Thanks for the knowledgeeee. Here in my garage.
servers overpacked, not enough room, new servers added too late after most people reserved names they liked/set up friend groups on certain servers
people quit out of frustration due to blizzard incompetence
“SeE GuYs WeE ToLd YoU ThErE WoUlD Be A DrOp OfF oF PlAyErS!!!11” - blizzard probably
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Cause the logon server is different from the world servers.
Fixing or removing the Queue Timer would be nice. As it stands the number has no meaning in any way.
Would be better to just say “Long Wait, Medium Wait, Short Wait”
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What happened to layering? I thought that layering was put into the game to allow the server to scale up quickly so it could allow for a ton of players during the initial rush? Are there unexpected bugs that are being worked out in layer we can expect to see fixed in the coming days?
Layering is working fine. They just implemented a finite cap on the amount of layers, so that when they remove layering (before phase 2), the server will still be playable.
Imagine as a pure hypothetical if every server was just crammed onto one server with infinite layers.
Then take away layering.
That server now has a million person queue and is totally unplayable. They’re planning for the future.
Ah… taking layering away and having to plan for that now makes the benefits of layering limited and the job of server admins almost impossible. In the mean time the process is really painful for their player base. Modern server infrastructure is designed around the idea that user loads will fluctuate over time and they are designed to dynamically grow and shrink with demand so this type of thing is not even noticed by the end users. Without allowing for fully dynamic server load the solution we are ending up with is a giant guessing game. We’ve all made communities and guilds on the servers we picked during name reservation day. We could all make new characters and start over on new a server but we don’t know if we are just moving to a new server that will be overloaded by a bunch of other people moving to it, putting us in the same situation of a long queue after putting in a lot of work getting 50+ people to move to a new server for nothing.
Server side infrastructure dynamically scaling up and down in reaction to user demand is a problem that was solved 10 years ago. I am just a bit surprised that Blizzard is still having these kinds of issues when there are so many, well known technical solutions that could have prevented these issues…
Those technical solutions exist, certainly, from a purely technical perspective.
But each and every one of them damages or destroys the Vanilla experience in some way.
I’d like to know if we’re actually going to be getting a West Coast RP server or not. I’ve been really excited Classic, but don’t want to deal with time zone issues, ping issues (I’m in Alaska), and the whole “never get to see daylight” thing.
I don’t think you understand just how frustrating this is for some people.
I wonder what the cross-section is between people calling retail players entitled and players being mad at Blizzard for ensuring long-term success for Classic communities.
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I would love to know what discussions were held when you all realized the demand was insane based off full name reservation day, only to add a couple more realms which were also immediately full, and then decided more realms was NOT the answer until launch day when you surely would know large groups of players are already in queue. The sheer number of realms added since launch indicates how out of touch the team is with the consumers.
“Hey we know we opened name reservations and your entire guild has made plans to play together, but we’re going to add 20 servers to randomly scatter players across instead, you can all reroll and reschedule your launch plans” (which obviously many people took time off for)
The community has been screaming for more servers, the community (and obviously the data) were 100% ignored and told to deal with it. Who was the driving force behind the abysmal number of launch servers when there were this many on standby? Or do multibillion $ corporations who provide entertainment for consumers get a free pass on ignorance because “it’s their product, don’t play of you don’t like it”
Edit p.s.: having to check forums for SoonTM realms to come on line knowing you have to drop current queue to check is laughable at best.
It’s only 8 minutes… whats the big deal?
I am in absolute awe right now. Ion has posted on the forums. Not about bfa but classic. At what 3am? Wow. I’m speechless. I must meditate on this turn of events.
Thanks for the update and the work going into adding more servers. Wow…
Hey Ion, Any plans for Etilist Jerks vs C’thun Part Deux? now with Furor in it?
I agree that layering does change the community one encounters in the game but so does the 28k person queue. With that many people trying to get in there is little chance one will see the same players from day to day even if one happens to be among the lucky few that make it in. Everyone else we say yesterday will be stuck in a queue and wont be able to play anyways. We either face layering that dynamically places us with various players and we all get to play the game we are paying for or we continue to have an unplayable game for almost everyone because we can’t get through the login queue.
IMHO the current, unplayable version of the game due to artificial limits on the number of layers is more damaging to the community and the game than the layers themselves. Beyond that, without having enough info the guarantee that we wont face the same massive logon queues if we do migrate to a different server makes taking that plunge really difficult given the amount of work and players we would need to coordinate with to make it happen.
I think Blizzard needs to bite the bullet and make the number of layers in each server unlimited, especially now during launch times. Then if the player base does not shrink and they still want to remove layering then they need to have a good solution to balance out the player bases onto other servers. I would suggest if they do face massively over populated severs as it gets closer to phase two they should offer incentives to move that are more like a carrot instead of a stick (Long queues). Perhaps offer not only free character transfers but also maybe a free month of game time to move from a high pop to a low pop server. As server admins and game designers they’re first priority should be to allow players to login to the game to play at the very least, especially when they have a technical solution ready to go right now (Layering).
Knowing our frustration of playing on a server with friends for 16hrs making big progress, just to not be able to play with same friends after a short nap. Right im sure you know this all to well, Please remind me why a Free xfer would be disruptive to community on a new realm? The thing that i can only think of is a positive for those that are willing to continue to say on the same realm and not xfer to the new realm. While those xfering to new server can continue to play with there friends with no queue times.
I don’t agree, but I think a lot of the disagreement is because I don’t think the game is unplayable.
There are servers that don’t have enormous queues. If you can’t get onto the server you want, you can play on a different one. It’s only really a few of the highest servers that have unplayable massive queues.
This should be stickies because I’ve seen some misinformed posts from people spreading rumors about how pop is calculated. Like that its based on the number of characters created on the realm; which everyone should know isn’t how it works, but unfortunately some people need to be told.
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Am i going to have another 6.5 hour queue when I get home from work? Cause we’ve switched servers on your guys recommendation, we have our guild, and about half of us already got some good grinding going? Do i have to let those people know we have to hop yet again because you want a “healthy population”? Or do i never get to log in because of it?
Offer free transfers from the high pop to a brand new server so GROUPS can move. Please fix the mistake caused by not starting with enough servers.
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I like the numbers that way I can see where I stand. I also like the timer it helps so I can do real life. Also I like to see if I get 777 for my number. For games it is always been trying to make the best of it. That even includes queue time.
Thank you Blizzard for the info.