OK, this is a little scary

[Tugo-the-scryers]

@Altrageous-wyrmrest-accord

I mean correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that literal sharding?

It is literally not Sharding.

@Kaivax

Some players have suggested using sharding in low level zones to address launch demand, both because we talked about that at Blizzcon, and because it’s what they’re used to from our modern expansions. Unfortunately, while modern WoW has content designed to work with sharding, WoW Classic does not.

Classic is not even capable of handling sharding at this point.

@Kaivax

A related concern that was raised during our pre-launch test was that capital cities felt empty, but that only occurred because we left the pre-launch test running two days past its original end date, and we didn’t reduce the number of layers at all during that test. During our launch week, as the players spread out across the world, we’ll monitor activity and reduce layers as necessary, so the world continues to feel full.

When they talk about using layering to improve performance in the short-term, they will literally be adding multiple layers of the world to help reduce the massive populations in a small area.