If sharding is a regular thing in Classic then people should simply boycott Blizzard entirely. I know lots will just go back to private servers afterwards.
I absolutely loath sharding in retail WoW so I'm 100% not going to like it in Classic.
12 Likes
11/13/2018 09:31 AMPosted by OrukmetaThey are telling us its only for launch.
Im sure they know what kind of backlash they would get if they really put sharding in.
What they say and what ends up being reality some times are not in line with what players expect. I would much prefer they have early access. I would also prefer for people to enjoy the experince of vanilla and maybe convert a couple of those live players into people that enjoy an actual RPG as opposed to a story driven narrative.
Im willing to put up with sharding twice if only to help that experience mostly because i dont trust blizzard servers at all. Launch and AQ opening. Anything beyond that. Enjoy your lag and disconnects.
Dogs and cats living together
MASS HYSTERIA
MASS HYSTERIA
3 Likes
Allowed? Sharding is built into the infrastructure Classic will be run on. Sharding will always be a possibility, it's simply up to Blizzard when, if and how long they want to use sharding for Classic. It's not like once they use it, oh no, the cats out of the bag we can never not use it again.
what I would like to know, and what actiblizz should be asking themselves is what is the threshold before sharding kicks in? how many people did the ps accomodate on their opening day in the beginning zones? you need to be at least close or surpass that capability w/o sharding to really impress the playerbase and ensure a really awesome opening day/week.
being sharted into a starting zone with 10 other people is not an epic opening. its underwhelming. it leaves out the MASSIVE in MMORPG!
being sharted into a starting zone with 10 other people is not an epic opening. its underwhelming. it leaves out the MASSIVE in MMORPG!
3 Likes
You can want a "pure" classic experience all you want, but the REAL authentic classic experience would be this:
Many servers would end up having dead populations with constant re-rolling or cries for free xfers and server mergers which would come slowly if ever.
The big populated servers would have multi-hour login queues.
You can't fit a million people into a space that fits far less than that. You either let history repeat itself or you go with a megaserver with sharding so that more people can just login without a queue and always have other players to play with without worrying about who quits on which server and which one new players roll on.
Perhaps we should just have an experiment and start with both. Start classic with one megaserver with sharding for people who aren't extreme purists that prefer the practical benefits of a megaserver (maybe 2 if you want a PvE and PvP megaserver, though I think it would be less of an issue for a PvE server) and a few dozen traditional sized servers with zero sharding and strict login limits. See how long it takes before people ask for free xfers to the megaserver. Maybe they never will and you'll just have both groups of people enjoying the game. Maybe the megaserver would be dead and most people would rather wait to login than deal with sharding.
I do think one better approach to a megaserver I've seen in some games was being more transparent and telling you how many shards of that zone are up and how many people are in each and letting you try to get into a specific one when there's room. I think that's better than the zero-transparency fully automated appraoch we have in WoW.
Also, the TM/SS example is ridiculous. You wouldn't need to shard people into smaller numbers than the server can handle. Classic server infrastructure likely couldn't handle as many people in one place as they can handle now. We had the server crap out when our 40 man going to MC ran into another 40 man in BRM at times in Vanilla.
There were much larger clashes in Wintergrasp and Ashran years after Vanilla servers with much smaller popluation caps had WPvP encounters. Granted BfA has performance issues with large groups of players in BfA world zones that we didn't really have in Legion, but I think that's because it's rushed and not optimized. The push for DX12 may have also been an issue there.
Many servers would end up having dead populations with constant re-rolling or cries for free xfers and server mergers which would come slowly if ever.
The big populated servers would have multi-hour login queues.
You can't fit a million people into a space that fits far less than that. You either let history repeat itself or you go with a megaserver with sharding so that more people can just login without a queue and always have other players to play with without worrying about who quits on which server and which one new players roll on.
Perhaps we should just have an experiment and start with both. Start classic with one megaserver with sharding for people who aren't extreme purists that prefer the practical benefits of a megaserver (maybe 2 if you want a PvE and PvP megaserver, though I think it would be less of an issue for a PvE server) and a few dozen traditional sized servers with zero sharding and strict login limits. See how long it takes before people ask for free xfers to the megaserver. Maybe they never will and you'll just have both groups of people enjoying the game. Maybe the megaserver would be dead and most people would rather wait to login than deal with sharding.
I do think one better approach to a megaserver I've seen in some games was being more transparent and telling you how many shards of that zone are up and how many people are in each and letting you try to get into a specific one when there's room. I think that's better than the zero-transparency fully automated appraoch we have in WoW.
Also, the TM/SS example is ridiculous. You wouldn't need to shard people into smaller numbers than the server can handle. Classic server infrastructure likely couldn't handle as many people in one place as they can handle now. We had the server crap out when our 40 man going to MC ran into another 40 man in BRM at times in Vanilla.
There were much larger clashes in Wintergrasp and Ashran years after Vanilla servers with much smaller popluation caps had WPvP encounters. Granted BfA has performance issues with large groups of players in BfA world zones that we didn't really have in Legion, but I think that's because it's rushed and not optimized. The push for DX12 may have also been an issue there.
11/13/2018 09:40 AMPosted by Brockthorn11/13/2018 09:31 AMPosted by OrukmetaThey are telling us its only for launch.
Im sure they know what kind of backlash they would get if they really put sharding in.
Look no further than the history of crz/sharding on RP Realms.
CRZ was MOP
Sharding was WOD
There are still a significant number of players on RP Realms in spite of CRZ/sharding being on 24/7 in all zones.
Actually no you are entirely incorrect, old zones do not have CRZ or sharding, only new zones do on RP realms.
1 Like
11/13/2018 09:42 AMPosted by AzerothinianAh, I see.
So you've been to the future amd are telling us exactly what Blizzard has done, and you've come back to warn us.
Laughable.
Sharding for the starting zones at the beginning is a good thing, and there is no valid reason for them not to do it.
Agreed. There’s also no reason to believe the threshold will so low as “50 players” or any other such nonsense EVEN IF that it somehow the threshold for retail (which I doubt it is).
Beyond the fact that it’s understood Classic players desire a different experience than retail, the game itself is simply different and highly dependent upon community participation/interaction. It stands to reason they not only recognize that but will in fact cater to it for the sake of having long-term success.
1 Like
11/13/2018 09:40 AMPosted by Brockthorn...
Look no further than the history of crz/sharding on RP Realms.
CRZ was MOP
Sharding was WOD
There are still a significant number of players on RP Realms in spite of CRZ/sharding being on 24/7 in all zones.
Actually no you are entirely incorrect, old zones do not have CRZ or sharding, only new zones do on RP realms.
July 2018
https://twitter.com/warcraftdevs/status/1022566187266232320?lang=en
By default, sharding is always disabled on RP realms, except where needed for server stability. When events drive large numbers of players to specific areas, we shard them as needed. Sharding has once again been disabled, but we expect it will be needed for launch events soon.
It will be there for a few days and people are acting like sharding is going to be in Classic WoW for years.
11/13/2018 04:59 PMPosted by SavaxIt will be there for a few days and people are acting like sharding is going to be in Classic WoW for years.
Because if you let it in at launch you're never going to get rid of it.
People think the problem is gonna go away after the starting zone for some reason. It's not. If you shard the starting zones, dunno about horde side but alliance side there are only 4 choices of 10-20 zones. Darkshore, Loch Modan, Redridge, and Westfall. Now while anyone leveling in Elwynn may not have much of an issue, as soon as night elves make in into Darkshore or gnomes/dwarves make it to Loch Modan, they're going to have all the competition they didn't have in the starting zone to contend with.
This will cause people to cry about it on the forums. And then Blizzard will extend the sharding to the 10-20 zones for a longer period of time. And so on and so forth, until all of Classic is sharded permanently to placate the people who don't want to fight for resources.
5 Likes
11/13/2018 04:59 PMPosted by SavaxIt will be there for a few days and people are acting like sharding is going to be in Classic WoW for years.
It's going to be as long as they please or whenever they feel the need, who are you to offer any guarantee?
If Blizzard adds sharding, it will be unnecessary, because we won't bother playing.
8 Likes
11/13/2018 05:06 PMPosted by Velossena11/13/2018 04:59 PMPosted by SavaxIt will be there for a few days and people are acting like sharding is going to be in Classic WoW for years.
Because if you let it in at launch you're never going to get rid of it.
People think the problem is gonna go away after the starting zone for some reason. It's not. If you shard the starting zones, dunno about horde side but alliance side there are only 4 choices of 10-20 zones. Darkshore, Loch Modan, Redridge, and Westfall. Now while anyone leveling in Elwynn may not have much of an issue, as soon as night elves make in into Darkshore or gnomes/dwarves make it to Loch Modan, they're going to have all the competition they didn't have in the starting zone to contend with.
This will cause people to cry about it on the forums. And then Blizzard will extend the sharding to the 10-20 zones for a longer period of time. And so on and so forth, until all of Classic is sharded permanently to placate the people who don't want to fight for resources.
Westfall gets crowded because of DM
Darkshore gets crowded because of rep and mount
By level 18 or so everyone is hanging out in Westfall for DM runs.
11/13/2018 10:01 AMPosted by Natiari11/13/2018 09:57 AMPosted by SuzìeWhat happens when that many players or more show up to a single location outside of a starting zone in vanilla?
Who knows...
But Azer is partially right. So is Brock.
Let's be honest... Do you really expect Blizzard to return to the archaic hosting methods they had in the day and have a separate server "blade" for each realm?
That simply isn't going to happen.
It can't happen. The hardware Blizzard used back then isn't made anymore. They don't even have those blades -- they auctioned them off for charity.
11/13/2018 09:42 AMPosted by AzerothinianSharding for the starting zones at the beginning is a good thing
I disagree but I think it's probably the best solution they can come up with that I can stomach.
Every time I read a post on Sharding, all it comes across to me as is "THE SKY IS FALLING!"
3 Likes
I wouldn't mind if they had sharding for all non-contested zones.
11/13/2018 09:46 AMPosted by RatsmatsThey previously told us sharding would NOT be used in Classic. Look how well they kept their word on that.
Exactly why Sharding cannot be allowed at all EVER.
12 Likes
Again as someone literally on an RP realm, they are talking about old world zones, new zones have sharding.
2 Likes