Please - No shards in SW on RP Servers

[Alison-moon-guard (Alison)]

I hate Sharding so much

It’s an absolute garbage system.

I also REALLY hate complaining about it.

Going through this after every Launch is SO trite.

I have the addon TRP installed—It has an opt-in feature where I can scan my map to see other people who have the addon installed, and identify where RPers are congregating.

Every single dot on this screenshot is a person with the addon installed and I can’t even find / see a quarter of them in my current phase. Why? Because the sharding in Stormwind City is so aggressive during Prime Time that I’ll have better luck seeing friends at MIDNIGHT than I will at 8 PM server time. THAT’S SO DISAPPOINTING?

I have more than a fleeting frustration spurring this post though, I guess, but I’ll start by ripping some notes from one of the MANY threads we went through in the past expansion launches:

How Sharding is Antithetical to MMOs

Click Here For "TL;DR"

This is a plea to disable Sharding, a feature which actively removes players of the same realm from seeing each other in WoW, and to design an alternative method for handling server stability in the future like was done for the launch of WoW Classic. This letter was spurred when RP realms, which are normally free of Sharding outside of max-level content zones, required the feature’s temporary enablement and then haphazardly forgotten about. It is long after popu…

It is by design the opposition of creating a Massive Multiplayer Online gaming experience and, when combined with the two other supplementing softwares, the foundation of an ecosystem that is forever revolving and consequenceless.

When a player logs into their realm and plays WoW, they do not see people from their realm when they go to play world quests, nor do they compete with familiar faces for the same resources. They play with people from other realms, who will not be able to join their guilds nor take part in the same Auction House markets—They can choose to say anything they want to each other, or nothing at all, knowing that the other players around them will have 0 impact on how they entreat their gameplay tomorrow; this not only allows but also fosters a toxic, antisocial environment.

When a player is in a constantly revolving door of activities without partners to ground them in the experience, the only memories they matter are those that belong to themselves; there is no organic activity to create a shared sense of gravity with other players. There is no storytelling between the heroes of Azeroth for the vast majority of players.

When a player has no attachments to their activity, they accomplish what they assume is their own goal and leave the game; they have no online friends that they want to see succeed or plan to succeed with and they choose to LEAVE the game, removing themselves from any prospective opportunity where they might ever make the attachments which have led to real-life friendships, marriages, and more.

There is no consistency; there is no connection; there is no community.

I hate sharding because I want to log into WoW, run around Stormwind City, and interact with people multiple times—To build relationships that could start as Complete Strangers and then, after multiple random encounters, become casual friends.

I haven’t been able to do that for over 2 weeks, now, and that’s extremely disappointing and, as someone who looks forward to this activity as a silly hobby after work, mildly frustrating that a significant element of my favorite passtime is inoperable.

Servers like Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord are among the last few realms on WoW that actually have a social ecosystem beyond spammy mass-invite guilds (which are absolute garbage btw never take them even on a PvE realm) or Trade Chat trolls (though imagine not leaving all the world channels lmao couldn’t be me). When communities don’t have sharding or phasing, they can genuinely FLOURISH.

Seriously—Imagine if we could have had welcome parties for all the new / returning players after Dragonflight launched, where people made care packages with bags and equipment, like what happens on Classic realms (that happened to me on Grobbulus) ???

If the only upside to Sharding is from up-their- contrarians who say we’ll all cry about server lag from the number of people in an area, then that ISN’T A GOOD ENOUGH POINT. Rather? I think Server Lag is a part of the MMO experience and having a week of that is what makes the RUSH of an expansion launch so significant.

I -WANT- to see a ton of people; that’s -WHY I PAY- for an MMORPG.

So please take it the away.