…you’re just clueless.
Please just stop.
Your entire post screams
“Im an entitled little crying brat”
That could of been the tldr for your post.
They also not once stated in any interview that they would never bring it back. All they said is they will work on getting it to 1 layer as soon as possible. Which they did.
Actually, They never said that. Lore said something along the lines of we will remove it by the end of P1 but will look at bringing it back for high stress times.
For all intents and purposes Blizzard meant what they said about removing layering permanently, they just couldn’t predict Covid and the impact it would have on servers.
I agree with this, but I also know that Blizzard was worried about Classic popularity. They opened 13(?) realms to start and had to release more and more as the initial signup blew their expectations out of the water. And even then they were still afraid that adding more servers in would result in dead servers after launch which meant they wanted to keep server count down but population still be manageable.
I guess I see a lot of this as trail and error, they had a lot of different options they could have tried and any one of them could have had a slew of other issues that happened instead.
LOL, correct! Yeah I was kinda writing that in a rush.
Ahh, right on. It did come across that way, esp when ya quoted me heh. I don’t tend to assume people’s positions in that way, so no worries. I wasn’t assuming one way or another if you were for or against layering lol. Im more interested in the coding. But like you said,
But nah, you got what I was getting out now. Hoping to delve into this a bit more mainly out of curiosity & full disclosure: We’ve been talking about writing some addons for WoW as well, so would just be extra knowledge.
Do you mean Incendius here, or is Grobbulus currently having issues due to transfers?
While I very much like the thought that has gone into your post, and I think you’ve laid things out in quite a reasonable manner, I suspect that the continued popularity of WoW Classic has greatly exceeded predictions.
Obviously layering was a solution developed to deal with temporary spikes in population, as something that could be turned on and off, if/when needed.
Some of the differences between WoW Classic and WoW mean that sharding, as it works in Retail is not a viable solution to be applied to Classic.
Should layering have been used for Classic? 
My personal opinion, and personal preference would be no, it shouldn’t and should not have been, mostly for the reasons you’ve expressed.
I remember experiencing layering on the Weekend Stress Test, prior to the launch of Classic WoW. Like you, I considered rolling on Stalagg. However, that was because that was also the name of the Stress Test server I played on. I was fairly vocal on the forums during that time about some of the shortcomings of layering.
On the other hand though, had we not had layering, I suspect we would have more servers, and more dead servers. Perhaps free or paid transfers could or would resolve that issue. So again,
Personally, I dislike server transfers (paid or otherwise) and would prefer if they did not exist in Classic. I also dislike layering, and would prefer if it did not exist in Classic. I also dislike locking servers from new character creation, population limits or caps, attempts to force faction balance, cross-realm BGs, leeway, and Alliance appearances.
I am not personally affected by the queue times, so that wasn’t an issue for me.
In any case though, we do have server transfers, we currently do have layering, and we currently do have massive populations.
I hope whatever direction we end up going in, going forward, results in overall good gameplay. But, we shall see.
Cool, cool! I haven’t written any addons, and am not very familiar with Lua, in particular, but do have experience with other language, and it isn’t particularly difficult to read.
What sort of AddOns are you thinking of making? And is that something you’ve been discussing with a guild, or group of people who play WoW, but are also into coding?
I’d be quite interesting in finding out more!
You guys are always looking for these WoW conspiracies.
I’ll be honest, it’s a hot mess haha! (Blizz’s API), but that’s no secret. Which is part of why I’m curious about the coding they use for layering.
We’ve been brainstorming ideas, but we’d really like to see a good Guild Calendar for Classic go out. We have a prototype atm; but aren’t finished. So far all those I’ve tried haven’t worked for some reason. We also are trying our hand at threat meters, but are seeing why devs are struggling to code them to work as they did in Vanilla. (Too much to sum up here atm). It’s myself & my ultra nerd roommates haha! We’re a house of network engineers & coders. I never had it as a job, so am still learning as a hobby. Roomies have over 25 years of experience, so it’s been an interesting journey. 
Oh! And to answer your question, both I & one roomie has played WoW since Vanilla, & our roomie with the most coding experience only just begun playing since Classic, so it’s been kinda neat to gain insight from each other. We can say well, this is how x worked & code monkey (lol) sees if he can “make it go”. It’s been pretty cool.
Ah yeah, I looked at threat meters a little also. And basically, it seems that everyone needs to have the same addon, same version installed in order to share individual combat log data.
The changes to the API supposedly concerning the spy addon, to something like only detectable within 50 yards or something, may actually be relevant to the accuracy of meters.
Oh, very cool!
Yeah when they adjusted spy that just compounded the issue. But the real issue with threat meters for Classic existed prior to that, was because for some reason, Blizz LOL actually doesn’t have a function for it w/the new API. They could rather easily implement this, but for some reason, won’t. It’s a head scratcher.
Oh yeah, it wasn’t exposed on the API until 3.x iirc… And I suppose for authenticity, it isn’t exposed for Classic 
This is the “Code Monkey” mentioned above ^
The problem with Threat Meters. Oh boy… Where to start?
Blizzard’s classic API is sadly lacking in a great many things at this stage. One of which is an actual threat stat, which we don’t get until a later revision. So! In order to generate an approximate threat value for each player, the scripts must monitor the combat log and query information on attack types, values, buffs, de-buffs, proximity, etc… This isn’t exact. the scripts must garner information from each other in a cross-talk fashion to determine how much threat is being generated by each player and THAT number is thrown in to the calculation, blah blah blah. It’s a mess and difficult to keep up with since with each revision of WOW that is released, the API changes slightly and so do the values in the combat log.
Sadly, the API information out there isn’t always clear as to what version each set of commands and queries are good for, and I often find myself poking around on different reference sites to double verify what queries will work with the version of WOW Classic I’m programming for. Sometimes it’s pure guesswork.
Edit: I’m not sure if there’s an instance where layering would conflict with these scripts, but I imagine that if there is one where the scripts are trying to communicate and the players are on separate layers, this can break the calculations and render false results, ending in wiped raids, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the breaking of the seventh seal - thus leading to the end of days. But I could be mistaken.
Hi I’m the author of NovaWorldBuffs, the addon is still in testing phase and shows incorrect layers sometimes. Still tweaking things to get this fixed.
Yeah, it seems like the most comprehensive API reference is on Gamepedia (https://wow.gamepedia.com/Global_functions). I had some hopes/plans to spend some time diving in, but instead spent the weekend figuring out how to solo ZF Zombie Runs as a mage, and when from 42 to 49 pretty easily - though I did waste a few hours dying lots at level 42.
Hi! Thanks for commenting on this thread.
Cool. Yeah, I assume this has something to do with NWB.data.layers, though I’m not sure where/how that’s getting set.
I think your addon code is the most time I’ve spent looking at Lua! (so far, maybe 5 minutes, but I may use it as a reference to try figuring some of this out, thanks!)
Hey there!
I am the OP, and perhaps I can help as I just started 8x multiboxing Druids, and I saw what looked like 4 or 5 layers, hence my post.
Perhaps I could test or validate your addon?
NOTE: I would definitely keep your technique and source private before publishing the results, lest you run the chance of your technique being patched. This was done with census addons as Blizzard wanted to block reporting in the past. While I wish this wasn’t necessary, transparency towards decision making doesn’t seem paramount.
I am @StartupTim btw if you wish to collaborate.
You realize none of that is private in a wow addon?
It’s pretty difficult to keep software that is developed with interpreted languages from being readable by others, particularly so if you are sharing it with them
That’s not the same as it being open source free (edited: there is also proprietary Open Source software) though. There is proprietary software that requires a license to use, but has visible/readable source.
It would be difficult to enforce on an individual user basis, though. Especially in the form of something such as a WoW AddOn.
As far as I know, there was a function to automate something having to do with the /who API that was disabled.
I don’t think this was done to intentionally prevent it from working (which the changed didn’t/doesn’t do), but it prevented the automation, which (I recall someone claiming somewhere, but don’t have a reference, so take this with a grain of salt) apparently caused a lot of network traffic, and server load, which resulted in lag for players.
I believe that was actually related to the LFG addon, though the concensus addon used the same function call.
Be kind of impossible with wow addons, due to blizzards restrictions
Has good sides and bad i guess, from a creators standpoint.
I fixed an addon, LFGmatchmaker, minor fix, trivial
then shared it to the author.
I guess he was not upset since he used it.
If they have servers with layering and without layering, couldn’t you just transfer to a server without layering? Cause that’s the current situation I’m seeing.
Demand full money back for ruining classic this is not what classic is this is not what we were supposed to have. This is called making items worth absolutely nothing and giving bots on big servers even more room to screw us over. Golf Clap now give me my 6 months cash back for this BS you have bestowed upon our once great community. Sorry you guys couldnt get your IQ’s together and didnt allow ppl to server transfer to my already full server Golf Clap real big thinkers over there at the headquarters.