The sharding is extreme even for an expansion launch, there are multiple shards with maybe three people, at most. It wasn’t even needed by day 3, Valdrakken has an auction house, which cuts down hugely on people who would go to Stormwind.
I realize there are a slew of technical problems to handle lately, but it’s getting silly.
Orgrimmar didn’t even need a shard anywhere. The zeppelin tower was outside the city gates.
Gonna be real nice on Christmas day when we get our gifts and can’t derp around with them with people because everyone’s on different versions of the same darn map.
Oh BOO, I didn’t even think about Christmas day! The insane crush of people waiting for the presents to spawn has become a Christmas tradition!
If the elemental assault server event that started in Cathedral Square during pre-patch didn’t crash the server, then I’m almost positive it’s safe to unshard the city by now, really.
unshard moonguard stormwind
unshard moonguard stormwind
unshard moonguard stormwind
unshard moonguard stormwind
unshard moonguard stormwind
unshard moonguard stormwind
AND WrA ORGRIMMAR😩
Maybe they are trying to remove all the ERP that was happening in stormwind (and wasnt just a goldshire problem). Cant speak for wyrmrest, but moonguard was filled with spam of BDSM lifestyle guilds recruiting and all manner of junk. Far far beyond just goldshire meme.
For once, a community Council member provides a reasonable opinion. Sharding should be non existent on RP servers in cities.
It’s supposed to be. Blizzard specifically said it would be that way.
But every pre-patch they turn it back on, because they can’t think of anywhere else to start the lead-in quest chains. Then everyone has to rabble-rouse until they admit “WHOOPS WE FORGOT”
Then with the expansion launch they turn it back on for no reason. And again, we have to riot before they admit “WHOOPS WE FORGOT”
It’s tiresome and ridiculous.
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:
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.
They don’t ‘turn it on for no reason’ they turn it on to deal with the large amount of players attempting to do content, because when you have hundreds of players in one space it creates lag.
If you’ve ever been to a Tournament of Ages, you know what happens when a large crowd of players congregates in one space. The opening and closing ceremonies of the Tournament of Ages are extremely laggy, with multi-second delays between when you type out a message and press enter, and when it appears in the chat log. Likewise with the Wonderlight Ball that occurs after the closing ceremony, there are so many players there in that one spot that there is again, massive delays and lag.
And that’s honestly bearable for an RP event. Nothing is really happening there except folks talking to each other and dancing (in the case of the Wonderlight Ball).
But when you’re trying to engage in world content, like say the pre-patch event, or the first few weeks of an expansion launch, that same lag that is somewhat tolerable in an RP event is absolutely not tolerable, at all.
Until a better solution is found to eliminate that lag, then during periods of extremely high population, sharding has to be turned on, at least for a short while, then it should be turned off when the population in these areas drops to a far more manageable level.
The sharding is limited to the cities themselves, though, and when disabled affects only the cities, themselves. Once you leave the city the sharding is appropriately applied and things like prepatch events aren’t affected by lag. It’s really lame because that makes 2 capitol cities the only viable RP hubs anymore but it’s a compromise we had to make when they instituted the dumb sharding system ages ago.
Sharding and Cross Realm Zoning are actually supposed to be turned off across the whole for RP realms, save for “new content” continents like the Dragon Isles. It was changed to be that way in BFA I believe?
It was absolutely awful when that was the case, though, tbh.
I just kinda wish that it being a month later and no one at the dock anymore they’d finally turn it off… most everybody is in Azure Span Iskaara lagging out the soup community feast daily… which ironically ISN’T sharded despite the entire zone being laggy with or without it…
Azure Span: 30-50 people in a 20 meter space yelling "SOUP! SOUP! SOUP! SOUP! SOUP!"
Stormwind City:
Every time a carp head shows up I yell “Beat the carp outta it!” intermingled occasionally with “I AM THE SOUP!” and “You’re saying it wrong… it’s ‘Yasssssssss chef!’”.
Yes please, Blizz unshard Stormwind already!
Do role players have their own version of Renaissance faires?
Like pretending to pretend to be somebody else
I hate how much I wish I had thought of that
I just speak passive-aggressively to the chef and talk about how lazy he is