would be like a semi-permanent shard: shard 1, 2 and 3, of stormrage, which are unsharded when the starting area begins to depopulate - maybe a week or two later.
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It’s not any different but looking at it from a business perspective it’s a giant waste of money to do it that way…
just for the record, i dont mind waiting in a queue.
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Exactly, although it may not be as quick as a week or two, depending on how long the “tourists” decide to stay.
If only Stormrage 1 and Stormrage 3 saw drastic population decreases, then those two subservers could be merged without having to affect any other Stormrage subservers.
Another advantage of this would be that IF any of the subservers needed to be merged, there should not be a “Johnny-server Y” and a “Johnny-server X” since all of those subservers would carry the larger server name.
Sharding, existing tech, is the tech that Blizzard is supporting. I’m going out on a limb here and assuming sharding is the cost effective solution.
Sharding is just completely contradictory to what An mmo is… It’s a lazy solution to fix a problem that will naturally take care of itself anyway. I personally enjoy the competition of fighting for mobs and objectives
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No more hated by those desiring a truer classic experience than sharding is.
You’re also ignoring the fact that those subservers would not be different names and that IF merging one or more of thsoe subservers became necessary, there would not be a “Johnny-server Y” and a “Johnny-server X”.
Think of how many non-city/capital zones L60s frequent. If they overcompensate the starting numbers those zones could be pretty darned filled. (IMHO not a bad thing mind you)
IMHO I would have opted for a box cost for “pre-grand-opening” (day or 2) servers. Once those fill up non-sharded, they could add on however many sharded servers they want for the “grand opening” release. Everyone would be starting on a spanking fresh server. Most tourists would likely wait the day or two, but the early servers would be more solid population/community-wise.
And early access option would actually be a great idea and would help alleviate some of the problem. I still don’t see a need for shards
On top of all of that, after launch, not everyone will all be logging in and creating characters at the same time, so things will naturally even themselves out.
So, just like sharding, except that the zone chats are not connected initially, so nobody in the starting zone of Stormrage1 can talk to anyone on Stormrage2 until they’re merged, unlike sharding.
NO SHARDING, NO PHASING, NO IN-GAME STORE. Not now, not ever. I promise you this now Activision if Classic has any of these elements it will be a colossal failure, both for your already shoddy reputation and your shareholders.
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Well if they overpopulate servers some areas will just have plenty of people regardless. Though I’d rather they go on the side of caution and have higher than average population than have dying servers.
Though the point I was making is that sharding doesn’t entirely just kick the bottleneck down to wherever the sharding stops because people will naturally spread out a bit compared to everybody being in 1 of 6 zones.
That said, it’s still not a good solution.
But exactly like Billy being on Stormrage and Johnny being on Stormreaver and not being able to talk to each other, unless those two servers were merged.
Stormrage 1 and Stormrage 2 would effectively be different servers, albeit with the “groundwork” laid for possibly being “merged” should that become necessary if the population drops drastically. If the population does not drastically fall off, then those two subservers would continue as they are, without having to worry about players, quest mobs, quest objectives or resources suddenly appearing and disappearing.
Think of it as “stable, persistent sharding” if that helps you understand it.
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It’s still the same concept. Merge vs shard. Add all the bells and whistles you want.
What you are not wanting to acknowledge is the fact that Blizzard doesn’t merge servers. Never have. They have combined them and you are attempting to hide the hyphenated server names by pre-sharding a server.
So basically a hybrid combined/sharding.
Sharding is existing tech. Combined server is existing tech. Your hybrid is not. Sharding isn’t this big evil it’s made out to be. Maybe at BfA levels it’s bad but tuned to Classic appropriate levels it’s not going to be noticed.
Your solution most certainly wil I’m be noticed. As with all combined realms, there is a massive shift in economies, guilds, and “reputations”.
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Call it pre-sharding a server, if you wish.
If it becomes necessary to “merge” Stormrage 1 and Stormrage 2, Blizzard can make them connected realms, as they have done for so many realms in retail.
I’m looking to try to find a way that will satisfy those who have that instant (figure of speech, not literally “instant”) gratification, convenience oriented mindset that is so prevalent in retail, cannot handle a little competition, have no patience and who see all those other players in an MMO as nothing but obstacles or random a-holes, while at the same time trying to satisfy those who desire a truer classic experience.
Why should Blizzard even think about trying to cater to those with that instant (figure of speech, not literally “instant”) gratification, convenience oriented mindset that is so prevalent in retail, cannot handle a little competition, have no patience and who see all those other players in an MMO as nothing but obstacles or random a-holes and who will not likely stick around the world of classic over those who have been asking Blizzard for over a decade to provide that truer classic experience and who will be playing classic for years, provided Blizzard provides that truer classic experience?
Sharding would be horrible for classic and the classic community, far worse than some server queues, lag or even server crashes.
Instead of your usual tactic of pushing for what will be harmful to classic, maybe try to find a way to accomplish to handle the initial rush without making those who desire a truer classic experience pay the price.
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That’s Scarlet Crusade! They also did 40 warr vs 40 warr!
Pretty safe bet they’re using “clusters” which are actually a collection of “realms” which now share the same hardware/back-end. Back when it first released, they probably were on their own dedicated hardware.
If sharding fails to adequately address the problem, because “the tourists” are more tenacious then initially believed. Then the next step would be to actually population cap the server, which means login queues. While they simultaneously offer free character transfers onto (new) realms without a login queue. So then you can choose to endure the login queues, or xfer to a new realm.
The whole purpose of allowing sharding at the onset is to prevent the need to do a server merge 1 to 2 months into Classic’s release, because of the tourists.