm.

[Fearoftdark-akama]

At first I was like yeah… layering shouldn’t be too bad… it’s only like a layer = a server but since you can switch layer on the fly this creates the exact same problems as sharding and cross realm Shiznat. Blizzard needs another wall of no with this sharding bullcrap

[Kurddran-stormrage]

What happens when there’s a city raid or WPvP starts outside a BG, raid, dungeon, or anywhere else? What happens when it’s time to open the gates of AQ?

In Vanilla, if you were there for AQ, the server simply crashed and queued up 90% of players during extreme load. In Classic Layering replaces some server crashes, so pick your poison.

Don’t click on them?

Tell that to Blizzard support, not me.

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

Sometimes you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but one thing Blizzard has been consistent on the last several years is that they aren’t losing customers because they can’t play.

Like I said, players are going to need to ride the wave just like they did in Vanilla until it settles out.

I agree! That’s why a short but intense launch won’t scare off the players longterm, just as they weren’t scared off multiple launches before. In the end, launch is a very short lived couple moments in the lifespan of the whole game. One people overall don’t care about. They may remember it, sure. But it holds no important significance in the big picture. What matters are the weeks and months after that inital launch, where the whole community forms and takes it’s unique place in the world.

Players will actually really care about the overall experience they’ll have when they access the overall 2 years worth of classic gametime ahead of them (as an example). They’ll judge the game’s quality and their enjoyment of it on how much they enjoyed themselves during that span of time. Just as they have done before.

And they will, as you say, ride out the wave just like in vanilla, with the difference that this time around, Blizzard is prepared well. Or, they’ll make a couple angry posts the first week or so in. Those are unavoidable regardless. Except this time around, no server is gonna burn, crash, explode, etc. They’ve got it tech wise. It’s going to be fine.

[Chopchopexe-bonechewer]

@Barkamus-elune

Twitch Clip

Basically this guy sees some people killing a rare and asks to join their party. They invite him and the rare immediately disappears and the whole group gets sent to a new layer.

What could have been one of those organic open world Vanilla moments that might have led to a new friend, instead is a uncomfortable immersion breaking event that only encourages people to NOT invite anyone the next time something like that comes up.

Welp, this is good evidence that Layering still needs some tweaking! We appreciate your objective evidence in helping to resolve issues such as this! Please continue to do so and we can be expectant of a immersive experience to come!

Software technologies such as Layering are quite a substantial feat and it’ll take everyone’s input in finding edge cases such as these to make the technology even better! Keep up the good work!