When people are being disconnected, or in queues or the servers are simply down there’s a whole lot less M than just being a shard.
simply using non crap cloud servers could fix that. friggen private servers were able to handle it and blizzard has absurds amount more money then them.
and no. you still have more people online and in an area with queues then you do with sharding.
want to know how i know this?
BECAUSE I PLAYED VANILLA and i was always running into people.
with sharding its a ghost town.
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Isn’t the only thing we know for sure is that Blizzard has already decided to use the newer cloud server technology and not the kinds of server tech that was used in Vanilla and/or private servers?
Sharding isn’t the only reason you don’t run into people in the open world in BfA. I think the bigger problem right now is how all the modern content encourages people out of the open world and into instances like LFD, LFR, warfronts, island expeditions, raids, M+ dungeons, etc. Also WQ’s are somewhat effective but things like flight whistles, and later flying, reduce the amount of time you actually need to be out there in the open world.
Other things, like elite/named mob loot sharing and gathering node sharing make it so that people can be surrounding you and there’s no need to even take note of them any more.
I think that, even with sharding, there are things they can do with Classic that make it more like a MMO than is BfA and that sharding alone might not absolutely ruin it – even if it takes some of the shine off of what once was back in the day.
my thing is this - if i am designing an mmo, i have 2 options the way i see it now
use this cloud tech, which sure is cheaper, but takes the first M out of MMO
use more expensive tech, which makes an MMO an MMO.
now sure, i save money with cloud tech, but frankly, i’m putting out crap and its offputting to the playerbase.
the only time i ever run into people in any significant numbers in retail is during incursions. that is literally it. and at most ill run into 25-35 people unless someones got a full on raid going.
so yeah. sharding is awful. it is anti MMO, and i don’t want it in vanilla.
things they can do that would result in changing the game. no thanks. use sharding at launch if you have to, but get that evil crap out of classic asap and never bring it back.
I don’t disagree with you, certainly, and would prefer the more-expensive and more-MMO-ish older server technology that Vanilla used and that private servers use. My impression, however, is that the cloud-server ship has sailed and we’ll have some level of sharding forever and ever (not just at launch – if you have cloud servers you have sharding, period), amen.
What’s left is to make the best of what we get. I wonder if we can find a way to work around sharding ourselves, in the spirit of the robust addon community? Not sure. It’s kinda like how an RP server is good or it’s crap depending on the crowd it draws and how into it people get. It’s up to the community that comes rather than Blizzard to make it work.
Again, I don’t disagree with your preferences. It’s just my impression that the older server tech is already off the table. Do you think there’s still a chance they’ll change back at this point?
it’s simple. if we have permanent sharding, i’m gone. end of discussion. i will hate it not playing classic but part of the appeal to begin with in regards to classic was the promise about no sharding.
sharding splits players up.
it fragments the community.
it creates additional resources on the map.
it messes with the economy.
so yeah. permanent sharding = bleeding subs.
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I agree with everything you say here. I put a lot more meat into this post to discuss it further, but a lot of what you’re saying here is spot on.
I hope I’m wrong and the ship has not sailed. If it has, I’ll try it out anyway and see if I can get past the immersion-breaking and first-M of MMO breaking aspects of sharding.
I’m trying to convince myself to tolerate it just for launch. There’s just so many negatives attached to it, and even if it’s just used for a few days in the start zones it sets a dangerous precedent, and disrupts the natural formation of the community…which is so vital in the early days.
I saw you in Stormsong Valley, did you not notice the 20+ other people around us?
120 Horde + whatever Alliance were overrun with you is a ghost town?
Man, there isn’t a whole lot of consistency with your posts.
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those type of events aren’t common and require a lot of setup. and guess what? i was lagging the whole time. despite the wonderful new tech.
lagging worse then i ever did in vanilla, which is sad frankly.
You don’t know a thing about the workings of a secure server/client MMO. I keep seeing you post about Blizzard’s cloud tech without knowing what you’re talking about and it’s making me cringe. I refer you to my earlier post in this thread, perhaps you can be educated a bit:
It’s actually a joke that people think Blizzard’s server infrastructure is worse off now than it was in Vanilla. I really hope they put out some tech blogs in an effort to educate those that continue to spread ignorance.
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It is weird how much worse the game runs these days. You can watch Vanilla or TBC videos where hundreds and hundreds of players play together and the server handles it. Sure, the individuals’ computers might struggle, but they were using computers of the time. Imagine if they were using computers made in 2019. Wouldn’t have any fps problems. Which is how Classic should work.
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I raided Orgrimmar back in Vanilla with two 40 man raids, I think probably about 70 people. We absolutely destroyed the server. My friends in STV that were leveling at the time were getting minute long delays. My Druid friend died in Booty Bay by drowning on land.
The game doesn’t run worse, you don’t have a clue in the world if you think that.
I hope they put something together as well. I’d love to be wrong about my impressions of the modern tech.
Also I don’t think modern tech is worse than it was back in Vanilla. It’s certainly better at doing specific things, and optimized for a range of games much better than the older tech. It’s just that MMO’s like Vanilla, I think, are better off with a single-server-per-machine approach and MO’s like Overwatch and Diablo III (and BfA, to be honest about what it’s turned into) are well-suited to be run on these newer cloud-based servers.
But I’m certainly open to being wrong about this – in fact I’m hoping I am! I’ll be super-glad to eat crow later this summer when my fears about sharding and the server tech disrupting immersion and taking away from the first M in MMO turn out to be based on my ignorance.
look, all i know is that i have lagged more with the new tech, then i did in vanilla except in a few situations.
the new tech pretty much ensures that sharding is required in the game. it is frankly, awful.
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Diablo III had unplayable server lag in high-end group play for over two years. We had to handicap ourselves by playing slower builds with fewer actions because the servers couldn’t keep up. I’m talking, 30 second delay type lag.
were you on a high population server? because frankly i’ve seen a 120 strong raid in stormwind in vanilla with no issues on a mid pop server.
furthermore - tech has evolved in the 14 years since you experienced that. servers could be much better, without USING said cloud tech, actual hard servers, that can handle the load.
Private servers have proven as much.
Cloud tech servers that they use today NEED sharding otherwise they can’t handle the load.
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then maybe blizzard should update there servers. because frankly, private servers have proven to be able to run without sharding and be just fine.
the moment i see sharding in classic outside of launch i am gone. i don’t care if its AQ launch.
I don’t care if blizzard throws some holiday that log jams a zone.
Sharding = gone. it’s anti community, and anti vanilla.
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