Sharding Compromise

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

(This is a summation as an OP of stuff discussed in a dozen sharding threads, but none seems to start the discussion with this logic.)

Definitions:

  • “Tourist” = Player who doesn’t get past L20. This assumes that the average player that gets past L20 plays for a significantly longer time, than just stopping a few levels past 20.

Assumptions:

  • Non-Tourist population: ~500,000
  • Tourist population: ~4,500,00 for first 3 months.
  • Server Count: ~200
  • Server Cap at 3 months: 3,000
  • Server Cap at launch: Variable based on technology limits.
  • 60% of tourists won’t get past L10
  • 100% tourists won’t get past L20
  • No dynamic respawns
  • Average peak online players is 40% of active server population

My suggested compromise for Sharding is as follows -

At Launch:

  1. Durotaur, Mulgore, Tirisfal Glades, Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh, Teldrassil are sharded.
  2. The Barrens is sharded.
  3. No other zones are sharded at all.
  4. Shards have a maximum occupancy of 500.
  5. Shards have a minimum occupancy of 150.
  6. Shards split at 400 members.
  7. Shards collapse when two shards together fall below 300 members.

After Launch:

For any given zone when the following conditions are met, it will no longer shard:

  • Greater than 70% of a 24hr period, less than 400 members in zone.
  • At least 1 week has passed.
  • Hard limit at 1 month to be removed.

Reasoning

Shard Sizes:
Assuming 5 million players at launch “trying it out”, and 200 servers, that’s 25,000 people per server attempting to play. This creates upwards of 10,000 people trying to play during peak per server. Even perfectly splitting this up between the 6 starter zones by race, that’s 1666 per race, and 3333 in Dun Morogh and Durotar. That would be between 9 and 3 shards in any given zone, and double that in the paired starters. But it would still mean you’re seeing between 200 and 500 people in any given zone.

More than 500 people in a starter zone would destroy the ability for people to progress and drive people away from the game where they might otherwise transition from Tourist to Non-Tourist. The “authentic vanilla experience” didn’t see numbers like that in any given zone on day one either. Maybe 200 max in any given starter zone, but not 500.

Competition for mobs and nodes would be far more ‘authentic’ with limited scales of players, while ensuring that there’s tons of people in every direction.

The Barrens:
The Barrens gets a special callout here, and to some extent Loch Modan. With 2 races merging in the Loch, and three races merging in the Barrens, there may be a requirement for sharding to be enabled for those zones too. Assuming that 40% of each race makes it through to the Barrens, that’s still 120% of the levels seen in each of those starter zones that hit the Barrens at the same time. Which pretty much ensures the need for Sharding there. Same rules of disabling it should apply.

Server Numbers:
WoW launched with 89 servers. It would be ‘authentic’ to launch with those same 89 servers for US, and similar for the launch in EU. Even more authentic would be to use the same names.

However looking at the numbers after launch, if you spread 500k players over 200 servers, that’s 2500 per server. Perfect cap would be 166. That’s actually more servers than you really want, but its the trade off between too many and too little. Each server will have about 2500 accounts, meaning about 1000 active players during peak. Half that would be better after launch, with about 2000 active during peak (with room for a heavy peak to 3000), but halving it during launch would create even more shards.

Conclusion:

To me (and it seems many other posters), this seems like the most clean method of ensuring a clean launch of Classic, without driving away Tourists who might become Non-Tourists, without long boring queues (though there’ll still be some for the purists), and without leaving 500 dead and dying servers forcing server merges 6 months in and signalling to shareholders that Classic failed.

I know the #NoChanges brigade will demand no sharding, no dynamic respawns, and tens of thousands of people in any given queue, but I feel like that’s intentionally destroying the long term viability of Classic WoW.

1 Like
2

3 months of the possibility of sharding?
You also stated a shard would have 400 people? What would even be the point?

Your numbers you had throughout it all have nothing backing them, just blind assumptions.

Blizzard should put up launch Queues and a dynamically increasing server pop.

3

400 is far better than 6000?

4

Neither is actually playable for a starter zone

5

Can you clarify this? 70% of what?

6

Early vanilla we regularly had upwards of 200 people in a zone. And it was busy by not full. 400 would be completely full.

7

i think this is wrong. a tourist can very easily be a fan of old school mmorpgs, in which case, the only reason they’d leave is they dont like some feature, rather than the prospect of having to grind and have difficult battles

8

For more than 70% of the 60 second blocks in a 1440 minute window, the average population for that minute in the zone was under 400.

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At which point they wouldn’t really be considered a tourist. At least imo. They’d be considered a non-tourist at that point for considering numbers.

10

Exactly. I’m using the definition of a tourist as someone who comes for a look, plays a bit, then leaves because its not their thing.

11

Ok, I have read enough of these posts.

I have one question.

What in the world makes everyone so sure that 100% of tourists wont get past 20 or make it? Do you think that little of the game? I know you think little of them. But you really think this guys? Or is it being used as a dead horse statement?

12

Because someone getting past L20 isn’t a tourist. Its an arbitrary definition, but Blizzard’s numbers on the L20 Free Trial showed that the vast majority of players quit before they hit 20.

2 Likes
13

Because then they are not a tourist.

1 Like
14

Because level 20 is the turning point in which most classes get abilities that allow them to either speed up how they move, level, damage, or whatnot.
If a player reaches this point, the lvl 20 abilities will either keep them in game or they will not continue playing despite the added convenience.

2 Likes
15

Thank you for the clarification Eloraell.

Yall know I just hate when we segregate is why I asked.

16

I assume that “tourist” in this context is synonymous with BFA players who’ve never played Vanilla, and not necessarily just some random gamers who’ve never played WoW in any capacity.

It’s just cynicism.

1 Like
17

All the maths I am seeing are running under the assumption that all “5Mil” players will attempt to log on simultaneously, and stay on the same levels and content throughout the first weeks of launch.

18

Lol, you put way to much work into this post honestly, Not saying it’s bad it’s actually well done, i disagree with it though, the general idea is that there won’t be sharding two weeks in. Still a good read, even though i disagree with it 100%

19

my suggestion was to make no-sharding servers and sharding servers. put all new to warcraft players on sharding servers. let everyone else decide which experience they want. the people who dont want sharding are willing to wait in a queue, they say, and if they decide it isn’t worth the wait, they can re-roll on the sharding servers.

can have a little questionnaire at the beginning, before you’re shown the realm list, which says something like…is this the first time you’ve played world of warcraft, yes or no and if they say yes, show them the realm list with only sharding servers. if they say no, tell them they have option for sharding or no sharding and a brief explanation of what sharding is, then if they select no sharding, they’ll be shown a list of no sharding servers.

the only problem with this approach is, there’d be some servers you wouldnt be able to roll on if you wanted/didn’t want either sharding/no-sharding

20

I think its funny you think there will be 4.5 million “tourists” thats more than current wow player base. Id say a good amount wont try it atleast not on launch. Id say 80% will make it to 10 but 40% make ot past 20. Also why would you shard barrens but not westfall? Westfall is where every alliance faction tends to end up questing. Barrens is bigger and has more questing areas. Also silverpines a better questing area then darkshore or loch modan.