Again, blizzard can see the population of their servers. They can see how many players are active, what level they are, how many are unique players and how many are alts.
Merging killed more Vanilla communities than any other cause.
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If you say so it really must be true.
I have another story: The cool new WoW tech made it so that Blizz have to resurrect its grandpa 
Nothing against sharding but would be interesting to see the number of people in a shard before another is spawned up. If only 50 people per shard that would suck.
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Meh, I never purported to speak for everyone; you did when you decided to quote the petition acting as if everyone who signed it agreed with you.
I want legacy servers that are functional not the feces show that exists on private server launches and continues for far too long.
If sharding is only for the first couple of zones you and I will both have the legacy servers we want, and if you canāt handle the first couple of zones being sharded, well thatās just somethingā¦special.
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Agreeā¦shard sizes of about 100-200 per entry zone should be good, but beyond that Iām not sure. Iām definitely afraid that they might shard with less than 50 people per zone.
I hope they wonāt and I donāt think they will. If you log onto Stormrage and go to Stormwind right now, youāll probably see 150 or so people in that shard.
Do you know if Sharding is dynamic by nature? Or is it more server based? I.E I know stormrage has huge shards but would say a med or lower pop server have a 150 shard as well?
Didnāt we have a friends list in classic? I subtlety recall adding players I met that interacted and enjoyed themselves while also being able to pay attention to their surroundings.
I also donāt recall seeing 1000ās of players in my capitol or anywhere else, so there was some sort of sharding / instances going on even then, no? Werenāt we able to join that instance of the area with friends if we werenāt in the same shard?
Personally I think it should be up in the minimum 200, maximum 500 range, splitting when it hits 400. That way its far more Vanilla-esque for the experience.
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Jump to 3:30 - Relevant to this conversation.
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In Vanilla there was no sharding. However, given that there were 2 factions and a server cap of around 2500 players, to get 1000 people in one city required everyone to quit what they were doing and all go to the same city, for an entire faction.
Thatās why weāre talking shards of 200 in Durotar being āVanilla-esqueā instead of having 5000 players in Durotar(no sharding, raised caps), or 50 players (in Retail sharding).
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I think it probably depends on where you are in the game because I can count 150+ players around the Stormwind AH on Stormrage during weekends.
In cities the values are definitely higher yeah. But thatās primarily because there isnāt mob competition or spell effect issues.
Well, unless thereās an opposing faction raid.
True. But isnāt that where the server crashes? 
Awhile ago I was on Emerald Dream or Darkspear (canāt remember) and a guy multiboxing 30 DKs and some Druids raided Stormwind and butchered everyone, no crash.
And yet at the same time, Asmodean crashed the server by taking 200 Alliance into Silverymoon.
Yeah, probably.
Blizzardās Mission Statement is: Gameplay FIRST. TBH, I donāt care about having to sit in a queue or compete for resources or wait on a mob to respawn. If it means my realm is packed or empty later on, Iāll do what we did back in the day - server transfer, which were offered regularly for free from high-pop realms to low-pop realms or use a paid realm transfer.
IMO, people who want sharding can be accused of being selfish at the expense of authentic Vanilla gameplay (when you actually met another player and grouped up with others). Today, people want to make anything that requires social connections irrelevant in gameplay: instant gratification of logging in and instant spawns, instant dungeon queue, virtually instant loot and mats (garrisons), instant gold (WoW token). Who cares about interacting with others - just give me what I want in 20 minutes. I just want my instant login and my instant loot - and get everyone else OUT OF MY WAY. Sound familliar to modern WoW? Weāve already turned modern WoW into a solo game with instant loot.
I want a login queue if it means no sharding because I want to actually play with other players.
I want a ton of people running around. Why? Because thatās 2006 WoW gameplay. So, technically, that makes me Vanilla gameplay (and not self) focused.
Making an argument against sharding has nothing to do with narcissism. This reply reminds me of the Wall of No people: āYou canāt have Vanilla WoW because we donāt want you to have it - and you are a fool for wanting to play Vanilla WoW again.ā
Blizzard has promised this: if somone from 2006 woke up from a long nap and played Classic WoW today - they would feel any difference.
Sharding feels different. Itās definitely NOT 2006 WoW gameplay.
Sharding puts 2006 WoW gameplay second by sacrificing community-based gameplay (e.g., grouping up on a quest) by eliminating players with sharding (which removes the need to group up or interact with other players.)
I think you are drastically underestimating the millions of players are going to continue to level past the starting zones. If itās used in starting zones, then when those players continue to login and level - guess what? Sharding will be needed in the next zone, and the next zone and the next zone, and so forth.
I am asking Blizzard to not use sharding and continue to be faithful to their own Mission Statement and promises of delivering the Vanilla experience. No one ever asked for Vanilla WoW + sharding - and yet, thatās what weāre getting now as far as we know.
Until they provide a Blue Post on this topic, this fact remains troubling to me (and it should for you, too): Blizzard has not committed to removing sharding from Classic WoW thus far.
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