A lot of people, myself included, hate the idea of using sharding at all in Classic Wow. This is mostly due to the soul crushing, community killer that it has been in retail WoW. This is an emotional argument against sharding, which is mainly what has been presented up until this point. So I wanted to do an analysis of just what the effect of sharding would be on servers from a strictly logical and analytical viewpoint. This is likely closer to the view Blizzard is taking since I doubt any of their current employees have very much emotional attachment to the game at this point.
For this analysis I need to collect data that will most closely mimic the Classic launch numbers. For that I am going to use the numbers from the Lights Hope Northdale private server. The reason I use this server is because it has a large population and distribution of which we will likely see similar numbers translated over to Classic WoW once it launches. It contains many people who are playing it to progress in end game, many casuals, and many players just playing to see what it was all about, as well as those just logging in for nostalgia reasons, and some retail players logging in just to troll the Classic community. This is likely what we will see once Classic launches as well.
It is important to note one key difference between the original launch of Classic in 2004 and the launch of Classic in 2019 and that is the players logging in in 2004 all purchased the game and were playing with the intention of playing it for many months at least. Many of the players logging in in 2019 will not have that intention and that has strong implications for what will happen to the end game community. I will explain using the data.
On the Northdale private server there are currently 692,130 characters created. 324,146 Horde and 367,984 Alliance. The number of level 1s is 230,624 so I will exclude them from this analysis as they largely aren't being played, may be used for bank alts or to reserve character names, etc. The distribution of the remaining levels are as follows, and percentage wise we are likely to see a similar distribution in Classic, which we are able to draw some conclusions from.
2-10- 219,592 (47.6%)
11-20- 106,585 (23.0%)
21-30- 54,351 (11.7%)
31-40- 31,960 (6.9%)
41-50- 16,808 (3.6%)
51-59- 8,205 (1.8%)
60- 24,005 (5.2%)
Based on this data only about 5% of the characters created will reach level 60 and almost half of the characters created will stay at level 2-10. Most of those 2-10s will be around the launch of classic, jamming in the 6 starting zones at the same time. So what will those zones look like? Well that depends on what approach Blizzard takes.
Scenario 1: Blizzard keeps population caps low to a number like 3000 to prevent overcrowding in the starting zones. This sounds pretty good. With 6 starting zones thats only 500 people per zone. Very crowded but manageable. But what effect will that have on the community. If we use an example of 1 million people logging into Classic at launch (we will probably see at least that number, with at least 50% of retail WoW players checking it out and the influx of private server players and those waiting for Classic) then in order to accommodate that number of players Blizzard will need to make 340 servers so everyone can play at the same time. The problem with this comes later when 95% of those people don't progress to 60 (as we see from the statistical data). 5% of 3000 is about 150 level 60s. 75 on Horde. 75 on alliance. Not all logged in at the same time. Effectively a dead server with no community.
If we say 10,000 people choose to play on a server with a 3000 player cap and just aren't all logged in at the same time thats still only 500 60s on the server split between Horde and Alliance. Not ideal.
At this point you say "well let's merge servers" The idea has been presented to have Servers with the same name like Mal'ganis-1 Mal'ganis-2 etc with the knowledge that at some point those servers will be merged. Well that is essentially sharding for the entire leveling experience and then dropping a bunch of 60s all together at the end of the game as they will all level in separate instanced areas only to be put in with a bunch of strangers at some random time. And if 5% make it to 60 you will need to merge 20 servers to finally get a healthy population at end game. By merging 20 servers together you'll be playing with 95% of people you never met, never had a chance to level with etc. Terrible for community as well.
Scenario 2: Everyone is placed in the same server but with dynamic respawns in populated areas. So if 1 million people log in to play at launch and only 5% are going to make it to 60, that's about 50,000 players. So in order to have healthy communities that last over time 50,000 players spread over 5 servers would make about 10,000 per server, which would be a large robust community which is what we all want. But the problem is the launch and the fact that most players won't stick around with about half making it only to level 10. That's 200,000 players per server and about 34,000 players per starting zone. This will crash the servers, it will not be playable. You can't put 34,000 players in one zone and expect anything to happen other than a server crash. The servers lag badly when you have 40 v 40 in the middle of a single Isle of Conquest. Dynamic respawns will not solve this.
Again the main problem stems from the fact that most people will not play the game with the intention of playing for months to years unlike in 2004.
Scenario 3: Sharding is used in the starting zones as proposed for the first couple weeks and then removed once people level past the zones and the people who had no intention of staying are gone. If 5 servers are made and sharding is used it will only shard you with other people on your own server. The general chat will still be seen with anyone on the server even if they are in different shards and you can still group with anyone on the same server. if they make 100 sharded instances of the same server then 340 people will be dropped into each instanced starting zone, but after level 10 there will be no sharding. Lets be honest you weren't going to be questing with 34,000 different people from levels 1-10 anyway. Maybe 2 or 3, and you can still do that.
This will allow for the community to stay strong and a lot of people who plan on playing til the end will have many people to still play with. In practice, with the way that Blizzard proposed sharding, will actually preserve the long term community aspect of Classic.
It's true sharding is toxic in current WoW and is responsible in large part for the death of the community in retail WoW, if used in the proposed manner, based on what the numbers are showing, it is probably the best way to preserve the community and make sure every server ends up with a healthy community and population post launch.
Maybe i missed it in your post but one thing common to people trying to justify sharding is that they automatically assume that everyone on day one will be playing in the same starting area (you addressed this) and everyone will log on at the same exact time.
I made a post as well that looked at these changes proposed by Blizzard in an objective manner. Just to shorten it cause I think that it being a wall of text did not appeal (though definitely much shorter than this one). Blizzard is making this decision because they do care about Classic being successful. They just have more to lose if it does not. Sharding reduces the risk that new players will leave and not come back rather than getting the true experience up front. They perceive that loot sharing makes it to where they will receive less tickets compared to what could potentially be reports for ninja looting. We can make good arguments on how we perceive these issues, but the truth is that perception is more likely going to be inaccurate for the grand scheme of Classic.
11/09/2018 09:29 AMPosted by TuathaaMaybe i missed it in your post but one thing common to people trying to justify sharding is that they automatically assume that everyone on day one will be playing in the same starting area (you addressed this) and everyone will log on at the same exact time.
I didn't explicitly say it, but in classic WoW the server caps were around 3000. Which is why I estimated server sizes to accommodate 10,000 level 60s so the servers would always be full or populated as everyone is not playing at the same time. That being said, launch is a special case scenario in which I assume that most people will be logging in to play at the same time, which is why sharding is proposed for only the first couple of weeks. After that play will be more dispersed across different zones, as well as staggered at which times people will be logging on to play.
11/09/2018 09:56 AMPosted by Romboy11/09/2018 09:29 AMPosted by TuathaaMaybe i missed it in your post but one thing common to people trying to justify sharding is that they automatically assume that everyone on day one will be playing in the same starting area (you addressed this) and everyone will log on at the same exact time.
I didn't explicitly say it, but in classic WoW the server caps were around 3000. Which is why I estimated server sizes to accommodate 10,000 level 60s so the servers would always be full or populated as everyone is not playing at the same time. That being said, launch is a special case scenario in which I assume that most people will be logging in to play at the same time, which is why sharding is proposed for only the first couple of weeks. After that play will be more dispersed across different zones, as well as staggered at which times people will be logging on to play.
There will be some overlap no doubt but Hawaii is in a different time zone than New York.
They have yet to say if and what all zones they are going to have servers, they may just very well have North America and Oceanic only which spreads peoples play times even further apart.
How about
Scenario 4: 10k player cap, dynamic respawns. What would your numbers show for that?
If a private server can do it, I'm sure Blizz can.
Scenario 4: 10k player cap, dynamic respawns. What would your numbers show for that?
If a private server can do it, I'm sure Blizz can.
11/09/2018 10:31 AMPosted by TwigletHow about
Scenario 4: 10k player cap, dynamic respawns. What would your numbers show for that?
If a private server can do it, I'm sure Blizz can.
Honestly I am completely fine with that. However you still have to account for the ungodly surge of people ready to log in at 11:59 the night before launch. That's really the only application for sharding is those initial surge numbers. Private servers didn't have the marketing, the hype, or the ease of switching from retail to classic so retail tourists can check it out, at launch. Therefore it is logical to expect a much larger surge to the servers than private servers may have had.
I don't know if Blizzard wants their population caps that high though. One of the Devs on the original Classic, Kevin Jordan, said they purposely kept the caps around 2500-3000 because having a smaller identifiable community was so important to them. Some of the people on the team were even fighting for smaller numbers. There is also that.
If that data is current there was a huge spike in character creation after the demo came out.
Those starting zones are chock full of new toons running around since the demo came out.
Those starting zones are chock full of new toons running around since the demo came out.
11/09/2018 10:58 AMPosted by Romboy
I don't know if Blizzard wants their population caps that high though. One of the Devs on the original Classic, Kevin Jordan, said they purposely kept the caps around 2500-3000 because having a smaller identifiable community was so important to them. Some of the people on the team were even fighting for smaller numbers. There is also that.
You can still have high pop caps and just use sharding to segregate players.
20K cap with 10 shards will give you that vanilla number.
11/09/2018 09:29 AMPosted by TuathaaMaybe i missed it in your post but one thing common to people trying to justify sharding is that they automatically assume that everyone on day one will be playing in the same starting area (you addressed this) and everyone will log on at the same exact time.
I haven't heard one person ever talk about everyone starting in one zone. As for the exact time? Relatively? Yes they will be at the very start.
11/09/2018 11:06 AMPosted by Brockthorn11/09/2018 10:58 AMPosted by Romboy
I don't know if Blizzard wants their population caps that high though. One of the Devs on the original Classic, Kevin Jordan, said they purposely kept the caps around 2500-3000 because having a smaller identifiable community was so important to them. Some of the people on the team were even fighting for smaller numbers. There is also that.
You can still have high pop caps and just use sharding to segregate players.
20K cap with 10 shards will give you that vanilla number.
The number isn't the point. We're not shooting for a number. We're shooting for a community of the same people. 20k cap is a 20k community where random people are placed in random shards and can't see 18k of the people in your community. This is not a solution. This would 100% be the death of classic and the community. If someone has never played Classic before I can understand why they won't understand what people are talking about when they say they want their community back because WoW has been void of that for quite some time.
Sharding should absolutely only be used in the 1-10 zones during the initial surge. 1 to 2 weeks that's it.
I think this is a good post.
Any cap on the # of people logged in will lead to queue times. If people are forced to choose different servers because of long Q times at the beginning, eventually the average server population will be low.
Maybe it's worth noting as well that sharding is location specific. If you choose a starting race which has a less popular starting zone than the others, you're less likely to experience sharding due to overpopulation at launch.
Does anyone have data on what % of players used to play on Pvp/PVE/RP servers?
11/09/2018 10:31 AMPosted by TwigletHow about
Scenario 4: 10k player cap, dynamic respawns. What would your numbers show for that?
If a private server can do it, I'm sure Blizz can.
Any cap on the # of people logged in will lead to queue times. If people are forced to choose different servers because of long Q times at the beginning, eventually the average server population will be low.
Maybe it's worth noting as well that sharding is location specific. If you choose a starting race which has a less popular starting zone than the others, you're less likely to experience sharding due to overpopulation at launch.
Does anyone have data on what % of players used to play on Pvp/PVE/RP servers?
Just tell Blizz to make 200 servers in NA, 200 in EU, 300 in China and that, most importantly, Classic players are more than willing to pay for it.
Blizz won't care about sharding as long as they get the money to host the larger number of servers required at launch.
Blizz won't care about sharding as long as they get the money to host the larger number of servers required at launch.