Option 1:
No layering. Thousands of people in one zone fighting for mobs that take 330 seconds to respawn. Queue times out the @$$, (possibly hours). But, if you and your friend manage to log on at the same time, you’ll see each other and be able to not complete quests for hours together in a zone populated enough to be a major Chinese city.
Option 2:
They layer, allowing a still huge amount of players to be present across the entire continent, and there are less ridiculous queue times and more people can experience the game. But, maybe your friend can’t see you so you have to invite them and then they appear.
I gotta say, option 2 really does sound like much more solid gameplay.
And before somebody says “They released plenty of expansions without sharding (which isn’t layering) or layering”, yes they did, and they weren’t classic servers. They had dynamic respawns and a lot more servers. And the releases were STILL rough as hell lol
EDIT: Now that there has been a stress test, what are our feeling on it?
At least without layering things would clear up after a short time. Layering has potential to screw up the entire lifespan of the game. The devs have not really presented a gameplan to move past layering if a server keeps a high population.
Did you even read my post? What will they do if a server still has 10k concurrent players when p1 ends? Nobody knows because they haven’t told us. Just tearing out the system that allowed for those 10k players to be on at the same time wouldn’t work.
Maybe some of us would enjoy the chaos? Neutering the experience just so people can complete their quests with minimal fuss is lame. I really don’t get this obsession with a smooth launch.
I really didn’t realize that people wanted a rough launch where they couldn’t complete quests (or even get onto the server) for hours.
I’m not mocking you either, I genuinely didn’t realize this was a side to the argument.
This whole layering debacle is a mountain out of a mole hill thing. Do people even know how easy it will be to switch layers? Because to me it doesn’t seem like it can be done at a whim unless someone you know is on the other layer already.
Yes, I read it. You didn’t say all that. If the server has 10k concurrent players on it then that’s fine isn’t it? It’s not like there are 1,000 players in each starting area. Even you have to acknowledge that that sounds pretty crazy.
It is crazy. But the servers now are stronger. They can probably handle that many people as long as they are spread out through the zones. But all in the starting areas? That’s gonna cause MASSIVE issues.
hardcore server option. long queues, no sharding, no layering, no crz. but merges with other hardcore servers when layering removed from the other servers at end of phase 1
i know. i like the idea. but they need also, a hardcore server option. you are warned when you try to sign up for it that you will be stuck in long queues and your server will be behind in server progression but no layering, no sharding and no crz. once layering is removed from other servers, then hardcore servers can also be merged if needed.
Open beta followed by
$60 box price
3k server caps
Retailers get to try the game for free and realize they hate it. Classic servers get filled by dedicated vanilla fans.
The issues with layering are as follows.
A) What happens to servers that don’t decline as much as expected and remain well over the healthy population limit for a vanilla server?
B) What happens to servers that decline more than expected and have very low numbers of players?
C) What happens after the servers stabilize and retail tourists return en masse due to either a retail content drought, or desire to see the next classic phase?