I do wonder how they could actually, if they decide to go with it, avoid exploitation without putting in restrictions and such. Which again, bring with them an additional set of problems and requirements to work out.
Not a nice position to be in, that’s for sure. Very difficult to make a dynamic system like this, which allows for multiple copies of the world, non exploitable without restricting grouping up/getting a new layer per play session etc, which all are parts of the flexibility of the system. And that flexibility is what this thing depends on to be useful enough to fix their perceived population problems.
I just really hope they’ll decide to go with the suggested alternatives instead which don’t have any layering (as suggested in threads before). They allow the game to stay authentic, and don’t invite exploits of any kind alongside new social dynamics/game design the way layering can, and will.
If they don’t wanna use that, i’m confident they can come up with something along the lines of it that fits them as needed, and still not have layering.
Forced to keep it? All they have to do is remove it and queues will happen then give people on the overpopulated realms a free transfer to as many new dedicated realms as necessary to balance the population out.
Enough people will take it because of the queues and the population sorts itself out. Your position that forced transfers would be needed is completely ridiculous and hyperbolic.
People never leave their full servers to go to the dead ones, this has been tried and has failed many times. The layering appears to be the best solution to not only have a stable server population after the tourists go back to retail but will immensly help in leveling. Have you ever tried to level on a fresh, overloaded pserver? Its a freaking nightmare.
Yes people don’t tend to leave slightly overpopulated servers.
But in this scenario the person I was replying was implying that the overpopulation at the end of phase 1 would be so massive that layering would have to be kept on.
In this case there would be at least twice the maximum population in the realm.
This would mean at peak times the queue would be likely longer than a typical average player has time to play the game.
Facing that type of situation there would likely be enough people on those realms to fully populate at least one entirely new realm and I can guarantee that when facing with two options.
1: Not being able to play
2: Taking a free transfer
If they limit layering to starting zones, it would be called sharding. Layering is similar to the suggestion made that they create multiple realms that share a character database, and then combine those realms once the populations declines.
Layering works similar but allows them to collapse layers as the population declines, instead of waiting until all of the realms are dead and then combining them.
Blizzard has already made it clear that the vanilla era server caps were by design and they have no intention of running pserver style megaservers.
Layering is the best way to deal with retail having free access to Classic. Servers are going to decline sharply over the first month. Most servers probably wont have more than 2 shards after a few weeks. I think most will be down to a single server by the end of the first month.
I do agree that layering abuse is an issue that should be addressed. I think the best solution is to multiply BL and devilsaur respawn times by the number of shards. I really don’t see layer exploiting being that big of a problem. The bigger issue will be the level 60s farming. When you have a servers worth of 60s spread across 2-3 layers, it dilutes the number of 60s competing on rarer resources, making them less rare.
It might be worth extending the layer multiplier to the higher tier resources like thorium/dreamfoil/etc.
I guess it depends on personal priorities whether it’s the best solution for the server population problem. For example, someone who prefers smooth access and gameplay over the spectacle that is a big MMORPG launch, and all the crazy it brings with it, will probably much prefer an approach like layering.
But is this modern approach (stemming from retail wow’s sharding etc) really fitting to use for an old game like this, that entirely depends on it’s community/social dynamics to stay intact?
These will be changed if layering goes in. If the community gets weakened from the start, it will in turn weaken the whole game since it’s so dependent on having communities that can form appropriately to it’s game design, which layering will disrupt due to it’s flexible nature.
However, there are alternatives still. There’s also those players who would rather go with the most authentic approach, leaving the game and it’s most important aspects intact as they are, while still addressing the special influx of new or curious people this time around.
That’s why we’ve come up with suggestions that allow for an alternative approach that allows for the game to remain the same, with the least amount of drawbacks possible:
They only differ very slightly from eachother, but they all allow for a much more authentic experience than layering would, yet still deal with the big wave (and it’s potential aftermath) of the tourists.
Additionally, they also have the advantage that unlike layering, these approaches allow new players and tourists to experience the game in it’s finished/real form from the beginning, as they level up through the world with their own realm communities which are so important to have intact to experience the magic of vanilla/classic.
maybe you dont remember the big patches and just the over all server performance of the original game… but it is definitely going to be a very good thing in the long run. other wise we will be able to play for minutes at a time for the whole first week.
thats assuming layering will still be in place when most players hit 60 and its safe to assume thats not going to be the case. I also dont think rare node exploiting will be an issue even if we had multiple layers if population is heavy enough to occupy the zones as there will be multiple players competing for those nodes.
Ever been in a 5 hour queue? I have, and thats what will happen if we have pserver sized megaservers. I have sat in queue for hours and it sucks. The starting zomes would be an absolute nightmare to level in.
This has some very serious ramifications that can negatively impact the long term.
Let’s say demand is off the charts initially, and in order to avoid hour long queues for players, Blizzard spins up a ton of extra servers to meet demand. A month or two down the road, we see a drop off as people just trying it out move on to other things, and now we have a large number of servers limping along with a low population.
This has already happened over the years with the game, and history is going to repeat itself. If they can iron out the ability to exploit layering, I think it can help the long term health of the server populations.
This is subjective, layering/sharding made the world more accessible to more people, and more friends could be made that way. Sure, it’s super annoying to see a node disappear right in front of you, or a mob disappear when you need one more for a quest, but overall, sharding/layering made for a bigger world connecting more people, initially. Which it will for Classic even more so because now you’re forced to meet people and group/work together. Eventually, as server pop died and people realized endgame is all that mattered, they breezed through everything to hit max level, so seeing people out in the world became scarce.
It was the other aspects of modern WoW that caused its downfall, like removing socializing, heck basically removing the leveling process, introducing heirlooms and boosts, selling tokens, streamlined class balance and every class/spec only needs 2-3 buttons, and can do everything, etc. etc. etc.
But, that’s also my opinion and you’re certainly entitled to yours.
It would be awesome if they offered players a non-layered/sharded realm alternative. I would wait for hours to queue. I don’t care about leveling fast.
The very last thing I want to do is login and play something that doesn’t feel like Vanilla WoW and rush through a game I’ve waited for 10+ years.
I don’t know why Blizzard didn’t try layering out in the Beta test so that they can address these problems that come up before the game goes live. Oh, wait…
I’d disagree that it helps with this, because having more people available doesn’t necessarily translate into having an easier time making more friends.
Sharding/Layering takes multiple populations of a normal realm size and blends them together.
Unlike a normal realm, which feels like a village where you’ll always end up running into the same people, you’ll instead be in a big city, meeting new people everytime you leave your house. (aka start a new play session)
But are you going to interact with them, and bond with them nearly as much as you would in a village? I don’t think so. You’ll be another fish in the sea, and depending on how many people will leave, remain to be one for weeks or months.
Thanks to sharding, the little version of layering, we already can tell where this road will lead to.
It’s shown already that being connected to way more people, with no guarantee to meet the same ones over and over again in the same world, isn’t going to lead to more and better incentives to form friendships or do social bonding. It’s gonna do the opposite.
And that in a very special time where the whole realm will populate the world as they level together to 60. Is that worth the temporary server health? I don’t think so.
I disagree. In the beta, you have less people, so you’ll see less people. Classic forces you to group and socialize. Even if I group with one person in retail, we typically chat and add each other to friends. Imagine when Classic releases and you HAVE to work together with people. It’s certainly going to widen your range of friends and potential guildies.
Temporary? This is for long term health. Dead servers are far worse and that was a massive mistake they made back then, just creating more and more realms. So yes, it is worth it to have layering in the game. And I realize that’s my opinion, but your view is also that, yours.
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