Sharding in classic is GAME BREAKING

[Fesz-cenarius]

First, show me any official Blizzard statement that it would only be “a week or two”.

Show you? What Blizzard officially said? Why do you automatically think what I believe or say has to have anything to do with what Blizzard said? Why do you hold what Blizzard says in such high authority?

A “couple weeks” is pretty average for a new game to overcome it’s server instability after launch. I personally believe the hype for Classic is overblown and there will be a steep drop off of players in these first couple weeks when they realize it’s not for them. I also believe that once there’s no need for sharding, they’ll stop it.

I never said that I hold what Blizzard says in high regard, especially when it comes to sharding.

I am seeing a lot of people, including you, who seem to think, for some reason, that sharding will only be for a week or two and want those opposed to sharding to either accept that sharding will only be for a week or two or wait “a week or two”.

I’m asking those that claim that sharding will only be “for a week or two” to provide conclusive evidence to back up that claim, especially when Blizzard has carefully chosen their words to say nothing specific, let alone “only a week or two” or "only the ‘starting areas’ ".

I’m also asking why those who want reduced competition cannot wait “a week or two”.

[Jarcola-dalvengyr (Jarcola)]

Oh, yeah sharding would affect the economy especially if people can gather infinite ore nods and herbs.
Player economy would be hugely affected like it was with garrison giving free gold and legion class halls, also legion herb/ore farming bots that would walk through the sky and be running throughout the area for until half the expansions length.
People with lots of gold buying up all the items and repricing it.

Well pvp servers = can’t see anyone in the area with sharding.
Normal = rush mode.

[Wickess-emerald-dream]

I wonder if multiple guilds would collaborate and have their rosters swarm high-node areas to force sharding to get more mats.

[Cybaster-cenarion-circle]

I’m genuinely worried they will, in a fit of miserly shortsightedness, leave it enabled for “extreme” server conditions, and it will show up during capital city raids.

And then there’s the AQ opening event. Oof.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

Your questions have been answered multiple times. It’s not our fault you refuse to accept our answers.

[Fesz-cenarius]

Your questions have been answered multiple times. It’s not our fault you refuse to accept our answers.

Says the person that, by his own admission, advocates sharding throughout the game IN PERPETUITY.

[Laeric-wyrmrest-accord]

I’ll admit “in perpetuity” was a poor choice of words. “As needed” is probably more accurate.

[Nechross-eonar-37277 (Nechross)]

@Fesz, Ion casually made the statement “for a few weeks” at the WoW Developer Q&A at Blizzcon 2018.

But it’s never been officially communicated what the actual conditions for the limitation of sharding will be, since no one knows when population load will decrease and where with certainty - which is a real problem, IMHO, in the argument for stopping sharding “whenever the tourists leave.”

If sharding is needed at the starting areas and the popularity doesn’t diminish “in a few weeks” as Ion predicts, then by his own logic, sharding will be necessary in Westfall…then Dustwallow Marsh…in cities…at AQ…during the EPL Naxx event…and so forth.

The problem I have with Ion’s remarks at the Q&A at Blizzcon 2018, is that the removal of sharding is based on the condition: when the “tourists” leave.

Can anyone really predict when the tourists “who want to see what all the fuss is about” will actually stop playing? Will the population suddenly drop off “in a few weeks” as he predicts? Maybe or maybe not. I could easily see a Blue post explaining how sharding will be extended to manage the population in Westfall and so on and so on.

Sharding is basically a slippery slope. Once it is used to solve server population load in one area it could be used to solve server population in other areas.

Sharding was never part of original WoW and it should never be part of Classic WoW.

As we have seen in BFA, sharding is not a perfect solution (Google Warmode and pvp sharding BFA).

But more importantly, sharding kills community and immersion in original WoW - which is at the very heart of original WoW and why I want to return.

It is my hope that the Classic Team can find another way than using sharding. They have done an amazing job so far!

But if given a choice, I would much rather have my original WoW with all its flaws and queues, than have original WoW restored and the community and immersion be diminished or lost to sharding.

I wholeheartedly believe that the soul of original WoW being restored by this passion project is at stake by the use of sharding. It is like playing with fire. The social heart of the game I loved could be killed again - just like it was by modern (sharded) WoW.

[Slendy-sargeras]

Blizzard wants to cater to tourists instead of their core audience. Catering to people who you expect to leave is a big yikes

[Ifg-proudmoore]

If starter zone sharding filters out some of you THE SKY IS FALLING people, I bet the server communities will be better as a whole.

Super bummed your private servers are being shut down. My condolences. /hug

[Slendy-sargeras]

Blizzard having queue times to remove tourists like you would make the game thrive

[Ligerzxr-hyjal (Ligerzxr)]

If sharding takes place in classic wow, I myself along with over a handful of other IRL friends will not participate. I know that’s not millions, but I guarantee we won’t be alone. I’ve been around since 2005 and would really hate to see blizzard screw this one up.

Would you rather have dead servers?
Or extremely overpopulated servers?
Would you rather have the beginning zones SO crowded it takes you 10+ hours to get to Westfall?

I’m not advocating one way or the other as this is - IMO - the single biggest/most challenging decision from a designer standpoint (after Av of course) but to boil it down to that single statement is either foolish, or disingenuous.

I personally rather have server populations forcibly diversified because of zone & server congestion. That’s how Vanilla worked and hey it became an iconic sensation.

[Banjaa-deathwing]

What do you mean?

[Ifg-proudmoore]

That’s how Vanilla worked and hey it became an iconic sensation.

Yeah. Queues were awesome. That is the Vanilla experience remembered most fondly.

Pages of posts just lovingly remembering the queues…

And falling through the world. And not enough quests. And no merchant buyback.

Man, good times.

[Ligerzxr-hyjal (Ligerzxr)]

What do you mean?

As others have and likely will mention, sharding will only facilitate a watered-down player base. Not having sharding will work as a weeding process for those who actually have been looking forward to and want to play Classic for what it is. Those willing to sit in queue and wait to do things on the faction and server they wish to be on will be the ones that stay. Those more unwilling to wait but still very much want to play might swap factions or servers providing a more evenly distributed population. Only thing sharding will do is facilitate ghost servers when those just trying out Classic don’t find it suits them.

That’s how Vanilla worked and hey it became an iconic sensation.

Yeah. Queues were awesome. That is the Vanilla experience remembered most fondly.

Pages of posts just lovingly remembering the queues…

And falling through the world. And not enough quests. And no merchant buyback.

Man, good times.

The queue times were due to the games success, queues were for getting on the server which won’t be helped by sharding in the slightest. This very reply here addresses the benefits to the community as a whole for not having sharding. Sharding makes duplicate zones, that’s it, it has no bearing on logging in or connecting to the server. For server queues, Blizz has long since addressed how to shorten them with log-in server improvements and overflow servers being used to facilitate the traffic.

Additionally your other listed problems were not enough to send the subscription base into the millions during Vanilla. If those are game breaking issues for you, please pass Classic by and make the Classic community better for it.

[Banjaa-deathwing]

What do you mean?

As others have and likely will mention, sharding will only facilitate a watered-down player base. Not having sharding will work as a weeding process for those who actually have been looking forward to and want to play Classic for what it is. Those willing to sit in queue and wait to do things on the faction and server they wish to be on will be the ones that stay. Those more unwilling to wait but still very much want to play might swap factions or servers providing a more evenly distributed population. Only thing sharding will do is facilitate ghost servers when those just trying out Classic don’t find it suits them.

Your logic is flawed.

You’re assuming that by NOT sharding you will have a superior community and it’ll somehow PREVENT ghost servers.

In reality, another scenario is JUST as likely: Server caps out at 3K people on it, in a short period of time 50-60% of those people leave or quit and you have a ghost server.

This is why it’s such an important, and nuanced, topic - because, despite so many people claiming to have knowledge or an “educated guess” on what’s going to happen none of us have the data to do so. Hell, I don’t think even Blizzard can definitively say with any kind of accuracy what’s going to happen.

Sharding, on a VERY limited, very temporary basis can likely prevent many of the issues that can crop up. It could also contribute to some of the issues we’re trying to avoid - some of it depends on the quantity of servers, the population caps etc. None of which can really be guessed at as of right now - honestly my guess is Blizzard doesn’t have that stuff nailed down yet.

[Shimy-khadgar]

I agree, we should also make it so quest pick up items take 5-30 minutes to re spawn that way we’re constantly bottlenecked leveling up in a blizzlike classic experience unlike your original vanilla wow experience in any way.

[Wínter-ysera]

I’m kind of 2 minds about this mon amis.

A - The amount of organic socializing I did on the vanilla demo just meeting people, needing a group for content, being nice to and engaging with one another was more in the few days I played it than a year of retail. It was a really sharp reminder for me of how things used to be.

B - I don’t want to sit in a queue to login, it sucked then and that’s not going to change.

It’s why I have a hard time disagreeing with sharding starter zones and nothing else only when/if required.

Trust me man I HATE CRZ and sharding technology on live. It destroys the server community. People are jerks to eachother in /1 constantly for internet peen points I guess and I have no idea who anyone is in trade. There was a time everyone knew who the problem players were and you could remember who’s in /2 from day to day.

Not just negatives either, it’s a chance for people to be engaged in a community that’s not constantly in a state of flux if you cross a zone boundary. Community needs a foundation and you don’t build that in a swamp.

[Shimy-khadgar]

imagine playing star wars galaxies with CRZ and server sharding LMAO

All for CRZ/sharding or whatever in the starting areas

[Ligerzxr-hyjal (Ligerzxr)]

What do you mean?

As others have and likely will mention, sharding will only facilitate a watered-down player base. Not having sharding will work as a weeding process for those who actually have been looking forward to and want to play Classic for what it is. Those willing to sit in queue and wait to do things on the faction and server they wish to be on will be the ones that stay. Those more unwilling to wait but still very much want to play might swap factions or servers providing a more evenly distributed population. Only thing sharding will do is facilitate ghost servers when those just trying out Classic don’t find it suits them.

Your logic is flawed.

You’re assuming that by NOT sharding you will have a superior community and it’ll somehow PREVENT ghost servers.

In reality, another scenario is JUST as likely: Server caps out at 3K people on it, in a short period of time 50-60% of those people leave or quit and you have a ghost server.

This is why it’s such an important, and nuanced, topic - because, despite so many people claiming to have knowledge or an “educated guess” on what’s going to happen none of us have the data to do so. Hell, I don’t think even Blizzard can definitively say with any kind of accuracy what’s going to happen.

Sharding, on a VERY limited, very temporary basis can likely prevent many of the issues that can crop up. It could also contribute to some of the issues we’re trying to avoid - some of it depends on the quantity of servers, the population caps etc. None of which can really be guessed at as of right now - honestly my guess is Blizzard doesn’t have that stuff nailed down yet.

My Logic is not flawed, while it is true the servers could easily become ghost servers without sharding, I never stated they couldn’t. I DID say sharding will facilitate ghost servers, being able to concurrently progress and create a false ‘active’ population over a span of a week or more by those who will drop it since it isn’t for them.

Blizzard stated their goal is to deliver the Classic WoW experience, not having players have to make the call early on will cause servers populations to die out more painfully. Server merges to maintain a healthy population have been used in the past and should be used again, Vanilla methods for a proper Classic experience.